LGAs Wins Right to Self-Manage Funds
The Supreme Court gives LGS financial management autonomy.
The Supreme Court has declared that state governors' attempts to withhold money intended for local government administrations are illegal.
The highest court declared that each of the 774 local government councils in the nation should independently handle its own finances in the lead ruling that was handed down on Thursday, July 11. Justice Emmanuel Agim delivered the judgment.
A major judicial win was achieved by the Federal Government and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU) in June against state governors in a dispute concerning the financial independence of local government joint accounts.
The Federal High Court's Justice Inyang Ekwo's decision was a turning point in the fight for increased financial accountability and local government authority.
The NFIU published a series of rules in June 2019 with the intention of reducing the crime vulnerabilities linked to cash withdrawals by different State Governments from local government accounts. This was the start of the debate.
These rules were a part of a larger initiative to improve money laundering prevention and financial controls. The NFIU directed banks to refuse to accept transactions from joint accounts and to limit the usage of the accounts to receiving money and then transferring it to local government accounts.
In response, the Nigerian Governors Foru (NGF), filed a lawsuit against the Federal Government and the NFIU, claiming that the guidelines violated the State Governments' constitutional rights.
The NGF argued that the NFIU's intervention was unlawful since the 1999 Constitution gives states the right to oversee Local Government finances.
0 Comments