Financial Autonomy: ‘Nasarawa LGAs unable to pay salaries’

Victor Awoleye

The Secretary to the Nasarawa State Government (SSG), Aliyu Tijjani Ahmed, has disclosed that the thirteen local government councils of the state are unable to pay salaries. He said this on Wednesday at the Government House in Lafia, after a meeting with the state governor, Abdullahi Sule and Chairmen of the Local Government Councils.

In a statement by the Special Assistant to the Governor, Lamino Gambo Ishaq, the SSG said, “Having complied with the Local Government Autonomy law and all funds deposited into accounts of the local governments, authorities of the third tier of government were yet to pay salaries.
“The governor invited the chairmen to find out the reason for the delay. He found out that insufficient fund from the federation account allocations hinders the payment.”
“We are hoping that within the next few days, the local government chairmen will be able to pay salaries of their staff,” Tijjani said. In his remarks, the chairman of Association of Local Government of Nigeria, (ALGON) and chairman of Lafia Local Government, Aminu Muazu Maifata, noted that over two-third of the thirteen LGAs in the state cannot pay salaries from the available funds gotten from the federation account accruals to the various local governments hence the need to sort for workable solutions to pay workers their June salaries. He said, “Actually all disbursements were done and all accounts of Local Government Councils were credited with accruals as they came from the federation account allocation”