Why LGs Are Not Performing –NULGE

Local Government Councils in the country have been unable to pay workers salaries because of  heavy deductions from council funds to pay teachers salaries.

Mr Pat Okeranlen, President of the Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) in Edo , said this in an interview with newsmen in Benin . 

He said the deductions had also prevented the councils from undertaking developmental projects.

Okeranlen claimed that in many states, teachers’ salaries were paid exclusively from the councils’ allocation from the federation account.

The president regretted that after the heavy deductions, very little was left.

“After the payment of staff salaries, little or nothing is left for execution of projects,’’ Okeranlen said.

He said that although the NULGE was not against local government councils paying teachers’ salaries, such payments should not be heaped on the third tier of government.

Okeranlen said that by law, state governments were expected to pay 10 per cent of their internally generated revenue into the coffers of the local governments.

However, he said: “No state in the federation complies with this constitutional provision of paying 10 per cent of their internally generated revenue into the state joint account for distribution to local government councils.’’

The president blamed what he described as the strangulation of the local government councils on “defects in the constitutional provision for the administration of local governments’’.

Okeranlen urged a constitutional amendment that would guarantee and strengthen the autonomy of local governments, especially in election matters and financial autonomy.

“When presidential and governorship elections will be conducted are known, but that it is not the same with local government council elections,’’ he noted.

He said that something must be done to reverse the situation, arguing that strengthening the local governments would boost the development and transformation of the rural areas.