The Special Adviser, SA to Imo State Governor, Hon Emeka Ihedioha on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Hon Eze Mayor has disclosed that the June Financial Allocation for the twenty seven local Government Areas in Imo State has arrived and been handed over to the chairmen of the Interim Management Committees IMC of the Councils.
Speaking to Journalists in Owerri at the weekend, Mayor Eze said that all the Local Governments received intact, their allocations as sent from Abuja, because the Imo State Governor, Hon Emeka Ihedioha did not remove a kobo from the entire funds meant for Local Government Areas.
He said some LGAs had N80m left after salary deductions, which he said would be ploughed into projects.
Mayor Eze maintained that unlike in the last eight years that Imo Council Allocations were seized by the State Governor in Owerri, this time around the Governor has made clear that whatever fund that is posted to Imo Local Governments must be given to them to utilize without removing a kobo, for development and for the grass roots to feel the effect of governance.
The Special Adviser therefore urged Imo people to develop interest in what happens in their areas by asking the council Bosses to give account of how they spent every kobo that reached the Local Government Areas in Imo State.
The former Chairman of Orlu LGA, maintained that in order to curb mismanagement, since to whom much is given much is expected, his office has produced a template under which the LGAs will operate, so as to be supervised accordingly.
He said each LGA is expected to build befitting Secretariat, but where any has one already, should engage in other projects to justify the funds given to them, pointing out that soon the grass roots will feel the impact of Ihedioha’s administration.
On the issue of N3.5m made available as security votes for each LGA chairman, the former Member of House of Representatives said that the job of an LGA chairman is tasking compared to other political offices, because they are closest to the grass roots who troop to the Council Headquaters and their homes for one favour or the order every day from the chairmen.
“Every LGA chairman receives an average of four hundred visitors every day. That is to tell you the burden the council chairmen carry every day. You don’t need an appointment to visit council chairmen. And eight percent of these visitors come for one help on the other” he said.
Eze Mayor stressed that the security challenges facing Council chairmen these days are enormous following the rising increase in crime rate in the country.
The Special Adviser on LGAs and Chieftaincy Affairs hinted that Traditional Rulers in the State hitterto ignored by past administration are now captured in the LGA allocations, but pointed out that the Ihedioha regime has nothing to do with the Community Government Council, CGS, operated by the last regime.
He assured that elections would hold in Imo LGAs as promised by Governor Ihedioha, to produce elected Executive Chairmen in the councils, adding that the present administration in the State believes in due process and Rule of Law, because the Governor, Emeka Ihedioha, is a man whose word is bond, stressing that sanity and hope have been restored in Imo LGAs that were abandoned in the last Eight years of the Rochas Okorocha administration.
