Lagos – Mr Fred Agbaje, a Lagos-based Constitutional and Human Rights lawyer, on Friday called for an independent monitoring body to check the finances and expenditure of the Local Governments in the country. .
“There should be an independent monitoring body to monitor the finance and expenditure of Local Governments in each state, because the incidence of looting by some officers needs to be stemmed,” he said.
Agbaje made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
He said that the recommendation by the Committee on Political Restructuring and Forms of Government, to reduce the Local Governments to administrative offices for State Governments, was not the solution to the problems of the third tier of government.
“I do not think that scrapping or reducing local governments to mere administrative offices is the solution; we must understand the role which they were set up to perform under the constitution.
“The question is have they been able to perform those roles? If they have not, what are the impediments? “The same people who are calling for the scrapping of Local governments are the same people who have become a clog in the progress of the councils,” he said.
Agbaje told NAN that rather than scrap and reduce the Local Governments to administrative offices, a machinery should be put in place to isolate them from the state governments.
“Most of the states have virtually emasculated the councils, in terms of function and money. Therefore, the way out is not to deprive the grassroots people of the the Local Governments they can reach easily,” he added. (NAN)