My administration has blocked LGs’ revenue leakages — Gaidam
Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe State says his administration has blocked leakages in revenues and finances of the 17 local governments, making them solvent for service delivery.
He said the reforms, being implemented by his administration, enabled the local governments to promptly pay their workers’ salaries, pensions and gratuities as well as execute developmental projects.
Gaidam spoke yesterday at the commencement of a four-day retreat with the theme “Improving the Goal Setting Processes in Local Governments in Yobe State”, organised by the state’s Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in conjunction with Superlative Consults.
He said that when he took over as governor, some of the local governments in the state were unable to even pay workers’ salaries and could not provide social services.
“We also got the LGs to develop work plans for the execution of various developmental projects. The first approval I gave for the implementation of such work plans was for N5.1 billion. Many work plans followed and in the most recent one, some of the LGs got an approval of between N400 million and N500 million on the basis of the capacity of each of the local government councils.
“Some of the projects under this work plan have already been fully completed and paid. There is sanity in the local government system in the state now” and that “all leakages have been blocked. We will continue to block any new leakages that might crop up in the future”, he said.
The governor said reforms instituted by his administration had enabled the state to execute capital projects without resorting to loans from financial institutions.