Abia Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Sir Emma Nwabuko, spoke with Agamnetochi Onoh on the local government reforms of Governor Theodore Orji with the expected dividends.
After a brilliant record of work performance as Commissioner for Works in 2009, Sir Emmanuel Nwabuko was moved to the Local Government in August 2011 where turn-around reforms were put in place. Just like in the works ministry, Nwabuko has been carrying out a crusade in his current portfolio, working tirelessly to make a difference in the second and last lap of the Theodore Orji administration.
The emphasis of the new administration is collective responsibility, with zero tolerance for divided loyalty, not after the previous chief executives left the LGAs impoverished. Nwabuko soon realised that the funds were not enough to go round, especially when the issues revolving on internally generated revenue had many leakages that had to be plugged if he had to produce results. Beyond this, ghost workers papered over with an over-bloated workforce, milked his budget.
He received an average of N1.7 billion which peaked to N2 billion in the July/August allocation. But his big concern was that he had little left to execute his huge outlay of capital projects after paying out N1.5 billion in salaries most of which, it became apparent, were going to these faceless employees inclusive of LG staff, teachers, pensioners and the political class, transition chairmen, and councillors with traditional rulers taking 30 percent of the total allocation. The effect was that the ministry could neither fully meet its obligations, including loans servicing, nor carry out meaningful capital projects as well as fund running costs for such normal activities as refuse disposal. He had no option left but to right size and downsize his staff profile.
Biometric system
The state House of Assembly, which has the oversight function of ensuring governance meets acceptable standards approved a biometric system of checking staff performance. A test run was carried out early last year but acts of fraudulence in critical quarters sabotaged the exercise and delayed the implementation. Nwabuko and his team refused to bulge and by last July,
the biometric system rolled off the ground with the payment for that month; a 70 percent staff attendance to work was placed as the cut off point, yet only 10 percent was able to meet this cut off mark. The mark was brought down to 50 percent of the LGA workforce while concession was given to staff on in-service training. The exemptions from the log in-log out system were officers of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) and a category of management staff.
Nwabuko noticed a trend where a large number of staff of the LGAs was placed on mass transfers through the outstation arrangement. Apparently, this was a conduit designed to short change the system using faceless staff, who were obviously ghost workers on fictitious transfers. In spite of the strong opposition to the biometric system, Nwabuko insisted on a form of payment which in local language is known as face-to-face payment
Game Plan
Nwabuko called a meeting of heads of service and local government management staff to evolve a workable plan that would drive the ministry forward along the line of transparency and due process. Part of that plan was to carry out unscheduled visits to the local government headquarters and certain local government institutions to find out who is at work or not and why. He also raised a team of secret service men whose mandate was to deliver to the ministry a regular feedback of what goes on where with CCTV cameras installed at strategic locations.
Who is employed?
The local government service commission in partnership with the ministry agreed to collaborate with each other to be able to ward off this evil. That meant every staff in the local government had a computerised profile as part of a comprehensive inventory that recorded among other things, the movement of employees and its progression in terms of retirement and the attendant pension schemes and payouts. This also meant that files were being modified on a daily basis. Yet, it turned out that even with the embargo on unemployment, salaries, gratuity and pensions kept increasing. But the warning has long been made that anyone caught cheating would be dealt with since the civil service rules and regulations were clear on what constitutes a code of behaviour and the penalties for a default.
Inspectorate and Monitoring Department
Nwabuko’s commitment to results led to the setting up of the project and monitoring department where local government chairmen come up with their proposals with the advice that such projects should at the possible earliest time be realised with an even spread on the communities that make up the LGA. This approach to local government governance and their deliverables to the communities have led to improved project execution, eliminating waste in areas that were conduit pipes for leakages. Skill acquisition was one of the projects that was used as a test run for this new policy and it turned out a huge success. Funds under the current arrangement are tied to specific projects and over time it has been possible to carry out rural electricity projects, build town halls and construct feeder roads
Nwabuko agrees that local government administration, which in many civilised climes is the fulcrum of grassroots governance and infrastructure development and maintenance, failed in Nigeria because priorities were either misplaced or fraudulence took the better part of those in charge. Many local government administrators, he observes, embark on bogus projects that are not realisable in their four year tenure. Currently in Abia State, Governor Orji, like many of his colleagues in other states, is vocal on realisable, prioritised projects.
Agenda
The commissioner insists said part of his agenda is a call for a work ethic that is proactive, and committed with achievable and quantifiable goals. “My work ethic is in tandem with the spirit of service to the fatherland, and borrowing from President John Kennedy, ask what you can do for Abia State first before asking what Abia can do for you. In our tenure, full implementation of all salary commitments agreed upon, is given and this includes teachers and other categories of civil servants working in this ministry. Project supervision and execution with an even spread to all the communities is a must. The idea of clustering projects in a given area is history even as we aspire to build state of the art infrastructure with our strident drive to boost our internally generated revenue (IGR).”
Nwabuko knows agriculture is the mainstay of the rural folks whose residents increase in sophistication and style of living by the day. That is why the ministry is partnering with its agriculture counterpart to have a model of farmers powered by the LGAs and tailored to specific areas such as plantain plantations, and poultry farms. You could imagine with these projects on course, Nwabuko’s evenly spread smiles should go beyond a grin, but he tells you he has a bigger pay packet on hand to contend with. His reason is that many Abia indigenes working in neighbouring and other states of the federation had had to be displaced and returned home jobless. He was mandated by Governor Orji to find them a space in the LG civil service structure. That demand led to a downsizing that affected civil servants from other states working for the state, and that was after the governor politely called his governor colleagues whose indigenes were affected by the exercise.
Effect
Nwabuko observes the vitriolic media attacks sponsored by the affected states were just unfair not even where the exercise has its advantages till date absorbing well over 2000 Abia indigenes, who had hitherto been idle, directly into its employ. It also helped to reduce an over-bloated teaching staff, who with one teacher to four students or pupils, were mainly non-indigenous businessmen appearing on pay days to pick salaries and disappear.
Youth Empowerment
Part of Nwabuko’s agenda is to reduce the unemployment rate of the youth of Abia. He has in his data book 4000 unemployed youths he has earmarked for employment in the LGAs, a selection he has handed over to the local community leaders. Adds Nwabuko in apparent deference to his boss, “We respect Governor T.A. Orji so much, and more importantly because he has succeeded in bringing peace to a once disparate state. We now speak with one voice. Before now Abia stakeholders were not united but Governor Orji’s all inclusive style of governance or what you may call consensus government means Abia is becoming more progressive by the day in terms of development.
“We want to walk the streets unmolested, seeing everywhere we go dotted with meaningful projects on the ground. Orji is in a hurry to write his name on marble. With Government House moving to a more befitting complex, the water scheme projects across the length and stretch of Abia will help to complete this exercise and this will be on course as the studies are ready for implementation.”
