The National Union of Local
Government Employees (NULGE) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to ignore the
petition written by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) to stop the
implementation of guidelines set by the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU)
on local government funds.
Ibrahim Khaleel, national
president of NULGE, communicated the union’s position in a petition written by
the national executive council of the union, on Thursday.
It said the guidelines from NFIU
was a bold move to end financial recklessness by governors “feasting on funds”
for the 774 local government areas.
The NFIU had on May 6 announced
new guidelines which would make the joint account system currently in use by
state and local governments only exist for the receipt of allocations from the
federation account but not for disbursement.
By that, governors could lose
control of local government funds.
In reaction to the development,
NGF wrote a petition to Buhari seeking
to stop the guidelines from being implemented.
It claimed that the unit has no
business meddling in how state governments disburse funds to their respective
local governments.
But in its petition, NULGE said
nothing in the guideline indicates that the agency was desirous of encroaching
on the responsibilities of any of the two other tiers of government.
“Our considered opinion is that
it is the governors who have been ganging up to prevent the wishes of the
people of Nigeria to guarantee financial administrative autonomy for the third
tier of government,” the petition read.
“We call on Your Excellency to
ignore the petition of the governors who are behaving like wounded lions
because they see the source of the funds which they have habitually misused and
abused drying up.
“You standing firm with the
downtrodden people in the grass roots, who have endured avariciousness of the
governors over the years, will send the desired message to all that you will
consolidate and win the battle against corruption.”
The NFIU had issued an earlier
warning, asking the governors to steer clear of local government funds
effective from June 1.
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