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| Dr. Abubakar, PRO, Plateau state chapter |
ALGON spokesman says LGs cannot be
autonomous without tinkering with constitution, throws more light on NFIU
guidelines.
By Joseph A. Adudu
September 27, 2019.
Nigerians are said to have mistaken
enforcement of Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU)'s guidelines for
autonomy for local Governments said Dr. Ado Abubakar, the executive chairman of
Wase local Government and Public Relations Officer of the Association of local
Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) in a chat with African Drum in Jos recently.
According to the ALGON spokesman, autonomy
is a constitutional matter stressing that for local Governments to be
autonomous, there must be an amendment to the constitution to effect that. According
to the Chairman, "the NFIU actually dished out guidelines across the 774
local Governments where ministries for local Government and chieftaincy Affairs
are also expected to comply which they did. It's not that the monies come from
Abuja direct into the accounts of local Governments, no. It still goes to the
JAC account (which is the joint account for the state and local Governments). Thereafter,
the state disburses the funds of various local Governments into their various
accounts"
He stated that with the NFIU
guidelines, the JAC account now is for transmission and not for transaction.
"One of the guidelines makes it compulsory for all
ministries for local government and chieftaincy Affairs to ensure that the JAC
account transmits rather than transacts. So, the account currently is for
transmission rather than for transaction. For example, if you go to the
ministry for local government and chieftaincy Affairs and say a certain local
Government is owing me certain amount of money, please, deduct my money from
source, you would be told there is no source anymore because the JAC account
can no longer be used for transaction. It's only for transmission and the
ministry must forward the funds to various local Governments' accounts which
they are currently doing", said Dr. Abubakar.
Speaking further, he said that the
guidelines ensures every local Government confines itself to a daily cash
withdrawal limit of N100,000 and also
limits the number of accounts to be operated by local Governments to three.
"The guidelines ensure every
local government confines itself to a daily cash withdrawal limit of a maximum
of N100,000. That has been complied
with in Plateau state. It also limits the number of accounts to be operated by
local Governments to three which we have almost complied with also. We have to
shut down other accounts and operate only running account, Revenue account and
Salary account. These are the only accounts that we are allowed to
operate", said the local Government boss.
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