SAN FRANCISCO, January 18, (THEWILL) – There is presently a raging controversy over an alleged remittance of the total sum of N325m by Local Government Areas, LGAs, in Delta State to the state House of Assembly through the office of the Speaker, Hon Monday Igbuya.
Sources told THEWILL on Sunday that every LGA in the state was fraudulently forced to remit between N5m to N4m per month from allocations coming to them from the federation account to the state House of Assembly as allegedly directed by Speaker.
This development is currently generating ripples in the local government areas between the councillors and the council chairmen, who claimed that they are being forced to part with money.
Dependable sources at the state House of Assembly, who confided in THEWILL, squealed that the alleged remittance had been a norm between the councils and the Assembly leadership, adding that the financial crunch being witnessed across the nation have made the practice unbearable for the councils.
One of the sources revealed that the remittance started since last year under Igbuya who allegedly prevailed on each council chairman to remit money to the House leadership once they receive monthly allocation from the Federation Allocation and Appropriation Committee, FAAC.
Another source disclosed that the councils have so far remitted N325m to the Speaker on behalf of the House leadership in three consecutive times.
“The first money each council remitted was N5m which amounted to N125m. Sometime last year I think in the second quarter of last year, the state Assembly summoned the 25 council chairmen to furnish the House with their income and expenditure as regard financial transactions.
“The Speaker demanded that N5m each from the 25 chairmen be remitted which was collected from us. After a time, another N5m was collected again from the 25 council chairmen and the last money collected was in December and it was N3 million each,” the source revealed.
An insider from another local government council told our correspondent on the condition of anonymity that immediately monthly allocation are released, the council chairmen will begin to run helter-shelter even in the midst of the economic crunch in order to meet up with the instructions from the Speaker.
“At a time when we are finding it difficult to pay council staff and councilors salaries, the House leadership gave us instruction to be taking N3m monthly as our security votes and their interest must always be represented.
“These crop of our House members are heartless, fraudulent and corrupt, how can they be collecting money from each council knowing fully well that for over 5 months now we councilors are been owed not to talk of paying workers their salaries, yet they intimidate and blackmail the chairmen to cough out the money.
“Why we councilors were made to take loans in order to provide and meet up with our Christmas needs, the House leadership collected N3m each from all the chairmen in December while workers celebrated the Christmas without salaries,” one of our sources lamented.
“We are in a very big mess, just imagine when five million naira and three million naira each is pulled out of the lean allocations of between N15-17 million that was coming to the councils what is left is not enough to run the councils.
“The situation if is not well checked by the state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, it will plug the entire councils into an avoidable industrial crisis. The most annoying aspect of it is this their continuous denial and you will see that all the council chairmen will be forced to exonerate them just watch,” the source said.
The situation, the source disclosed was responsible for the brewing crisis in Ethiope West LGA, where the councilors ordered the chairman, a cousin of former Governor James Ibori, to stop any further monthly deductions. This reportedly led to a free for all fight in the councils in which many were injured and hospitalized some few months ago.
Meanwhile, efforts to get confirmation from either the chairman of Association of Local Governments Of Nigeria, ALGON, who doubles as Chairman of Isoko South LGA, Sir Malik Itiakor Ikpokpo or the Speaker’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr Henry Ovie Ebireri proved abortive as they could not be reached on their mobile phones.
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