Group Calls for Transparency in LGs

A Non-Governmental Organisation, Human Development Initiative (HDI) has called on Local Government Chairmen in Nigeria to be more accountable to the people by publishing annual financial reports and making them accessible to the people.

A Senior Program Officer of the organisation, Ms Bolanle Dare, said this in Enugu on Monday, in a town hall meeting organised for stakeholders in Enugu North senatorial district.

She said for the people to benefit from main objective in which federal government established 774 LGAs, council chairmen must be transparent and accountable to the people.

‘We demand that council chairmen publish annual financial reports of their council and make it accessible to the grassroots so that people will know the income and expenditures of their council areas.

“We believe this will ensure transparency as well as enhance grassroots development and overall national development.

“The present situation where people do not know the income of their councils and how it was expended encouraged corruption” she said.

She said one of the functions of HDI was to monitor LG budget but expressed disappointment that most times process of budgeting and its implementations by many LGAs were shrouded in secrecy thereby resulting in gross mismanagement of funds.

“It’s undisputable that, the sums of money that get to our local governments are never accounted for, the whole process of budgeting and its implementations are shrouded in secrecy.

“People at grassroots should give monitoring of LG budget in their area the required attention to ensure strict implementation of budgets by council chairmen” she said.