Ogbeh cautions governors over council funds, oil bill
From Alifa Daniel, Abuja
NATIONAL Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Audu Ogbeh has said that governors who deduct council funds illegally will pay compensations to the councils. Ogbeh also counselled against the decision of the 19 Northern states Governors and three others from the South to go to the Supreme Court to void the On-shore/Off-shore Dichotomy Abrogation Act.
He told reporters in Abuja yesterday at the end of series of consultations with the party's governors in the last two weeks that "the issue of the 22 governors going to court came up at our meeting with South-South Governors and we want to assure you that the party is going to wade into it and take a decision. It is something that we think should not go to court, but since they have gone to court, we will work on it.
"We believe that through dialogue and understanding we will come to a careful and happy conclusion of any matter, which will cause anxieties within the various states in the country."
He confirmed that the meetings with the governors revolved round the alleged deductions from the allocations to councils from the Federation Account. He exonerated most governors but said others were guilty and charged.
He said further "the meetings were prompted by certain developments, which came about as a result of the management of the Joint State/Local government Account; and we thought there was need for us to interact with our governors to find out the situations in the states because the party is concerned about the welfare of the rural people; those who ensured our election victory; most of them, very poor farmers, youths, women, widows, old men and women in the villages.
"We are extremely concerned about what happens to them, just as we are concerned about the plight of city dwellers, young graduates and so on. We believe also that if the local government functions properly and monies are spent appropriately in the villages that life will return to the villages and the real transformation in the economy can begin at that level.
"We have met with them and we will like to report that, by and large we were quite satisfied with the explanation given by the majority of the governors. We were, however, not too satisfied with a few of them; and, the party intends to follow it up by taken measures to ensure that illegal deductions that all deductions are limited only to the statutory and what we consider necessary ones, such like paying staff salaries, teachers, paying traditional rulers' stipends and so on.
"Any other deductions, which certainly compromises the integrity of the local government system, we will not allow to continue. We were quite pleased with the majority of our governors and we will therefore like to put to rest this feeling that every governor is taking money from the local government".
Ogbeh disclosed that the party would soon embark on an assessment tour of states and local governments in September to see on-going projects.
He said: "The party intends to begin a nationwide tour in September. It is a tour of the National Executive of the party and we shall actually check on that we have been told is going on in some local governments and, at the end, we shall inform you whether we are happy with a particular state or local government.
"This is slightly different from the media tour, which you saw before. This time, we are going to sit down and discuss the philosophy and modalities of implementation of some of these projects because the allocations to states and local government are quite heavy now".
