By George Onah
Port Harcourt— Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, ALGON, has said the declining opportunities and avenue to improve on internally generated revenue, IGR, across the 774 local governments in the country has become worrisome and needed to be tackled urgently to save some councils from economic collapse.

Consequently, the group, in collaboration with Corporate Management Consult, has organised a forum for the leadership of the councils to meet with a view to exploring options to generate more revenue which, they said “is essential for the actualisation of developmental programmes for the benefit of the populace.”

While speaking to newsmen in Port Harcourt, weekend, Principal Consultant of the outfit, Mr. Clement Akanibo, said there were many areas and avenues to generate revenue internally in all local governments.

Akanibo said the present practise in some areas where thugs are applied to generate revenue on the highway was negative and counter-productive to the economy of those councils.

He said there must be decorum in collecting internally generated revenue.

He said there was the need for local governments to engage in private, public, partnership with a view to beefing up their revenues, pointing out that “some councils do not know about information and communication technology, ICT.”