Ekiti Councils To Get More Funds, Edo Chairmen Complain
FROM IFEDAYO SAYO, ADO EKITI AND ENO-ABASI SUNDAY, BENIN
MORE revenue from the Federation Account may come for Ekiti State and its local councils.
The optimism is buoyed by the conclusion of a national verification exercise of indices for horizontal sharing of revenue among the states and councils in the country, which favoured the state and its councils.
The exercise carried out by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has since increased the state's monthly allocation by N50 million and that of the councils by N17 million.
A member of the commission from the state, Chief Deji Fasuan attributed the increase to a raise in the internally generated revenue of the state.
Fasuan, at the presentation of new revenue indices to the councils yesterday, said the exercise started in January 2002 and ended in the middle of last year.
He said the existing revenue sharing formula, which has been in operation since 1993, had become obsolete and irrelevant to the current reality.
Fasuan, however, added that the new revenue sharing formula is not error-proof, saying complaints from state or council would be entertained.
But councils in Edo State may not make any impressive showing in governance because the state government reportedly weighs them down.
Last week, some past political office holders at the grassroots in the state threatened to sue the state government for tampering with the council allocations from the Federation Account.
The 18 councils chairmen, who are also members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are extremely reticent about making their plight public.
One of the chairmen, who spoke with The Guardian on condition of anonymity said since they were sworn-in, they had been receiving less than half of their share of the Federation Account.
He said: "If something is not done and urgently too, we should not be held responsible but the executive that has been slashing our allocation for the second month running."
Figures made available to The Guardian showed that a particular council got N60 million from the Federation Account, but received only N20 million for May from the state government.
He said that salaries and payment of contractors serving the council were being affected by the state government's action.
Some chairmen have been informing their supporters in a subtle manner of their predicament.
Reacting to the slashed allocation, Governor Lucky Igbinedion said that the exercise would continue because the federal government was also cutting allocation to the state.
He said that the federal government keeps pointing accusing fingers at the state governors, whereas its other four fingers are pointing at it as the chief culprit. "They have deducted close to N18 billion since 1999 from Edo State account alone," Igbinedion said.
He described the federal government accusation of state executives fiddling with council monies as playing to the gallery, adding that, "the earlier we get over it the better."
Some of the areas, which Igbinedion said deductions were effected on state funds, were pensions, teachers' salaries and traditional rulers' stipends, among others.
