Council Chairmen Are More Corrupt Than Governors - Ngige

Chris Ngige

A former minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, has said the Supreme Court made an error in its judgment on financial autonomy for local governments.

Ngige accused local council chairmen of being too corrupt than governors. He stated that most council chairmen crave to acquire choice estates in Abuja, Lagos and other Western nations.

The former governor of Anambra State argued that the Supreme Court judgment was in neglect of Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).

Ngige stated this at the weekend in Enugu on the topic ‘Local Government Administration and Primary Healthcare’, during the 29th annual general meeting (AGM) and scientific conference of the Association of Urological Surgeons, Nigeria (NAUS).

He noted that more than “15,000 primary healthcare centers were built across the country as constituency projects”, stressing the need for the State Economic Planning Boards to ensure that the abandoned healthcare centers were revamped as quickly as possible.

He noted that the “local government system remained pivotal to basic healthcare system, which former Minister of Health, Prof. Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, transformed into primary healthcare system”.

Senator Ngige further explained council chairmen’s desire for luxury affects building public health centers and schools in their areas and owing teachers several months of salary arrears and allowances.

“The same Supreme Court, in 2006, made a pronouncement in which it warned the Federal Government against dictating to the states how to spend local government funds accruable to them.

“The previous Supreme Court ruling when Justice Mohammed Uwais was the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) was pronounced in a case filed by three state governments – Lagos, Abia, and Delta – through their attorneys general, challenging then President Olusegun Obasanjo’s Local Government Account Monitoring Committee Act 2005,” the Nation quoted him.

He emphasized the need to implement statutory first-line deductions for the payment of salaries and wages of council workers, pensions and gratuities, traditional rulers’ entitlements and customary courts’ allowances before paying federal allocation directly to local government chairmen.

He added that the local government system would start working when governors obeyed the law, and the Houses of Assembly became aware of their responsibilities, including calling erring governors to order.