De Renaissance Patriots commend FG over direct payment of allocations to LGAs
By KEMI KASUMU
De Renaissance Patriots Foundation, a socio-cultural organisation for Lagos State indigenes, has lauded the Federal Government of Nigeria for paying funding allocations meant for Local Government Areas in the country directly to the local authorities in line with provisions of the Constitution.
The Foundation made this commendation via a statement, jointly signed by its President, Bolaji Are, and Secretary General, Yomi Tokosi.
The group of eminent Nigerians, indigenous to Lagos State, noted that the allocations, in the case of their state, were paid directly to the constitutionally recognized 20 Local Government Areas’ authorities and that, the elected local government members will henceforth be held responsible for their actions and failures.
De Renaissance Patriots said, “The Federal Government, through the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), has released Local Government Areas (LGAs) monthly allocations direct to the constitutionally recognized local government authorities.
“We can now hold the elected members of the LGAs accountable for their actions and failures. Some of us have been advocating for this initiative. We welcome this positive step by the Federal Government.
“We hope that the state’s counterpart funding to the local government authorities will be available to them. We expect to see gradual shift to progress and better service delivery to the people at the grassroots. Thanks to FG for a good step forward.
“We are particularly excited about this as it happens that these allocations, with regards to LGAs is Lagos State, were made directly to the 20 LG authorities in line with the Constitution provisions.
“We will continue to be interested in the day-to-day administration of these local authorities in our state to ensure that no scripted backdoor arrangements are done anywhere to arm-twist LGA chairmen to who these allocations are paid on papers.
“At any rate, this is interesting news of the month and it is simply what we have advocated for, to ensure that what should get to local authorities in our state gets to them to enable them give governance at their grassroots level of government.”
