Gombe State Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General, Barrister Zubairu Umar, on Thursday said the state prior to the judgement has been allowing Local Government Areas to control their allocations.
According to him, the state has conducted LG poll, stressing that the council bosses have been controlling their monies.
Umar in an interview with our correspondent, made these disclosures while reacting to the Supreme Court’s judgement granting LGAs full financial autonomy.
He said, “It will not affect us (Gombe) in any way because we have been complying with the constitution. We release monies to the local governments, we have conducted LGA elections. We don’t have a problem. We usually release their monies to them they control their monies.”
Umar disclosed that the state has a joint project council that allows LGAs to contribute to a pool for projects affecting them, adding “when we have joint projects where we want their participation, they partner in constructing bridges, roads we sir with all of them under the joint project council to decide percentage of contributions from state and local government in the construction of a particular project for example we have a bridge connecting Nafada-Dukku-Funakaye, all the three LGAs including the state government contributed jointly to construct the bridge.”
The Commissioner added, “Gombe has been operating within the confines of the constitution giving the money to the local governments, we dont have any problem. It’s a welcome development.we welcome it 100 per cent.”
