EMPOWERING THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT COUNCILS IN THEIR INTERNALLY GENERATED REVENUE IN ENUGU STATE

The history of local government is closely tied up with the history of British colonialism in the country. It represented a system of indirect rule, which aimed at establishing a form of local Administration through traditional authorities. According to the 1979 National Guideline on local Government Reforms defined Local Government as: “Government at the grassroots level exercised through representative councils, established by law to exercised specific powers within defined area”. The united nation office of public administration defines local government as:- “A political sub-division of a nation which is constituted by law and has substantial control of local affaires including the power to impose taxes or to ax act labour for prescribed purpose”. Ola F.R. (2017).
The native authorities provided a form of stable local government which strengthened the base of the colonial government. It is worthy of note, that no central government can successfully carry on administration. Wholly from the capital trough the civil servants of the headquarters. In the light of this, the need for a form of decentralization such that will enable the government to reach out to the people at the grassroots level became necessary. From the point of view, it could be inferred that local governments are expected to bring political and economic changes to the majority of Nigerian who are residing at the local government areas. But what is the position today? It is expected role of economic and social transformation of local government that necessitated the decision of federal government of Nigeria to increase the share of local government in federal account from 10% to 20% in addition to their internally generated revenue to make them financially viable.
The unwarranted financial interference of state government coupled with the corrupt activities of elected and appointed chairman of local government, who have but locked the local government treasury, without carrying out even a single capital project for the benefit of the community in the past four years, have brought local government administrations in Nigeria to their knees. This term paper is aimed at finding out new and improve revenue items other than the conventional ones, thus empowering the local government councils with more fund to project implementation. These new revenue items will replace the statutory allocations to the local governments when our oil wells dry up. So that the statutory functions of paying salaries and other overhead costs, in addition to other developments at the grass root will be achieved.
The problem is how to generate enough internally generated revenue in Enugu State Local Government councils to provide food, drinking water and decent accommodation for people. The provision of good roads, health facilities and educational infrastructures are paramount. The inability of the 17 local governments in Enugu State to provide employment, security, social welfare services and infant any meaningful development at the grassroots inspite of hug monthly allocations made to them, is now a source of great concern to all well meaning Nigerians and the federal government to as the non performance of local government as a third tier of government. The continue looting of local government funds by the chairmen and other statutory officers is a key issue to the problem. This research work will attempt the highlight the alternative to statutory allocations as revenue to local government as well as financial and other control regulations to be put in place to enhance effective and efficient revenue generation and empower the local government with enough resources for development.
1. Appraising The extent of adequacy of resources in Enugu State Local government councils for effective revenue generation.
2. Find the extent to which objective of the Enugu state local government councils are being achieved.
3.Highlighting how communication gap among Enugu state local government councils staff affect the productivity.
4. Showing areas where the local government councils can improve on revenue generation.
The significance of this research work shall be to highlight the consequences of improved internally generated revenue for the local government system in Nigeria and Enugu state local government in particular. Authorities in local government matters have made it clear that effective and efficient local government administration depends on financial resources available to such individual local authority.
The study will also pin point to all involved in local administration for these to be less incidence of rate and fees evasion; funds collected from these resources should be channeled to the improvement of the life of the people. Nobody shall be willing to pay tax. When there is no meaningful rejects embarked upon by the local government authorities to justify such payments by the populace. Therefore the incidence of tax evasion could be linked to back of improved standards of living in the way of provision of social amenities by the local government councils. Furthermore, the study will also provide a means through which mismanagement and outright looting of local government funds would be reduced. With thus, there would be more funds available for development. The work will be of immense help to the elected or appointed chairman, that as the chief accounting officers of their councils, they would imbibe the spirit of more work for more pay and make accountability their watch word in their handling of local government funds.