By Mfonobong UKPONG
Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly Committee on Appropriation and Finance has commenced the scrutiny of the 2017 budgetary estimates of the 31 local government councils in the state.
The exercise which commenced today, Wednesday at the Conference room of the House of Assembly will be rounded off on Friday when the all the local government councils are expected to conclude their budget defense session before the Finance and Appropriation Committee of the state Assembly. Appearing before the committee, The Heads of local government service, Directors of Budget, Directors of Finance and Internal Auditors of Oron, Nsit Ubium, Eket, Itu, Mbo and ONNA local government Councils briefed the lawmakers on the summary of the 2017 estimates of their respective councils, and also highlighted the performance of their budget in the year 2016.
The exercise is in line with the legislative powers of the State House of Assembly as provided for by the constitution of Nigeria.
The House of Assembly will however cease to exercise such function over the councils when the local government election would be conducted with the emergence of Chairmen and Councilors who will be running the executive and legislative arm at the third tier of government.
Chairman of the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Dr Usoro Akpanusoh, explained that the exercise was in sync with the local government administration law which prohibits spending of funds by councils without approval of the legislature.
He frowned at the current trend where the local councils depends solely on federal allocation for survival, and kicked against their approach of always making projections with expected funds from federal allocation. The Ibeno/Esit-Eket lawmaker advised council administrators to look inwards and device means of boosting internally sources of revenue generation to enable them discharge their responsibilities effectively.
Vice Chairman of the Committee, Barrister Ime Okon, also harped on the need for the local government councils to improve on their internally generated revenue. Other members of the committee, including Rt. Hon. Friday Iwok, tasked them against churning out policy thrusts that are not achievable while Hon. Samuel Ufuo in his observation called on administrators at the third tier of government to produce budget estimates that are realistic.
