State governments say money meant
to build roads, schools, hospitals are now being used to fund and support
federal government institutions, especially security agencies.
Speaking on behalf of his
colleagues at the inauguration of permanent standing committee on
inter-governmental affairs by Boss Mustapha, secretary to the government of the
federation, Balarabe Lawal, secretary to the state government of Kaduna,
wondered how the federal government with a bigger budget expects states to fund
all the agencies domiciled in their states.
He called on the government at
the center to address the problem of funding or stipulate the role of state
governments in the various programmes.
“At the state level, we have been
complaining that the the federal government is quite remote to us. The meetings
we normally have with SGF doesn’t give us enough opportunity to get across to
the ministries like we do now,” he said.
“I think we can now interact with
them and raise some issues we think can be taken care of. For example, I’m sure
most of my colleagues will agree with me on this, when you go back to states,
we shoulder a lot of federal government programmes, in the area of security and
other services, you find that the funding from federal government is usually
very low.
“So we have tried to find out
what is happening. They have a bigger budget but you find that all the agencies
of federal government normally come to the states asking for one thing or the
other. I have been raising it with the SGF that we have to sit down and find
out what is happening. Are the agencies not being funded or they expect the
state government for fund them?
“Particularly in the area of
security which I feel very strongly, this committee should include
representatives of the security agencies. This committee, I strongly believe
can serve a very important purpose from what we call cross cutting relationship
between the federal government, states and local government.
“I’m happy this committee is
taking off because I thought that there was nothing like this before now that
we can come here and voice our own complains. We have to sit and find out how
federal agencies in the states are being funded or are they not being funded?
They are always coming to us to say we should do this or that for them.
Particularly in the area of security we are spending a lot – police, army,
navy, civil defence, all of them.
“They will tell us that their
overhead is N60,000 a month which we think is impossible to carry them along.
The police apart from the salaries come to us for almost everything they need.
This committee is important. I think you need to listen to us because we are
carrying the burden of the federal government and it is now telling on our
infrastructure development. The money meant to build roads, schools, hospitals
is now being diverted to fund and support federal government institutions. I
think it is important for us to sit down and look at these issues.
“We hope the committee will be
sustained because previous ones after the first meeting die naturally.”
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