The Governor of Edo State, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, on Wednesday 4th January, 2023, inaugurated liaison officers for the 18 local governments of the State, at the State’s Government House in Benin City.
While addressing the newly inaugurated officers, Obaseki noted that the liaison officers are to serve as liaisons between the Governor and the various LGAs to keep him regularly updated and to ensure that the councils are self-sufficient before the local government elections are held in few months time.
According to Obaseki, “As you all know, the local governments are very key to our development process. Unfortunately, we have not been able to conduct elections in our local governments. We have had a lacuna in terms of political governance for these local governments. We have had to use civil servants to manage the local governments for over a year, and this is not ideal.
“We expect that we will be able to have elections for the local governments after these series of upcoming elections; but our concern as a government is that we do not want to start another year, leaving the local government unguided in terms of policy direction for government. So we decided that we would appoint liaison officers who report to me directly in each local government to acquaint me of on-goings in the various local government areas.”
Appraising the challenges facing the local governments, Obaseki said: “We had expected that we would have a local government council in place, and I asked that we conducted audits of each Local Government in 2021. One of the challenges we saw from the audit was the inability of the local governments to sustain themselves financially.
“There were about 3 or 4 local governments who cannot cover their salary bills on an ongoing basis; they have very little or no revenue base and very high cost of staff. The local governments are supposed to be independent and self-sufficient.”
The Governor continued: “We believe in the issue of local government autonomy, but you cannot be autonomous if you cannot pay your bills. So for us, local government autonomy means local governments have to be run properly so that they can be self-sufficient.
“These persons we have appointed as my liaison, I believe that their tenure will not last more than 120 days because by then we should have conducted elections. They must be able to give me a report to enable us put our local government on the right footing, so that even when we have a new government coming into the local governments, we the citizens can know how to monitor the performance of these persons.”
While commenting on the responsibilities of the local government councils, Governor Obaseki advocated efficiency and effectiveness from the liaison officers in the discharge out their duties.
Obaseki said: “It is the dry season. We have a long rainy season. This is the time local governments should be able to grade roads and improve access. I need to have a very transparent view of what is going on in each local government; of what it cost to grade roads and how many roads are being graded.
“One of the major issues we will have to deal with is sanitation, because we cannot continue this way. People now just trade in every inch of the right of way. It is the responsibility of the local government to control street trading. The next 90 days, we must make sure we send very clear signals that we must clean, and then before the rains, start to green our state.”
The Governor also noted that the various local governments are supposed to coordinate the security networks in each of their local government area as a review done towards the end of 2022 showed that the local governments are not investing as much support as they should.
In a vote of thanks, on behalf of the newly inaugurated liaison officers, the liaison officer for Orhionmwon Local Government, Hon. Newman Ugiagbe, appreciated the Governor for the opportunity afforded them to serve.
Ugiagbe said: “We are ready to make sure that there is that good synergy between the local government and the state. We will put in our best to be able to make the state proud and make our local governments more viable in the near future. We will do what is needed, and I assure you, on behalf of my colleagues, that the outlined duties will be carried out as soon as possible, and to the best of our ability.”
