A call has gone to the Executive Governor of Imo State, Rt. Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, to address the fundamentals of good governance, accountability, adherence to due process and sincerity which are essential features needed to achieve the ideals of Rebuild Imo program.
Making particular reference to Owerri West Local Government Area of the State, Infotrust reliably gathered that the Local Government Council is being financially fleeced by the Interim Management Committee (IMC) inaugurated by the State Governor recently.
In a letter, addressed to the Governor through the Senior Special Assistant on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, the LGA’s finances, revenue and funds had been placed in the dark. Some of the highlights of the opaque and highly suspicious practices going on in the Owerri West LGA Interim Management Committee includes the hoarding of information regarding revenue, funding and financial entitlements, receipts and sources. The Chairman of the IMC is also being accused of unilaterally operating the Council’s administration as a sole administrator as well as not disclosing the sum received by the LGA as monthly allocation from the Fedceration Accounts.
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It is further alleged that the name of the State’s Governor is often intermittently used to indicate approval being obtained for clandestine contracts and contracts. Other members of the IMC are cowed into believing that certain decisions are decided from the Governor’s office and thus not subject LGA IMC inputs.
With the sum of over Four Hundred Million Naira (N400,000,000.00) having been received from the Federation Account as its entitlement, the Owerri West LGA IMC has little or nothing to show for its stewardship to the people.
Consequently, the people of the Local Government Area in particular and the state at large might have been severely shortchanged as they yet to feel any impact from the direct allocation to Local Government Councils embarked upon by the Federal Government as well as the State’s Government effort at ensuring a bottoms-up grassroots focused positive change in the lives of indigenes and residents of the State.
To check the abnormalities as being perpetrated by the IMC in the Owerri West LGA, the Imo State Government is urged as a matter of utmost emergency to look into the worrisome state affairs in the management of the Owerri West Local Government Area by its Interim Management Committee to forestall glaring acts of financial improprieties and misconducts capable of impoverishing the people of the Area
