Kunle Adelabu
Alhaji Babatunde Rotinwa, former Chairman, Lagos State Local Government Service Commission, has said that the State government’s overbearing in the administration of local government which, according to him, is supposed to be an independent tier of government, is a major reason local councils are not functioning properly.
Rotinwa, who was also a former Head of Service (Hos) in the state, also stated that most council chairmen are also unprepared for the task of governance and only serve themselves when they found themselves in office.
These are some of the problems highlighted by the retired top government functionary, while speaking as the Chairman of the occasion at the maiden edition of the panel session on, “Effective Local Government Administration”, organized by the Concerned Ikorodu Division Youths (CIDY) last Thursday.
Rotinwa charged organisers of the panel session to continually engage the council chairmen and keep them on their toes if the situation is to change for the better.
“We have been in this mess for a very long time. There are so many inadequacies and if the organizers of this event had been addressing this issue long before now with the chairmen, things might have changed”, Bashorun Rontinwa said.
“Why did I have this notion? I have been a member of the coordinating committee of All Progressives Congress (APC), in Lagos State, under the chairmanship of the deputy governor and when they (chairmen) were invited, they hardly grace the occasions”, he alleged.
“ The problem is not even within the structure itself because we have lots of instruments that established the local government system. We have the Constitution of Nigeria, the first schedule that talks about delegated functions of local government.
“The state has excessive control over the local government. That is one of the problems”, Bashorun said.
“Hardly is 50 to 70% of the allocation from the federation account gets to the local government.
“I was in a local government office and it performed wonderfully well when we were there before I moved to the state as the Head of Service.
“We need a very strong person who is committed. We have a local government chairmen who just got to the office and I don’t think they have an agenda of what they wanted to do. They just want to get to the office and run things for themselves”, the session chairman said.
He also said that the revenue drive of most of the councils are also poor and this, according to him, has accounted for lack of service delivery to the people.
“We’ve not been doing well in revenue generation and our people expected the council chairmen to manage this very well.
“When you elect a government, you are expected to give money to it to function. The assumption of our people is that we are the one that put them there and they don’t want to pay.
“It’s heartbreaking that the Road Unions and the Iya – Olojas are the ones collecting the revenue, alongside some political leaders, which is not meant to be”, Bashorun Rotinwa pointed out.
“I remember when I was appointed in the 1980s and I was just a small boy of age 35 then, we went to Epe and with the efforts that we made, we were able to build secretariats. We also built council houses, built parks and garages and we mobilised the citizens. If we could do that 30 to 40 years ago, then, what are the present chairmen doing?”, the former HoS asked rhetorically.
“What they do now is to franchise the revenue and when they set the target of XYZ, these local governments hardly get 25% of their target.
Stating his efforts while serving as the LG Commission Chairman, Bashorun Rotinwa said that he tried to assist councils in the state to manage their finances.
“I remember when I was appointed as the chairman, local government service commission, even if it wasn’t part of my functions, I took it up that I wanted to monitor the revenue of local governments because they were performing poorly in that regard”, he recalled.
“The governor at that time, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, got to know and I assured him that we will improve on it.
“We started with 10% and I assured them that we will get 100% and by the time we left office, those that underperformed and the active one, we were able to reach 85%, but I don’t know what the situation is now”, he added.
“Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you to this great gathering, and to our chairmen, I hope that by the end of today’s meeting, you should be able to go back to your offices and make amends”, Bashorun Rontinwa charged the Council Chairmen.
The panel chairman also charged the council chairmen to involve their deputies and councilors more in the decision making and management of their respective councils.
