Recently the Gombe State House of Assembly Passed the Joint Projects Development Agency proposed by the Executive Amidst Contestations Barr. Zubair Umar, Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General gives Chima Azubuike insight on the Merit of the Law.
What are the advantages of Joint Development Agency to Gombe State?
The Joint Projects Development law is set out to legalize what has been going on for the past 20 years. Up until now there is nothing like a formal legislation incorporating all the issues that are been tackled jointly by the state and local government and in realization of some of the deficiencies, to make it more advanced and better than it is, that propelled this administration to say let’s have a legislation on that. In the present law we are making it voluntary, no local government will be forced or even persuaded to that I want to participate. Prior to the coming of Inuwa Yahaya’s administration 80% of the LGA’s can’t pay staff salaries and almost all of them were in red. The governor being an Accountant knowing the precarious position of the local governments, the fact that are people are directly under the direct control of the local governments, so he wondered how the dividends of democracy reach this people. From June 2019 till now the governor has put in some measures to block the leakages by making sure that they are not in red, in fact some now have savings. The main idea is after LGA’s have taken care of their recurrent expenditure and deducted some of their mandatories, excess sums in the coffers of the local governments may not be able to offer service to the people, sometimes it may be misused. So the governor thought that since some LGA’s are weak and some others not very strong why don’t we pull resources together, seat around the table and each LGA will present a project that it doesn’t have the capacity to execute. Projects that a local government will not ordinarily be able to execute but with the help and assistance of sister LGA that project can be executed with the contribution of the state government. Fortunately we didn’t factor this in but the House of Assembly (committee) in their wisdom added ideas such that the state emergency management agency will have enough materials and resources to reach out to areas devastated by natural disasters noting that the funds that will accumulate from the joint projects development Agency a certain percentage should be reserved in buying relief materials in the event of an emergency in the state. Another recently introduced idea by the committee is a some form of funding to state security council this will help to tackle boundary clashes, which is part of security challenge. It is a voluntary organization by participating LGA to pull in resources to attend to peculiar needs of local governments when the need arise.
Why is the governor believed to be keen on this bill despite the current attempt by the President to grant autonomy to critical Areas? We welcome the autonomy to be granted, 100% we don’t have any problem with that. In fact we are in the fore front saying let the autonomy be given. No one is taking away the power of the LGA’s and no one is putting his hands in the coffers of the local government. All we are saying is that the practice that has been going on and with our foresight we thought it is not a bad idea if LGA’s who are willing to partner with the state government could bring in their resources, together with the governor and the council chairmen to harmonize priority projects that needs to be handled for a particular LGA and after quantifying it once assessment has been made for instance these two LGA’s needs bridge to be constructed between their two communities.As an LGA If you come and you don’t see any advantage you are free to walk away. During the public hearing I represented the state government and I made a passionate appeal that if not for anything the law should be passed for Gombe and Funakaye LGA’s, I’m from Funakaye, I have a stake in Gombe, I have every right to say am from Nafada, Kwami, and Dukku LGA’s. I can talk on behalf of Gombe North, we know the advantages and we for see what we are going to derive.
Commissioner, but there are Lone voices within Gombe North, who think otherwise about the law? I assure you that there is no person of Gombe, Kwami, Dukku, Funakaye and Nafada that will come out to say he is opposing this law I can assure. No reasonable person would because we know the advantages we are going to accrue from this partnership. We are in political era and to some people everything the government does should be opposed and they are vocal
As we speak we don’t have elected council bosses across the 11 LGA’s, any chance that election will be conducted soon and not be selection? Election will be held for local government, we intend to hold election for local government before this government came on board there was none in existent the state independent electoral commission was not there because their term had expired. The governor recently constituted Gombe state independent electoral commission, we await for the commission to give us the modalities for conducting the election. We have to appreciate the fact that conducting election is capital intensive but with covid-19 which is eating deep into state resources. We intend to hold LGA election, let me assure the people of Gombe that it will be free, fair and credible.
Some have campaigned that this is a conduit for siphoning LGA funds, what is your reaction to this? How are you going to siphon their money when every participating Local Government is meant to be a member of the board of the agency, where they will determine how much each LGA will contribute and if they don’t want they can also indicate.
You have since emphasized that this is a voluntary agency talking about membership, but going by our trend of politics how possible will it be for an LGA boss to say No and not suffer witch hunt ?
No body will be asked to say Yes, the fact is if you want to join you are welcome. It is just like the stock exchange and a company if you want to buy share, you are free to do so. For instance if Gombe, Kwami, Funakaye, Dukku and Nafada LGA’s decide to solely belong to this agency pull resources together with contribution from the state government and fortunately they build resources amenities together. We don’t expect people from Gombe central to cry of marginalization, if you want to manage your money, go and manage it but you can’t start complaining. How can you marginalize someone who is not part of your own scheme and if you are in the scheme you can’t be marginalized because you will be there to monitor that your money is managed judiciously.Take for instance Funakaye says it won’t participate where as Nafada, Kwami, Dukku participated, Funakaye won’t benefit from the various development of the Agency but their political leaders won’t be sincere enough to admit the true reason which is refusal to join but would rather blame it on tribal and religious differences.
Many have said the governor intends to make LGA’s appendage of the State Government, He determines appointment of DG as well as Projects to be sited, and location?
So what is the available alternative, if I criticize something it means I have something better to offer, is it that there should be no body to run the Agency or there should be no one to manage the finances of the Agency. If they want the Accountant or Director General to be imported from abroad they should make it pass through the law. We have some empty barrels and they make the most noise but we are in a democracy they can make their noise we will hear them, listen to their complaints if they have any. This is a flexible government if we formulate a policy and if alternatives are offered we are ready to take that. We have presented our draft bill to the state House of Assembly made up of people who are duly elected by their respective constituency to represent their interest, they have incorporated their observations.
