Poverty: Senate mulls establishment of investment platforms for LGAs

ABUJA—THE Senate Committee on States and Local Government Administration, has expressed worry over the increasing poverty index in the country, lamenting that the development is putting great pressure on the political actors at the local levels.

Consequently, the committee and some critical stakeholders in the private sector are proposing an establishment of investment basket aimed at reducing poverty especially at the local government areas.

Chairman, Senate committee on State and Local Government Administration, Senator Olalekan Mustapha disclosed this at the local government economic summit organized by the Senate Committee in collaboration with Civi-Pact in Abuja, with the theme, “Local Government System Resilience for Sustainable Development”.

Senator Mustapha in his address said that the summit was conceived to foster a common ground for local government stakcholders on critical political economic issues affecting the country’s national life.

He said, “The Challenges of poverty in Nigeria needs an objective and collective approach,” adding that in the globalised world of today, Local governments are fundamentally empowered to attend to the basic needs of people be it economical, Social and political.

According to him, “Our experiences of Nigeria Local Government system so far, shows that despite the constitutional provisions; the local government system has inherent weaknesses interms of provisions of basic needs for her people or rather in terms of creating enabling environment for socio-economic life of rural Nigerian to thrive.

“The poverty index is constantly on the increase with unimaginable pressure on the political actors at the local levels. Today in our national life, a mere construction of Culvert, rural feeder roads and other basic infrastructure has become extremely difficult for local government administrators to execute.

“The payment of salary at the local level which is the primary role of local governments existence has become a mirage toady; the old glory of local government system in Nigeria has gradually been eroded,

“The Local government system in Nigeria has neither political freedom nor economic freedom. The Institutions has become disarticulated and thus bring about hopelessness and surge in poverty indices. In the historical development of China, rural economic activities coordinated by their municipals and provinces were the cradle of their economic development.

“If we dare to leverage on our natural resources and population and with selflessness in our national life, we will surely recreate and regenerate our socio-economic life.”

He said that the recent commitment of federal government and state governors to lift 100 million Nigerians from poverty in the next five years was a welcome idea.

He, however, said that “such intervention could be utopian or unideal without a robust local government system that can recalibrate herself to the realities of the socio- economic needs of her people.

“It is on the above premise, that multi-local cooperation among the local governments has become one of the few options to poverty reduction and economic prosperity in Nigeria.

“By having a Pool InvestmentBasket for Local Governments in Nigeria; they are going to attenuate the structure of the economy over time.

“Despite the precarious economic challenges and the unnecessary interference the constitutional duties of local governments in Nigeria; a monthly, quarterly and yearly contributions to the funds will be a great leap forward for our shared prosperity and turn the commitment to a multi-billion investment in the nearest future.

“We are looking at investment platform that is private sector driven, multilateral institutions inclined and rural economy centered without any political interferences from any quarter.”

Senator Mustapha further said that credit to rural economy has been extremely difficult, adding that creation of Rural Credit Guarantee Scheme, RCGS, proposed by the summit working group will solve myriad of challenges faced by the rural economy.

“At the Senate level, we firmly believe that the outcome of our gathering today will positively impact on the future prosperity of our great country,” he said.

In his welcome address, the Executive Director, Civi-Pact, Comrade Muhammed Strong stated that the local government administration is closer to the grassroots than any other tier of government

He said that making the local government areas viable would impact positively on the economic development of the country.

Comrade Strong noted that due to lack of funding of local government administration in the country, some council chairmen hardly stay in their offices because of the financial demands of their people on daily basis.

“To us at Civi-Pact and the Summit Group, organized investment basket for local government is the solution,” he said.