Tayo Alasoadura, finance commissioner, Ondo State and chairman, forum of states finance commissioners, disclosed this weekend at the end of the Federal Allocation Account Committee (FAAC) held in Abuja.

The Senate last week requested for information on funds allocated to local governments, particularly in Enugu and Imo states, and ordered the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) to submit its report on the probe of how local governments use the money allocated to them from 1999 to date.

The request by the Senate was informed by the motion raised by Arthur Nzeribe on allocations to local governments in Imo State as well as Fidelis Okoro’s from Enugu and seconded by the Senate President Ken Nnamani.

Alasoadura argued that although the lawmakers had every right to ask for information for whatever reasons, he however said it was not within the ambit of the National Assembly to ask about how allocations to local governments were used, pointing out that the states house of assembly were in better position for that.

"I don’t know what the National Assembly wants to do with the monies that were properly sent to the states and were properly appropriated and properly spent by the states. "I am not sure it is right because, take the states for example, the people who have the right to appropriate money at the state level are the members of the state house of assembly.

"They are the ones the constitution of this country gave the powers of appropriation to, and I believe the ones who have oversight function to see how the monies are expended.

"National Assembly has every right in the world to request for information for whatever reason it deems fit. I believe that we understand that the National Assembly does not have to consult people from outside to take decisions on what to do about anything in this country. We are not aware of the reason they are asking for it because they have the right to ask."

He debunked the allegation that state governors hijacked allocations to the local governments and leaving only peanuts for them, citing the example of his state, Ondo State where, he said, the governor, Segun Agagu did not take N1 from the allocation meant for the local councils.

"I am not sure that is correct. For example, in my state, instead of my state taking N1 from the local governments’ accounts, we give them money every month. We have done that very religiously over three and half years. So, in my state there is nothing like that and I don’t believe that state governors would deliberately go out and take money from the local governments, which they ought to have used to engender development in their areas."

He however described as ridiculous, the publication of state audited accounts, which, he said, were empty and had no substance. Alasoadura said such publication made him laugh as there was nothing anybody could make out of the published accounts.

"Well, whenever I see the accounts published by the states, I usually laugh. What have you been able to make of it? I, as an accountant and somebody who is running the Ministry of Finance of my state, I have never seen anything that anybody could hold from those accounts. So and so amount of money came in and so and so went to recurrent; so and so went to capital, what does that mean? They were not detailed at all."

"That is not how to publish accounts. Even for companies, limited liability companies, they will tell you how much money they have made, they will tell you how much they have spent on recurrent, they will tell you how much money was made as gross profit; they will tell you how much money went to tax, how much money went to dividends and they will tell you how much money they are keeping for future developments. What can you see in a published account of a state and if possible the Federal Government; it is too scanty to be useful."

He adduced reasons for this, the absence of institutions to define this and sanctions for contraventions. He said the states’ houses of assembly that these power resided with were not doing the real oversight functions.



"The problem in this country is that we don’t have institutions to define what and what you should do, and if you go against such things, what the punishment should be. What we have is the state houses of assembly, you can appropriate funds and the executive arms can spend the money. State houses of assembly have what is called oversight functions. But how many state assemblies do the real oversight functions?"


"For example, we have appropriated N100 million for you to build this hotel; how did you spend it, who were the contractors, what due process did you take before you awarded the contract to the contractor; how were you paying the contractor? So many things you could do to ensure that the monies were spent properly."


"It is the institution that is lacking which this administration is trying to put in place gradually. It will take some time because Rome was not built in a day. Once these institutions are there, then you can start holding people for what is wrong, and giving accolades for what has been done perfectly. So, let us build the institutions gradually and once the institutions are there, you ...see improvements on how the finances of this country are used."


To redress the situation, he said, the accounts should be sent to the state houses of assembly for proper scrutiny and approval before publication.


"The law is very clear. Send your audited accounts to the state house of assembly for the audit committee of the house to look into, ask questions, query, reply to these questions and after that might have been approved by the state assembly, the thing becomes public property. Anybody can assess that. But before you do that, you just put something on pages of the newspapers. I don’t see the use of that," Alasoadura said.