Zika Bobby
Matagu Foundation, an anti-corruption advocacy group, has called for probe of funds of local government areas in the South East states of Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo.
Ekene Enefe, founder of the group, in a statement yesterday, in Awka, said non-conduct of council polls by most governors in the geopolitical zone had resulted to underdevelopment of the grassroots.
Enefe said continued use of transition committees to run the councils when the constitution says elections should be conducted into various tiers of government so that they could have autonomy was grossly abused.
He said in states where elections were conducted into the councils, they were for formality purposes as the chairmen were denied every executive powers which their election should confer on them.
He said there was so much corruption in the joint account which most governors operated with the council such that the transition committee chairmen are made to sign away the allocations of their councils’ paltry sums.
He said the foundation had discovered that some governors don’t allow electronic transfer of these council funds but do over- the-counter withdrawal for which some of them had been penalised by the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“In line with the ongoing probe of some institutions in the country, Matagu Foundation is calling on the Federal Government to probe the corruption in the local government system, especially in the South East where governors have refused to allow the councils to function constitutionally.
“The Federal Government ensure that elections are conducted into states but the governors refuse to allow that at the council levels, this is mainly because they see local government money as free and sweet money.
“There is no local government that earn less than N150 million a month yet there is no sign of infrastructure development in the communities, it is so bad that councils cannot patch bad road talk less of building new ones, they can’t undertake any development project,” he said.
Enefe said the Federal Government should stop disbursing allocations to councils in states where elections had not been conducted.
He regretted the poor democratic values among the governors, saying they were under-developing the area politically, vowing that Matagu Foundation would take legal means to ensure the council funds were probed.