There were heated discussions following the presentations between local government stakeholders regarding autonomy, corruption, and loyalty to council bosses.
During the technical session II in particular, one of the panellist and former federal permanent secretary, Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, had to calm down tempers as members of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), local government directors, and members of the States Civil Service Commission (SCSC), raised their voices against local government chairmen, who rose to complain about lack of loyalty to them.
The bone of contention was the presentations by the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Jos (UNIJOS), Professor Teresa Nmadu, who spoke on “Human Capital Development and Capacity Utilization at the Grassroots;” and Professor Bonaventure Nkup Haruna, a professor of human capital development at the UNIJOS, who spoke on Motivation and Staff Performance in the Local Government; Theory and Strategy.
Both professors offered a range of advice on making the system work at the grassroots level of government, including staffs motivation, as well as building their capacity in knowledge, skills and worth so that they were not made redundant while local government chairmen source for skilled work outside.
The chairman of Ika North-East Local Government Area of Delta State, Barrister Eborka Francis, raised issues with the sincerity of local government worker in most areas, especially in revenue collection, disclosing that in his area, he has had experience with revenue collectors, who will pocket the proceeds instead of emitting same to the council.
“Revenue collectors are used to cutting corners; they collect and pocket the proceeds. And in these times when we are experiencing dry season in terms of allocations, we cannot continue with them. So we had to engage consultants, who are skilled and honest to collect ad remit revenue. Now the local government workers are not happy,” the chairman from Delta said.
This is just as three chairmen fro Plateau State, namely, Teresa Daniel Azi of Jos-North, and Yohanna Panshak of Kanke, as well as Ezekiel Gomwolk of Mikang, accused local government workers of truancy, corruption, and general indiscipline.
