The Niger State House of Assembly has approved N65.5 billion as the local government budget for the 2020 fiscal year with N45.9 billion for recurrent expenditure and N19.6 capital expenditure.
The approval was granted on Tuesday.
The recurrent expenditure includes N18.5 billion for personnel cost, N8.2 billion for overhead cost and N19 billion for consolidated fund charges, while the capital expenditure includes N4 billion counterpart funding and N15.5 distributable capital.
The Assembly approved the local government budget after the Joint House Committee on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs and Planning and Appropriation presented their report on the estimates for the 25 local government councils during plenary on Tuesday.
Making the presentation, the Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Shuaibu Liman Iya, observed that some local government councils in the state are not performing optimally in terms of revenue generation due to the security challenges being faced by some of them.
He, however, stressed the need for the Councils to work hard in expanding and improving their revenue base in order to generate more resources for their developmental projects, notwithstanding the security challenges.
Iya further observed that the problem bedevilling the level of performance of capital project in local government is the huge salary wage bill of the council, adding that there are so many workers that do not have schedule of duties.
He said: “There are so many workers in the local government areas that do not have schedule of duties.
“This is the problem bedevilling the local government councils in the state and if we say we should purge any of them or decide to reduce the size of the staff, it will raise another political issue.”
The Committee Chairman further said it was also observed that most local government councils undertake projects without giving effect to the laid down procedures, while the majority are planning of embarking on projects that have religious bearing, stressing that no local government council should embark on projects such as mosques and churches.
It was recommended that local government councils should not undertake projects that are within the jurisdiction of the State or Federal Governments, but they should restrict themselves to their constitutional responsibility.
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