Chairman, Ikosi-Isheri Local Government Area of Lagos State, Mr. Kunle Soname, told DOTUN OLADIPO that the Federal Road Maintenance Agency is depriving local governments in Lagos States of revenue in addition to the withholding of the revenue that should go to the councils by the Federal Government
It is almost six months now since the Federal Government withheld allocations to local governments in Lagos State. How have the local governments been surviving, especially Ikosi-Isheri?
It has been really tough. I must say that it has been really, really tough. Out Internally Generated Revenue base was actually on the increase. We had managed to increase it from about N1.2 million that we met to about N3.4 million to N3.5 million at a stage. But of course when the Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government thought that with the allocations being withheld we were still waxing a lot stronger, it came out with this Federal Road Maintenance Agency scheme and they went into all the markets, into all parks, started collecting all sorts of taxes, all sorts of levies from the market. So, that greatly affected our IGR and consequently affected our operations. But we are extremely grateful to the state government. It has been gracious to us, assisting us in so many ways. But Ikosi-Isheri as a council, we have actually looked inwards to see that even if we don�t have money, we actually have goodwill as a government. So, we�ve been actually trying to use that to tremendous advantage. I can tell you that we�ve approached so many companies for things. Take for instance our primary schools. We�ve had some few problems with them: Lack of infrastructure, lack of teaching materials and things like that. Through the help of my wife who has a non-governmental organisation, the Hope Rising Initiative, we�ve approached so many companies and they�ve come up to donate wonderful things to the cause. In a couple of weeks, we shall be launching what we have been able to collect. Ultimately, what matters is for us to be able to get material to distribute to the schools. If the council has money, we buy. Now that we don�t have money and we are collecting from donors, it is still the same thing. The bottom line is to get these materials across to the pupils. That we are doing.
You said the IGR dropped. Up to what level?
It has come to the N1 million range. We�ve gone back to the old days of N1.2 million, N1.5 million. The rest is being taken by FERMA.
What are you doing to address the situation?
This problem is not a problem that a local government could solve. Of course, at our own micro level, we are putting measures in place to see that we increase the IGR by the day. It had gone below N1 million before but it had started picking up again due to efforts that are being made. We�ve called the market people to dialogue, we�ve called all the park owners and we�ve also been ensuring that where these FERMA people are collecting the money we�ve gone to stop them by the power of persuasion. We�ve called in the police they are not coming in. We are the stakeholders. We have something to lose because we were voted for. But they have nothing to lose so they are actually spoiling for war. They want violence to erupt. But we have been able to calm things down and ensure we have our way through dialogue and power of persuasion.
But how have you been coping with the payment of salaries? Do you have any backlog?
Yes, we have arrears. We�ve only been able to pay part of the staff salaries. We have net and we have gross. We have only been able to pay the net. So, all the other deductions we have not been paying for the past six months. We should be extremely grateful to our staff for their understanding of the situation that Mr. President has put us.
