By Mark Lenu
The Civil Society organisation in Rivers State has condemned the non implementation of the local government financial autonomy which was granted by the Supreme Court since July.
Report had it that despite having an elected council executive, local governments in the country are still not receiving allocation directly from the federal government without passing through a state controlled account.
This was the practice that went on for years before the Supreme Court declared full autonomy to local government including getting its allocation directly from the federal government to fund its affairs. According to the Chairman of CSO in the state, Comrade Ene-faa Georgewill, the decision of the Supreme Court is supreme as he urged everyone including the federal government to always respect court judgments.
He said: “First, I must state that everybody including the federal government should respect the decision of the Supreme Court on any matter especially in the matter of local government autonomy.
“We have just been informed that the allocation meant for local governments is still being paid through the state-controlled account which brings to question the supremacy of the Supreme Court on everybody as regards the binding powers it possesses as the highest court in the land.
“We are equally aware of bureaucracy plaguing the availability of an account that could solely belong to the local government which the allocation is supposed to be paid into and some other bureaucracies. We hope such, to be the reason the LG allocation is still being paid into state-controlled accounts.
“Otherwise, for the facts that the Supreme Court has made a pronouncement on local government autonomy, it is the duty of the federal government to respect the decision of the court. “But if the issue is based on bureaucracy as I said earlier, the federal government should do well to immediately ask the local government to put its hands together and resolve the bureaucratic bottleneck that has been hindering the local government from getting allocation directly.
“Where the issue is not based on bureaucracy but on unnecessary politics associated with revenue allocation in the country, then we condemn it in the strongest terms. “The Supreme Court is supreme because its decisions are laws that everybody must obey including the presidency and the federal government.
“We are also calling on the institution responsible for the disbursement of allocation to do what is needed in line with the pronouncement of the Supreme Court on local government autonomy.”
