A Council Chairman in Ekiti State, Mrs Sade Akinrinmola , has criticized those mulling the scrapping of 774 local governments in the country to bury the thought, saying the tier remains the most potent weapon the nation can deploy to tackle poverty in the system.
Akinrinmola, who is the chairman of Gbonyin local government, said rather than scrapping the tier, government should reinforce finances to the sector to reduce redundancy and make it a reliable force to provide infrastructure and attend to the needs of the grassroots.
She spoke in Ode Ekiti , headquarters of the council area on Tuesday during a ceremony marking her 100 days in office and presentation of the 2016 budget before the legislative arm.
During the ceremony, scores of indigent residents were offered free health services, while two disabled were presented with N1m worth of solar-power charging point as empowerment.
The Council boss said: “The state and federal governments cannot do it all. The council can be supported with more funds by Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission to help in fighting poverty.
“LGs are not redundant as they claimed to be. It is always very difficult for development to spread from the centre to the remote or extreme centres, but when you begin from the extreme, people will get better. So, scrapping council areas will aggravate poverty level in Nigeria,” she warned.
At the free medical intervention held at the palace of Olode of Ode Ekiti, Akinrimola, who regretted the low life expectancy in the country, said her government had begun a health programme tagged ‘’Ilera Laafin’’ to be able to offer medical assistance to royal fathers and indigent residents of the council.
She added that she had been providing medical facilities in the health centres across the council for improved medical care, saying over 80% of the babies in that council were delivered in those facilities.
Akinrinmola promised to execute the 2016 budget to meet its cardinal objective of providing basic amenities in rural areas and the grading of rural roads to ease transportation of farm products to urban centres.
“We will empower our farmers. We will give them empowerment in terms subsidized farm implement and provision of seedlings for improved farming. We are working with the State Ministry of Agriculture on how to help our youths in commercial agriculture .
“We will also expose them to every opportunity coming from the federal government, so that they can be better off as commercial farmers and become employers of labour rather than job seekers,” she promised.
Comentarios