Assembly fails to pass local government autonomy bill

The Taraba State House of Assembly yesterday passed 10 amendments to the 1999 constitution but declined to abrogate the state joint local government account.
The local government autonomy bill is one of those sent to the State Houses of Assembly for concurrence.
The bill, if passed into law, will give the third tier of government its financial autonomy, by empowering each local government council in the country to maintain its own special account to be called “Local Government Allocation Account.”
The legislators, however unanimously passed the bill seeking to provide for the funding of the State Houses of Assembly directly from the consolidated revenue fund of the state as well as immunity of members in respect of spoken or written words during plenary.
Speaker Abel Peter Diah applauded members for their work done on the constitutional amendment bills sent to them by the National Assembly for concurrence.
He explained that the five bills referred to the committee contained issues that required the input of the people of Taraba.
“There is no genuine process of restructuring than this constitutional amendment we are doing and I want to urge Tarabans to lend their voices on the bills we referred to them to be part of the process,” the Speaker said.