Governors of the 36 states will meet in Abuja on Wednesday, May 25, over several lingering issues, including local government autonomy.
A statement issued from the office of the director-general of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF), Bayo Okauru, indicates that the issue of financial autonomy of local governments will form part of the chairman’s brief.
Head, media and public affairs of the NGF, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo, said the meeting, which is expected to be a hybrid will commence at 2 pm.
This would be the 5th teleconference meeting this year and is also expected to deliberate on other issues centred “around SFTAS Updates, the CARES programme and presentations”
A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja and presided over by Inyang Ekwo on Monday delivered a judgement in favour of the Federal Government and Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) on local government joint accounts.
The NFIU had in June 2019 issued guidelines aimed at curbing crime vulnerabilities created by cash withdrawals from local government accounts by various state governments.
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But the NGF sued the Federal Government and NFIU for interfering with state government powers to initiate transactions on local government joint accounts, citing provisions of the 1999 constitution.
The NFIU issued a guideline on money laundering risk and vulnerabilities advising all banks not to honour transactions from joint accounts.
The body also directed that the state/local government joint accounts should be used only for receiving funds and subsequently transferring them to local government accounts only.
The guidelines also reduced cash withdrawal from local government accounts to N500,000 daily.
Immediately after the guidelines came into place, most local governments across the country stopped facing challenges in the payment of staff salaries.
Reacting to the judgement, the CEO of NFIU, Modibbo Tukur said it was good because the Federal Government was always ready to protect both states and local governments by making funds available to them.
The CEO NFIU said, “from this judgement and going forward, all transactions on local government funds would be disclosed to ICPC and EFCC 100 percent and would be reported continuously”.
