Katsina State’s 34 Local Government Councils were dissolved by Governor Aminu Bello Masari because their chairmen connived with the former administration to illegally withdraw N7.5 billion from the Joint Local Government Account and deposit it into their ALGON account from where it subsequently vanished, a member of the ABM Transition Committee, Alhaji Maiwada Danmallam, said yesterday.
He said the state’s Local Government Law 2010 as amended empowers the governor to dissolve any or all the local councils if they commit gross financial malfeasance.
Reacting to allegations by the state PDP that the dissolution was illegal and malicious, Danmallam said that allegation showed a serious lack of knowledge of the extant laws on local government administration in Katsina State.
He cited Section 81[a] of the Local Government Law 2010 as amended which provides that: “In the interest of security, peace, order and good governance or for acts of mismanagement of public funds, the governor may at any time before the expiration of tenure of a local government council dissolve any or all the 34 local government councils.” He said this law was not made recently and that the former PDP regime in the state even amended it in 2010 and retained this provision.
According to Danmallam, the sacked local government chairmen jointly abused their position as members of the Joint Local Government Account Allocation Committee which controls the state’s Joint Local Government Account by sanctioning the withdrawal of money from it for a purpose other than what the account is legally meant for. He said the 34 chairmen were the dominant element in the Joint Account Allocation Committee which is chaired by the Finance Commissioner. He said even though money can only be withdrawn from the account if there is a consensus among members, there is no record that the chairmen protested the withdrawal of N7.5 billion from it for an unstated purpose during the Shema regime.
To worsen matters, he said: “The money was then deposited into the account of ALGON, an NGO. Financial regulations unambiguously prohibit depositing public funds into private accounts. ALGON is a private NGO floated to promote the interest of local government chairmen. In Katsina State, the 34 LG chairmen are its members. Not only did they fail as Joint Account Allocation Committee members to stop the illegal withdrawal of N7.5bn from the Joint Account, it was also deposited into their NGO in total contravention of the above law and of the Financial Regulations. They must also be in the know about the fate of the N7.5 billion which was subsequently withdrawn from the ALGON account. Thus, however you look at it, they were responsible for the loss of a colossal N7.5 billion by the people of Katsina State.”
Danmallam said: “The law provides that councils can be dissolved if they undertake actions that could provoke breach of peace, compromise security, question good governance or due to mismanagement of public funds. If the joint action of the 34 Local Government chairmen leading to the loss of N7.5 billion by Katsina State did not fit the bill, what else can?”
Source:Daily Trust
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