Ambali Olatunji, President of the National Union of Local Government Employees, has revealed that the Federal Government will begin direct payment of allocations to individual local governments by the end of October.
In an interview with Saturday PUNCH, Olatunji stated that full financial autonomy for local governments would be implemented this month.
This follows a July Supreme Court ruling mandating that the Federal Government pay allocations directly to local councils from the federation account. The ruling, delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim, declared it unconstitutional for state governors to withhold these funds or appoint caretaker committees, affirming that local governments must be democratically elected.
Governors had initially resisted the judgment, securing a three-month grace period to conduct elections, which ended in September.
Olatunji, the NULGE president, expressed optimism that the direct disbursement of funds to local governments would improve their efficiency and enable the councils to provide better services and address the developmental needs of their communities.
He said, “Come October 11, the implementation of financial autonomy for local government will take full effect. We hope that by the end of October, local government allocations will directly reach council accounts across the country.”
Olatunji mentioned that NULGE had submitted a position paper to the Federal Government’s technical committee outlining how local government councils should be managed under financial autonomy.
He also called on both the federal and state governments to implement safeguards to prevent council administrators from diverting the allocated funds.
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