By Okey Alozie
The Imo State government is planning to resuscitate and modify community government council in order to bring governance to the grassroots for administrative convenience.
Based on this development, Governor Rochas Okorocha is said to have given out N5m each to political wards for the reactivation of its Community Government Council (CGC) and for administrative convenience.
The governor intends for the C.G.C officials to join hands with Traditional Rulers to handle community problems and make government establishments function well.
In this regard, the Rescue Mission government has planned for the immediate posting of Director of Admin, General Services (DAGS) Treasurers and other key officers to various autonomous communities to increase the welfare of the people. The Eze will stand as symbol of authority to be incharge of the customs and tradition while the President General shall be the secretary of the CGC and be incharge of administration. The N5m could be given to the 305 registered and recognized political wards in Imo. The seal will be with the Eze as fund is meant to be spent prudently. It is expected that N2m may be used for payment of officials and calling of town hall meetings while the remaining of N3m out of the N5 m will be for the execution of projects in the rural community. Statement of account could be presented to state govt.
The Community Liaison Officers (C.L.O) will be eyes of the community, while the government liason officers (GLO) will serve as government agents in the rural areas. Every rural community is expected to develop at its own pace. It will be recalled that the CGC came into lame light in 2013 and was dissolved after some years and now the governor want to re-introduce the system back in the rural area.
It would also be recalled that communities paid counterpart fund to collect N1m from the government even the Ikuala Nkwu project later became a failure as the whole thing was said to a centre of deceit.
