From Grandball Joel
The chairman of Ughelli South Local Government Area, Evang. Paul Etaga has disclosed that his administration inherited the sum tune of Four Hundred million naira, N400m and Forty-five million naira, N45m overdraft from his predecessor.
Etaga gave this hint when members of Ughelli Correspondent chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, (NUJ) paid him a courtesy visit at his office.
According to him, “When we were campaigning, there were lots of promises but it very unfortunate that the way we saw it, didn’t go like that and as public servant, it is my duty to be answerable to everybody because if you don’t inform them of what is at stake they may not know.
“Ughelli South as a local government is owing contractors the sum of N400 million and I also inherited 45million bank overdraft from my predecessor and been a terminal local government, no source of Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, and there are litigations.
Speaking further, Etaga said, “The federal government is taking about 50-55 percent of the local government revenue and we are not seeing of its projects at the local level, in Ughelli South, no federal project rather, it is the state and local government projects we have here.”
“The projects at the national should be allocated to the local governments so that, they can come and monitor these projects. This local government is a terminal local one and is the largest in Delta State just it will interest you to know that there is no single bank either commercial or government owned, nothing is happening here.”
While commending the federal government for the release of the Paris club fund refund, he said, it has helped in a little way in payment of salaries though it is not enough as expected but it reduces the tension a little because the money coming is not even enough to pay primary schools teachers’ salaries and the 29 Primary Health Centers we have.
“We only go into partnership with private sector to set up the Otokutu market where we do realize a paltry sum of N400.000 on a yearly basic which is not even enough to run the council for a week.”
