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The Presidential Implementation Committee on Financial Autonomy for the Judiciary and Legislature has urged governors to comply with the Executive Order 10.
This, it said, would enable effective implementation of the financial autonomy of states’ legislature and judiciary, guaranteed by the Executive Order 10.
The committee’s secretary, Sen. Ita Enang, who briefed newsmen in Abuja yesterday, recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari signed the executive order for the implementation of autonomy of the two arms of government.
Executive Order 10 granted financial autonomy to the 36 states’ Houses of Assembly and judiciary.
Executive Order 10 of 2020 made it mandatory that all states of the federation should include the allocations of both the legislature and the judiciary in the first-line charge of their budgets.
Enang said financial autonomy would facilitate development and promote financial accountability at the state level.
Enang, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, said that the greatest challenge in Nigeria’s democracy today was wastage at the state level, hence the need to address it. He said the executive order would guarantee financial transparency in states.
According to Enang, one important feature of the financial autonomy was that all the three arms of government would prepare their budget together; they would know what the state government had and what it did not have.
“In the budgeting process, they will know how much each of the arms of government will use in settling salaries and allowances of the legislators, paying their aides, legislative staff and office maintenance, among others.
“The governors will no longer be responsible for their expenses, it will also make the house of assembly responsive. So, what the President is doing is to ensure that each state house of assembly is independent, not for the purpose of attacking the governors but for the purpose of checking the executive and making government more responsible and responsive to the yearnings of the people, and development will be faster.
“The governors will know that the judiciary is independent and same with the legislature, these arms of the government need not to get approval from the governors in order to execute their respective duties.”
The secretary also said that the provision stipulated that governors, upon receipt of money due to any arm of government in the consolidated revenue fund of the state from the Federation Account and internally generated revenue, should remit it to the respective arms.
“But where any governor fails to remit the money due to the arms, the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF) will deduct that amount standing to the credit of that state in the Federation Account and remit directly to arms concerned.
“It is important to emphasise that this deduction is not the first line action, but it is only applicable when one arm of the government is oppressed. We are confident that none of the 36 states will in any manner deprive their state legislature or judiciary of the fund that is due to them.
“The implementation committee will be very conciliatory and respectful of the powers of each arm of government at the state level and the powers and privileges of the governors,” Enang said.
He advised that all the arms of government at state level should follow the practice that had been at the federal level for proper accountability: “The state Houses of Assembly should follow the process that goes on in the National Assembly, be as independent, interdependent and consultative as the national assembly is with the executive, then we will have the best democracy.”
