Kunle Adelabu
Hon. Babajimi Benson, Representative of the Ikorodu Federal Constituency
Council Chairmen in Ikorodu Division have been charged to be transparent with the way they handle council finances.
This advice was coming from the representative of the lkorodu Federal Constituency, Rep. Babajimi Benson.
The lawmaker, in an interview with THE IMPACT, said that he feels sorry for the council administrators for the meagre sum that they are getting, but charged them to cultivate the attitude of transparency by making allocations received public, regarding how they are spent to prevent unnecessary suspicions.
“I feel sorry for our local government chairmen. They are punching beyond their weights. Most times, I am at their forum with other chairmen and most chairmen outside Ikorodu usually feel sorry for our own chairmen that they don’t earn anything because whatever that they are earning is being divided into six”, Rep Benson said.
“Information is power and our people don’t understand the predicament these guys are facing. By the time their money comes, it is barely enough to pay salaries and there is always nothing to attend to capital projects”, the lawmaker explained further.
“But what I don’t really know is their IGR. I don’t know how they generate money internally and what they generate it. My sympathy for them is based on the fact that their allocations are nothing to write home about”.
He, however, blamed the council bosses for failure to make the papers concerning their financial situations available to him so that he could use them in intervening for them with the governor.
“Where I fault them is that I have told them to give me a position paper on how much they are getting, to enable me make an appeal on their behalf to his Excellency to augument the allocations. Once we can get the augmentation, the leaders can sit down with them and tie those new sums to specific projects”, he said.
“I also blame them as well for not being able to be transparent with information. I remember what Dr Okonjo Iweala used to do. She would publish all the releases per local government, they too should adopt this style and let people know that 80% of the allocations are usually for staff salaries and indicate where the remaining 20% will be going so that there would not be any suspicion or counter claim on how the monies are utilised”, he said.
“I think that they need to improve on their transparency.
“I don’t cover them in any way, but we work together on most of those roads and other infrastructures that we do. They are usually the ones that bring up the needs assessment on what they need.
“I also like them because most of them are still young and we need to have more younger elements who are dynamic to be incharge of our councils and do great things”, he added.
