ALGON vows to actualise autonomy for LGs

By Joseph Erunke

ABUJA— AS the National Assembly pushes forward the amendment of the 1999 Constitution with a view to giving the country a new law book, Association of Local Government of Nigeria, ALGON, has vowed that it would not take anything less than full autonomy for local governments.

To this end, it appealed to state Houses of Assembly to  unanimously support the autonomy by voting in its favour when the national legislature passes the bill to them for their contributions.

On its part, the association vowed to accelerate efforts to ensure all local government councils in the country got full autonomy.

New President of ALGON, Tanko Kagara, made the pledge during his inauguration and cabinet members, yesterday, in Abuja.

He stressed that his administration was totally committed towards the drive for local government autonomy to ensure prompt payment of salaries and enhanced socio economic development to eradicate poverty at the grassroots.

He said: “ALGON will look into and fight to see that local governments are given autonomy, all chairman will stand up on the issue of autonomy.

“When we are given autonomy, our first line charge is supposed to be salary. If we have that front line charge as salary, the moment you pay salary, whatever remains, no matter how small it is, we can budget in other resources.”

Kagara also noted that under his leadership, ALGON would put all modalities in place to ensure all state governors make available the right amounts apportioned to local government councils in the Paris bailout funds

Outgoing ALGON President, Ibrahim Karaye, urged all ALGON members to put the past behind and support the new administration under Kagara to serve out its term successfully to further develop the 774 local government areas in the country.

Governor Abubakar Bello of of Niger State, who was represented by his deputy, Ahmed Ketso, noted that as a result of an operational local government autonomy in Niger State, over 50 percent of the salaries owed local government staff have been paid.

 

 

 

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