ANAMBRA’S ALLOCATIONS CANNOT BE REDUCED BY N16 BILLION BY THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT, PER A COURT ORDER.

The federal government’s attempt to assist the local government areas (LGAs) of Anambra State in recovering more than N16 billion that their state government diverted has been halted by the Federal High Court in Awka.

The funds are the local governments’ portion of the Paris Club reimbursement that the Anambra State Government received on their behalf from the federal government but withheld from them.

In a ruling issued on June 21 by Judge Nnamdi Dimgba, it was determined that the federal government’s recovery strategy, as implemented by the Minister of Finance, was unconstitutional.

Mr. Dimgba claims that by taking the funds out of the state appropriations and paying them directly to the local government regions’ common account, the federal government went beyond its lawful bounds.

The state government’s refusal to deposit local governments’ portion of the funds into the State Joint Local Government Account “is clearly a constitutional violation,” the court decided.

But he added that the answer does not lie in the minister “exercising unconstitutional powers of deducting at source monies due to the states, and in this case Anambra State, from the federation account.”