Katsina Governor Backs LG Autonomy,But Raises Concerns about Payment of Salaries

In a bid to review the recent supreme Court judgement on local government autonomy,Katsina State Governor, Dr Dikko Radda held meet without council chairman in the State .

During the meeting, the Governor ,who said the court's decision focuses on local government elections and funds, noted that the judgement ruled that all local government funds from the federation will be paid directly to the local government's account, and caretaker committees will no longer be recognised for administrative purposes.

While stressing that Local government funds will not be available for states running local governments with caretaker committees, Governor Radda gave assurance that , "Katsina State is a law-abiding state and will operate under the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I Have asked the state attorney general to give me a full report on the legal implications of the Supreme Court's decision.

He further stated ,"As you know, I was once the chairman of Charanchi local government during the administration of our beloved President Umaru Musa Yar'adua. I was involved in the day-to-day administration of my local government, and I am fully aware of the challenges and pains most of you are facing. when the current tenure of local government chairmen expires. We have already carried out party primaries in line with electoral best practices, and some curre3322nt chairmen will return through a democratic process, Insha Allah. In this dispensation, we are most likely the only state to transition from one democratically elected local government council to another.

"On July 4th barely two weeks ago, l called for a meeting with all 34 local government chairmen and your directors of admin and finance to present my Community Development Program. As you may recall, the CDP was designed to empower local governments from the ward level by going directly to communities to get information on their core areas of need and priorities. This was to be done by establishing a community centre in every ward, which shall host a community development office for socioeconomic development, a community support office for lives and livelihoods support to the vulnerable, and a community learning centre to advance a academic and moral knowledge in ur communities.

Speaking on how recent allocation were shared, the Governor disclosed,"Between June 2023 and June 2024, the federal allocation to local governments in Katsina was about 130.1 billion. 66 billion was spent on salaries, 10.1 billion on pensions and gratuities, 12.13 billion on security, 376.6 million on security requests from some local governments, and 4 billion on direct running costs to local government councils.15.1 billion was provided for various projects carried out by the local governments, 360 million for school instructional materials, 1.58 billion for foreign and local scholars hips, and 939.8 million towards Haj.

"The local governments expended 6.14 billion on food palliatives, with an additional 3.1 billion in palliative care and salah package paid directly to local government and LGEA Workers. 3.84 billion was used towards purchasing fertilisers and 1.19 billion on agrochemicals.This no exhaustive but represents monies sent directly to local governments. Joint decision-making is an inseparable part of policy implementation."

Radda however said ,"The Supreme Court judgement has jettisoned a constitutional provision for a state and local government joint account on the basis that state governors abuse the process.I will respectfully say that some of us try our best to manage our joint funds in a collective approach. We are facing various socio-economic challenges coupled with insecurity in our frontline local governments.

"When I took office in 2023, over 20 local governments were ravaged by insecurity.Our concerted efforts have reduced insecurity to the fringes of the frontline local governments. We could only achieve that by jointly establishing the Katsina State Community Watch Corps. Fighting insecurity is a monumental and resource-consuming endeavour, and we must continue to fight it together regardless of the situation in individual local governments.

"Socio-economic development is holistic, and as you are aware, we have various loan-based projects funded by multilateral organisations like the World Bank. We continue to seek more funding from other sources, including the African Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank.

"We must carefully understand the implications of this judgement on how loans will be repaid and how future Subsidiary Loan Agreements will be structured. These are severe areas for consideration, and it will help for the federal government to clarify this and other matters arising from the judgement.

"We are midway through a budget cycle designed based on the previous funding arrangements. Given that the judgement takes immediate effect, we must understand how our 2024 budget will be affected and what measures we must take to maintain our budget objectives.

"Of great concern is how some critical arrangements for the local government councils will be affected. The salaries of teachers under SUBEB, salaries of the local government workers, pensions and gratitude of local government staff, primary healthcare facilities,deductions for the emirate councils, and most importantly,contributions towards security must all be addressed. By extension, the fate of the local government civil service commission and the local government pension board has become uncertain.

"Local government autonomy requires a fully functional local government administration. One of many policy recommendations as a candidate was to transform the College of Administration in Funtua to focus exclusively on local government administration and make it a premier destination for training local government staff in the country.

"We must build capacity and effective administrative mechanisms, including digital tools, to make local governments more transparent and effective. Some say the governors don't have to worry because people will go to the local government chairmen to demand results going forward. While it is the more straightforward thought, any well-meaning governor knows his primary responsibility to his people can never be replaced, regardless of available resources."

State LG joint account does not mean State and LG joint account.

Ippis will manage the salary and their scale.

Every LGA should have two accounts - salary and project accounts. In LGA where there's no chairman, the FG should pay their salaries directly into the salary accounts upon confirmation by the most senior worker that Mr A and Mrs B are still working with the LGA.

However, if a chairman exists, salaries should be paid through the same means above into an approved LGA account and the balance lodged into the project account. The FG should also have an ad-hoc committee that audits their account every six months.

It's time to restructure your state. Leave the old system and put up a structure that will enable LGA chairmen to pay salaries. In the restructuring, there has to be state workers and LGA workers just as there are federal workers. So that confusion will not set in. Stop complaining, just review your structure and sign it into state law as simple as that.