By; DEKERA NICHOLAS, Kaduna
Taraba State House of Assembly on Wednesday failed to pass the bill to alter the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria which seeks to abrogate the state joint local government account and give the local government financial autonomy.
The house which passed 10 of the amendments, referred the local
government autonomy bill along side four others to the House Ad-hoc committee on constitutional amendment for further legislative work.
The local government autonomy bill which is third on the list of the
bills sent to the State Houses of Assembly for concurrence also seek
to empower each local government council to maintain its own special account to be called Local Government Allocation Account.
If passed along side 23 other State Houses of Assembly, the bill would have made it mandatory for all allocations due to the local government council paid directly from the federation account.
However, members unanimously passed the bill seeking to provide for the funding of the State Houses of Assembly directly from the
consolidated revenue fund of the state as well as immunity of members in respect of spoken or written words during plenary.
Speaker of the House, Hon. Abel Diah applauded members for the work done on the constitutional amendment bills sent to them by the National Assembly for concurrence.
He explained that the five bills referred to the committee contained
issues that required the inputs of the people of Taraba, assuring that the House will take a position on them after hearing from the people of the state.
“There is no genuine process of restructuring than this constitutional amendment we are doing and I want to urge Tarabans to lend their voices on the bills we referred to them to be part of the process,” he said.
