The Kaduna State government has explained how its 23 local government councils secured the Local Government Fiscal, Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability Programme (LFTAS) grant of N152 million aimed at supporting each of the councils to develop capacity and improve governance.
The state government yesterday said it capped a maximum amount of 20 Million per LGA with an aggregate of N460 million for the state’s 23 councils which earned them a total of N152 million.
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Using a scoring method, the Permanent Secretary, Planning and Budget Commission, Hajiya Umma Aboki, told Daily Trust that the state and LGAs drew up thematic areas that needed improvement which can be measured, adding that the areas include budget preparation processes, adherence to policy documents, strengthening of internally generated revenue collection, improved public procurement systems and reduced payroll frauds as well as tackling absenteeism and nonchalant attitude of primary school teachers and health workers.
She said after that, an independent verification agency had been brought in to assess the performance of the local government councils which she described as a “transparent and engaging process.”
Hajiya Umma said: “The LGA that came first got about N9.9 million; so first there is still a lot of work to do because that is just about 50% of what was apportioned for each of the LGA’s. The total money that was aggregated was N460 million out of which they were assessed for their performance and they were able to obtain N152 million which we paid.”
She said the objective of LFTAS is to strengthen the fiscal performance at local government levels, to improve inter-governmental fiscal coordination by supporting the practice of fiscal behaviour and standard across the 23 local government areas of the state as well as reduce the fiscal risk that may come to the state government with respect to what the local government do as well as their performance across governance and implementation of their budgets.
