Senate Abolishes State, LG Joint Account

Reduces Extra-Budget Spending Of President, Governor * Empowers INEC To Deregister Political Parties * Wants Constituency Projects Mandatory In National Budget * Creates Office Of Elected Mayor In Abuja Rotimi Akinwumi Abuja – The Senate Committee on Constitution Review on Thursday disclosed that it has proposed the cancellation of the controversial state and local governments' joint account. The committee also proposed a reduction in the power of a president or governor to spend money without an approved budget from six months to three months. Also, express power was given to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister political parties that failed to win a single seat at any election across the country. Presenting the report to the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, Deputy President of the Senate and chairman, Senate Committee on Constitution Review, also said that the committee adopted the recommendation to create a mayoral seat for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. At its inauguration on January 13, 2016, the committee was given an express mandate to reprocess the aspects of the Fourth Alteration Bill that had gained national consensus and enjoyed huge good-will from the general public, states, non-governmental organisations and international development organisations. However, Ekweremadu disclosed that the report will not be presented for debate as its counterpart in the House of Representatives is yet to finish its own job. The House of Representatives committee, he said, will hold a retreat in Abeokuta next week to put finishing touches to its work, which will then be harmonised with what the Senate has done. The harmonised report, he said, will be the one to be presented to the Senate for consideration. The committee also made series of recommendations as to how local government administration in the country can be strengthened. The Deputy Senate President disclosed that Section 7 of the constitution was amended to provide for uniform three-year tenure for elected local government officials. He also disclosed that the committee proposed that local governments without democratically elected officials shall not be entitled to any revenue from the federation account. Members of the committee, he said, believed that the amendments will ensure effective service delivery and insulate local governments from undue and counter-productive interferences from state governments. On the contentious pool account, he said that Section 162 of the constitution was amended to "provide for national savings of 50% of oil revenues above the benchmark for a particular year and 10% of any non-oil revenue paid into the federation account; or such other percentage not less than that provided in this section as the National Assembly may determine in the Appropriation Act of a particular year." The draft amendment also provides that "any such savings as stipulated in this section will be distributed in accordance with the prevailing revenue sharing formula and in accordance with the provisions of the constitution provided that the savings shall not be distributed in any period less than ten years from the date of a particular savings". He explained that the draft amendment was to abrogate the state joint local government account and make it mandatory for money due to local government councils to be paid directly into their respective accounts. Clarification was made by the committee on what the local government should be entitled to as it defined the fund of the state government as "that is, internally generated revenue from which a portion shall be paid into the local government allocation account." On authorisation of expenditure, Ekweremadu said that Sections 82 and 122 of the constitution were amended to reduce the period within which the president or a governor may authorise the withdrawal of monies from the consolidated revenue fund in the absence of an Appropriation Act from six months to three m