The Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Lagos State, Mr. Ben Akabueze, said this while delivering a keynote address at a two-day training programme on planning and budgeting for officials of local government areas (LGAs) in the state at the weekend.
According to him, the state government would continue to churn out policies to achieve the goal.
Akabueze, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the state’s Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Bayo Sodade, urged local government administrators to also develop strategies to grow their IGR so as to be self-sustainable.
“As at 1999, the IGR of Lagos state was about N500 million per month, but today, it is N18 billion per month and we are working towards pushing it to N20 billion. Without determination and our desire not to be too dependent on allocations from the federation account, that will not have happened,” he added.
Speaking to the local government officials, he said: “If you want to plan your economy, you have to make sure that your IGR is strong to the extent that whatever happens at the federal level, you will be self-sustainable at the local government level.
“That is why I am not happy when those at the local government level complain that what they get from the federal and states are poor. We should always develop our IGR. As a result of lack of political will, the local governments are not generating enough revenues as expected.”
Earlier, the Team Leader, State Accountability and Voice Initiative (SAVI), Mr. Felix Obanubi, said the programme was aimed at cascading the Public Finance Management (PFM) reform at the states, down to the third tier of government, in order to ensure a more effective service delivery and also to improve the implementation of the Lagos State Development Plan.
“High performance management is the combination of people, processes, skills and infrastructure that allows agencies makes significant strides in improving their performance.
“In public institutions like the LGAs, the closest to the people, performance deals with increasing public value produced by public sector organisations in the short and long term,” he declared.
On his part, the Team Leader, State Partnership for Accountability, Responsiveness and Capability (SPARC), Mr. Austin Ndiokwelu, said one of the targets of the state was to increase transparency in the fiscal relationship between the state and local governments.
Source: Thisday
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