Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Kwara State has commended the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Ali Ahmad, for having the courage to call for finan­cial autonomy for local gov­ernments in the state.

The state government had mandated local govern­ments to operate a joint ac­count system.

The move pooled the six­teen local governments' fi­nancial and developmental activities together in one channel and projects were only done at the instance of the state government.

Chairman of PDP in the state, Akogun Iyiola Oyede­po and his Publicity Secre­tary, Chief Rex Olawoye on a weekly radio programme; 'PDP Gb'ode' monitored by National Mirror correspondent on Ra­dio Nigeria, Harmony FM, Idofian, said it was gratifying that the Speaker public­ly announced his decision.

According to the PDP chieftains, that the Speaker was able to boldly declare that the legislative house that he leads would see to it that local governments in the state enjoyed their autonomies, particularly their finances, was highly commendable.

They argued that joint accounting system, which the council areas were be­ing forced to operate, had not been of any good to the people at the grassroots lev­els.

Oyedepo argued that governors, irrespective of their parties, "either PDP or APC derived pleasures in controlling the finances of local governments in their states because that provid­ed them with the golden op­portunity to freely tamper with the funds meant for governance at the third tier level."

The party chief fur­ther argued that while the House of Representatives readily approved the mo­tion for local government autonomy, the Senate re­fused because "Nigerian senators have the culture of recycling themselves into either the governor­ship of their states or the red chamber, randomly."

He also praised the Speaker for allegedly ask­ing questions as to why there were not enough teachers in primary schools in the state, more so, when N1.2bn is being credited into the accounts of SUBEB every month as deductions from local gov­ernment allocations, with only N750m spent on teach­ers monthly.

The two party chief­tains, however, commend­ed the state government for paying workers' salaries and pleaded that the same gesture should be extended to local government staff, pensioners, lecturers in tertiary institutions and the State Water Board.