Cross River State governor, Prof Ben Ayade, says the liability of local governments to the state government as at today stands at N42 billion.
The governor who spoke during a valedictory session in Calabar recently, against the background of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) directive on financial autonomy for local governments, also disclosed that direct financial support from the state to pay local governments is N11.9 billion.
The governor, who seemed irked by the directive of the NFIU said, “I hear people are talking about local government autonomy. How much has local governments earned and how much has the state given. The direct financial support to pay local governments, we put N11.9 billion. In addition, the liability of the local governments to the state today stands at N42 billion.
According to him, “but not for me, but not for my intellectual money, but not for the support of the state, if the local governments are left on their own, wholly” the situation may not have been managed as well as it has been.
“I don’t know they think every state is the same. There are some states that if you allow the autonomy of the local governments, in three months, the level of kidnapping and crime rates there would destroy this country. So don’t make statements without proper research.
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“Take Cross River State, the first 17 months of our administration, there is no month that I don’t put in N300 million or N400 million for local governments to be able to pay salaries. There are some months we put N1.2 billion to be able to enable them pay salaries and we have never done deductions from them even when our law provides for 27 per cent, plus the recent four percent we did on infrastructure, which brings it to 31 per cent,” he said.
According to Ayade, “Autonomy works where the income is sufficient for everyone to get his quota. But when what is coming is less than operating cost, you need some bit of creativity.”
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