Senate move to abolish state joint local govt account

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Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, presented to the Senate on Thursday the abolition of the state joint local government account.

Ekweremadu said that the Senate constitution committee adopted the recommendation to create a mayoral seat for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja.


He noted that the committee, inaugurated on 13th January, 2016 had a clear mandate to reprocess the aspects of the Fourth Alteration Bill that had gained national consensus and enjoyed huge good-will from the general public, states, non-governmental organizations and international development organizations.

On local government administration, Ekweremadu said that Section 7 of the Constitution was amended essentially to strengthen local government administration in Nigeria by elaborately providing -    A uniform 3-year tenure for elected local government council officials; That Local Governments without a democratically elected council shall not be entitled to any revenue from the Federation Account.

Members of the committee, he said, believed that amendments will ensure effective service delivery and insulate local governments from undue and counter-productive interferences from state governments.

Ekweremadu noted that the Senate committee had concluded its assignment, they agreed to wait for the House of Representatives on Constitution review to conclude so that the two committee would harmonize before presenting the final report to the two chambers.

Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, asked the committee to work to beat the January 2017 deadline slated for the passage of the Bill.

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