Daily Independent Online.
*
Thursday, July 01, 2004.
No local council secretariat -
is sold, says Lagos AD scribe
By Tolu Olarewaju
Senior
Correspondent, Lagos
The
Secretary General of the Alliance for Democracy in Lagos State, Alhaji Raji Lateef
Oladejo, has denied allegations that the Lagos State government has sold the
secretariats of the old local councils in the state. The denial is coming in
the wake of allegations by a youth organisation that the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed
Tinubu administration has sold some of the edifices in a desperate bid to raise
funds following Federal Government’s decision to withhold funds due to
councils in the state.
Speaking
with Daily
Independent in Lagos, Oladejo said some of the edifices were leased out
to corporate organisations because none of the new 57 councils could maintain
them, adding that otherwise they would degenerate.
“None
of the houses has been sold. The
secretariats are there. It is just in the imagination of the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) that the government would sell any of the state’s
heritages,” the AD scribe stated.
According
to him, the enormous financial constraints of the local governments made the
state government to lease the edifices, arguing that for some time now, the
resources accruing to the local governments are not commensurate to their
responsibilities.
“For instance, N75 million was
given for old Ikorodu Local Government the last time the allocation was
made. This is grossly inadequate.
Ikorodu is larger than over 10 state capitals; Yenagoa, Ado-Ekiti, Dutsi name
it. From this same fund, you have to pay teacher’s salary, staff salary
and overhead costs. How much would then be left for development?
“When
you look at the revenue profile of the councils, there is no way they can
maintain these edifices and that was why they were leased out. The secretariats
could attract additional revenue for the councils. Most of them can take over
1000 staff. None of the present
councils has up to 300 staff, so how would they put the secretariats into
effective use?
“After
splitting the councils, they now have very few staff and none of them could put
the secretariats into effective use. That is why they are leased out to
corporate bodies so that whatever amount is generated would then be shared
among the joint owners of the secretariat thereby improving their revenue
base,” the AD scribe explained.
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