Ekiti: Bill to Cut Councillors' Pay Underway
From Dipo Okunmuyide in Ado-Ekiti
Ekiti State Deputy Governor, Mr Abiodun Aluko, has defended the move by government to sponsor a bill to the House of Assembly to reduce salaries and allowances of councillors and other political office holders in local governments.
Reacting to a protest by members of the National Association of Councillors in Ekiti State on the proposed reduction, Aluko said the move is to correct mistake made by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) in the last political dispensation.
According to Aluko, the RMAFC illegally dabbled into fixture of salaries of political office holders in the local governments contrary to the provisions of Section 7 of 1999 Constitution which placed the finance, administration, control, structure and composition of local governments in the hands of state executives and states' Houses of Assembly.
"It is unfortunate that each of the councillors and other political functionaries in local governments during the past administration were owed over N500 million salaries," he lamented.
Aluko argued that the administration is not only paying the salaries of political office holders in the councils but doing what is constitutional and proper, saying "it's better for us to pay what we can afford instead of owing them."
He explained that PDP governors in the South West have equally met on the matter and mandated the Houses of Assembly in each state to pass into law various salary structures depending on financial capacity of each state, saying Ekiti has adopted the same salary structure with Ondo State for the councillors and other political office holders in the local governments.
On the issue of with holding allocations of councils from the federation account, Aluko who is the chairman of Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) between local governments and the state government said all deductions from local government allocation were done through the law establishing JAAC by Ekiti State House of Assembly.
According to him, there are some basic responsibilities which the local governments must perform by law like paying teachers, traditional rulers, staff salary, pension and training fund among others. Such monies are to be deducted from source.
He explained that apart from the first line deductions which are statutory, the JMC is constitutionally empowered to deduct some funds from the councils' allocation for some services rendered to them through the state government, citing as an example, the sum of N37 million deducted from the 16 local governments' allocation in June for the services rendered them by the state's Electricity Board which include supply of transformers.
He disclosed that some councils during Adebayo's administration took overdraft of N400 million from bank, saying N2 million is being deducted centrally from the councils every month to service the debt.
"It will surprise you again to know that various contractors are being owed millions of naira by the local governments and our administration is now deducting N8 million centrally every month to pay these contractors.
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