Date: 2020-07-16

The Kwara State House of Assembly on Wednesday set up a committee to probe the finances of the sixteen local government councils in the state.

DAILY POST reports that the action by the state legislature is coming on the heels of the request by Governor Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq.

The governor had on Tuesday appealed to the House as representatives of the people with oversight functions to investigate allocations of funds to the local councils and how they were spent from May 2019 to date.

Rumours of alleged financial misconduct had been circulating for some weeks in the state prompting the governor to invite the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate the matter.

Governor Abdulrazaq also hinted that another panel with members from different backgrounds would be set up to conduct the same exercise in the bid to get to the root of the matter.

A statement by the spokesman for the governor, Rafiu Ajakaye in Ilorin on Tuesday, quoted the governor as saying the action by the government had become " necessary in view of the outrageous claims by some persons that money to the tune of N300m was diverted monthly from local governments accounts."

'The administration feels this deserves to be probed and laid to rest because governance is about public trust," the statement added.

Governor Abdulrazaq while appealing to the state legislature to dig into the matter said: "he would not be found mismanaging or siphoning public funds.'"

He asserted that "local government councils should be allowed to manage their own funds with minimal or no supervision by the state as the law may allow."

Governor Abdulrazaq warned that "any official found to have diverted or mismanaged public funds under his watch would be made to account for the same as prescribed by the law."