If the recommendation of the Senate Committee on the review of the 1999 Constitution is accepted by the House of Representatives and assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari, the state joint local government account will be a thing of the past.
The abolition of the state joint local government account is one of the highlights Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, presented to the Senate Thursday.
Ekweremadu also 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.
On distributable pool account, he said that Section 162 of the Constitution was amended to – Provide for national savings of 50% of oil revenues above the bench mark for a particular year and 10% of any non- oil revenue paid into the Federation Account; Or such other percentage not less than that provided in this section as the National Assembly may determine in the Appropriation Act of a particular year.
To provide that any such savings as stipulated in this section will be distributed in accordance with the prevailing revenue sharing formula and in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution provided that the savings shall not be distributed in any period less than ten years from the date of a particular savings; and to abrogate the State Joint Local Government Account and paying monies due to Local Government Councils directly into their respective accounts
The amended section, he said, also defined the fund of the State government; “that is, internally generated revenue from which a portion shall be paid into the Local Government Allocation Account.”
On authorization of expenditure, Ekweremadu said that Sections 82 and 122 of the Constitution were amended to reduce the period within which the President or a Governor may authorize the withdrawal of monies from the Consolidated Revenue Fund in the absence of an appropriation act from six months to three months.
The amendment, he explained was essentially to compel early presentation of budget proposal by the Executive arm of government thereby giving the legislature sufficient time to scrutinize such proposal.
