LG Boss Advocates Financial Autonomy For LGAs

Chairman, Amuwo Odofin Local Government Council of Lagos State, Mr Valentine Buraimoh, has called on the Federal Government to grant total financial autonomy to local governments in the country to enable them function effectively.
Buraimoh stated this on Monday in an interview with newsmen in Lagos.
He said that the total financial autonomy had become necessary to allow local governments execute necessary projects without any hindrance.
For instance, Buraimoh said that even though his council had access to the money being given by the Federal Government, it was not enjoying full financial autonomy because of the limit and condition set by government.
He said that this had been hindering the execution of some projects which needed urgent attention.
“In the true sense, what we are witnessing now is not total financial autonomy because you cannot give autonomy with conditions.
“Imagine where you cannot withdraw more than N500,000. You are giving us conditions. That is not the autonomy we are talking about.
“We are calling for total autonomy for local governments to function at the grassroots level because there are so many demands and projects needing attention such as roads, drainage, agriculture, security and health.
“All these areas are begging for our attention but we can only withdraw N500,000 in a day and the withdrawals must be done simultaneously,” he lamented.
Buraimoh said that council chairmen were expecting total autonomy for local governments to operate as full blown third tier of government.
“As a third tier of government, we should run our own government independently.
“Before now, we have been doing contracts, constructing drainages and initiating skill acquisition programmes and we have been doing very well.
“All we are asking for is just total financial autonomy for us to execute our programmes effectively and efficiently,” he said.
The chairman added that the Federal Government could still monitor the councils’ accounts to ensure that funds were being used for their specified purposes.
“The federal and state governments are free to monitor our accounts. We have a state auditor who monitors our account on a regular basis,” Buraimoh said.