President Bola Ahmed has been blamed for the failure of the Federal Government to implement the Supreme Court’s ruling on direct allocation to local government accounts.
POLITICS NIGERIA reports that despite the court’s order in July, the FG has yet to begin direct payment of local government allocations into their accounts.
The Supreme Court’s ruling instructed the Federal Government must pay monthly allocations directly into the accounts of the 774 local government councils. However, four months later, allocations are still being paid into the joint state-local government accounts by the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee.
The delay has been attributed to the absence of approval from President Bola Tinubu for the full implementation of local government financial autonomy.
According to the National President of the National Union of Local Government Employees, Akeem Ambali, the FG set up an inter-ministerial committee to facilitate the Supreme Court’s judgment on local government autonomy. The committee, chaired by Senator George Akume, submitted a technical report to President Tinubu for approval, but the President has yet to give the green light.
“The recommendations by the committee have been submitted to the President, and we are eagerly awaiting the start of the implementation,” Ambali said.
Meanwhile, the Director of Press and Public Relations at the Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Bawa Mokwa, claims that the process for direct disbursement to local governments is ongoing. However, he failed to provide a specific timeline for when direct payments to local councils would commence.
It can be recalled that following the Supreme Court’s ruling on the matter, the Federal Government cited the need to address operational challenges before implementing the decision. As such, a three-month timeline was established to resolve the issues, which was expected to conclude in October. However, despite the expiration of this timeframe, the necessary adjustments have yet to be implemented.