All LGAs to Start Receiving Direct Funding from Federation Account

Laleye Dipo in Minna

All the 774 local governments in the country are set to start receiving direct funding from the federation account.

Indication to this effect followed all the LGAs opening accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN.

Chairman of the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, Niger State Chapter, Alhaji Ilyasu Zakari, confirmed in Minna last weekend that all the local governments in the country have now opened accounts with the CBN.

Alhaji Ilyasu Zakari who is the chairman of Agwara Local Government Area who spoke to newsmen after attending the Niger State Day at the ongoing 22nd National Trade Fair in Minna said the action has been brought to the notice of the governor’s forum.

“When I had an interaction with the Nigerian Governors Forum, NGF, recently, I told them that all the 774 local governments in the country have opened accounts with the CBN,” Ilyasu Zakari said.

Pressed to say when the direct disbursements to all the local governments will commence Zakari said, “it is a work in progress”

Opening of accounts by the local governments is a compulsory prerequisite for direct disbursements of funds to all the LGAs.

In the meantime, Niger State governor, Alhaji Mohammed Umaru Bago, has approved the deployment of drones across the forests in the state to combat terrorists and bandits hibernating in the forests.

The Commissioner for Investments Alhaji Aminu Sulaiman Takuma who disclosed this while speaking to newsmen in Minna said the step is to ensure the forests are sanitized to encourage potential foreign and local investors to invest in the state.

Niger State is surrounded among others by Kainji Kagara Shiroro forests from where terrorists and bandits have been wreaking havocs on the people of the state and also scaring away investors.

Takuma said: “All these will soon be over as the state will be made conducive for investors after the terrorists have been flushed out.

“There will be no more hiding place for bandits and terrorists anywhere in the state,” the Commissioner said.

He disclosed that a gold mining and processing factory will be established in the state adding that government has already secured the commitment of an Australian firm to fund the project but did not disclose where factory will be located and its cost.

To boost the industrial development of the state the Commissioner said government is also deliberately focusing on the provision of infrastructure in all parts of the state which he submitted would ease the movement of goods and services.