Chairman, Delta State Local Government Service Commission, Hon. Dcn. Joseph Otirhue, however noted that the local government councils have not done badly.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday June 9th 2021, in his office, Otirhue, stated that the Councils major pains has been paucity of funds.
He equally revealed that large workforce has also prevented their performances as what comes to the council is inadequate for infrastructural development after the payment of teachers’ salaries.
Hear him: “local government far back from 1976, when it was created to specially bring government and development down to the grassroot. And so they have enormous responsibility to discharge to the people in terms of infrastructure, policy making and security.
“But the major pain has been that the financial requirement is not always there. I can tell you that for the past six to seven years not only in Delta State now but across the federation that local governments have been financially down because many of them had employed so much staff that they could cater for at the end of the day. So, when the resources comes, they battle how to pay wages and primary school teachers salaries.
“And so, all put together at the end of the day they find even difficult to carry out their responsibilities. So, the issue is that, not that they are not ready to work but the financial muscle is not there. That is, what comes from the federal government to the local government is not enough to be able to carry out their activities.
“And so that is why there have been this agitation that the Revenue and Fiscal Mobilization Commission should do something about the percentage of sharing formula whereby that of the state and local government should be increased because once that is done, you will find out that more resources will come to the local government and when there is more resources, you don’t need to tell them what to do”.
He said however that with the little they are receiving, many of them are performing, “because for the past six years as I know in Delta State, most of the local government chairmen embarks on major projects such as building and equipping health centres, building offices for the local government staff and making sure that the environment is well maintained.
“So, by and large, I will say that if they have more resources, they will do more. Their major constrain now is that the financial position of the local government is very poor, the federal government need to do something about the sharing formula”, he maintained.
