Fashola Congratulates New LG Bosses, Councillors

Governor Fashola who spoke in an interview with Aviation Correspondents on his return from an official trip to Abuja also congratulated candidates of the other parties for their successes.

The Governor who spoke when asked to react to the victory of A.C.N against the backdrop of the challenge of inadequate revenue allocation which has hampered the optimum performance by the Local Government Councils said: “Given the flaws in the constitution, some of the ways by which the Local Governments can be invigorated to improve service delivery is to focus on the responsibilities given to them”.

Governor Fashola then illustrated with two examples. “I will choose two of the functions namely, primary healthcare and primary education which constitute the fulcrum of two critical services namely health and education”.

“When you look at a Local Government that is saddled with salary obligations that is beyond what its capacity can deal with. Where is the money to give service?”.

“If you have a Local Government structure and a Federal revenue allocation formula where the national government keeps 52 percent of the revenue, the 36 States share 26 percent and 774 Local Governments and more are left with 20 percent. Just think of it, now, which is the government that is closest and most impactful to the people. But, sadly, it is the government that has the least revenue”, he added.

The Governor who tasked media practitioners to do some investigations and seek the opinions of economists and experts on whether the present system as it stands can work, also charged them to do some independent investigation and validation and on that basis express their opinions for Nigerians to hear.

“This system is not sustainable. That is the truth. We continue to try in a sense, swimming against the tide because we cannot afford not to swim, but it would be nice to swim with the tide behind us. That is the problem”.

“Every time there is a governmental failure, let us look at the risks impact. If you keep 52 percent, once there is a failure, there is a 52 percent failure and so whether you now aggregate the States and Local Governments together, you can only get a 46 percent success at the very best. If this country’s economy was working at 52 percent, we would not be agonizing the way we are”, he added.

While speaking on what transpired at the meeting of the Governors’ Forum in Abuja on Monday night, the Governor said he aligns himself with the position of the Forum which has already been expressed.

“This is a part of the problem we have. We have an appropriation law that prescribes certain amount of money roughly over N240 billion for the year for subsidies. By September, we have exceeded the approved amount by an additional N1.2 Trillion.

“Now, that is money that should have gone into the federation account and should have constituted part of the assets of the 36 states and Local Governments. It has gone without lawful authority to spend it, without consultation with the stakeholders. That is the federation we are living in,” he explained.