BY DAUD OLATUNJI

ABEOKUTA—The Committee for Defence of Human Rights, CDHR, in Ogun State,  yesterday, invited operatives of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and Independent  Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission,  to probe alleged diversion of  funds  allocated to some local governments in the state.

The group also demanded a statement of appropriated Federal allocation, Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, statement of expenditure and a document of projects activities embarked upon by the local governments including Abeokuta South between July 2012 and April 2014.

Chairman of the CDHR in the state, Folarin Olayinka, at a briefing in Abeokuta, named some of the affected local government areas to include Abeokuta South, Abeokuta North, Sagamu, Ifo , Ado/OdoOta, Ijebu-Ode and Odogbolu.

He said the affected councils had been compelled to make their books available for scrutiny through the Freedom of Information, FOI, Act, saying “Following several reports of fund diversion and non-performance of over 85 per cent local governments in Ogun State and incommensurate projects and activities executed to the Federal Allocation released so far prompted CDHR to demand for those documents. We therefore use this medium to make clarion call on the anti-graft agencies; EFCC and ICPC to step in and salvage the local government situation in Ogun State as fund diversion has become the order of the day by some local governments chairmen.”

The CDHR, however, condemned the response by Abeokuta South local government, which it claimed said the FOI had not been domesticated in the state.

Reacting, Ogun State Government said none of the local governments was buoyant enough to pay its staff salaries, let alone siphon funds allocated to the council.

Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Muyiwa Oladapo, said for the past eight months the federal allocation had been dwindling to N2.9bn which he said was less than N3.2 billion the state government used to pay salaries of teachers and local government staff.

According to him, “I wonder how local governments chairmen can siphon the council fund when the fund was not even enough to pay the staff salaries.”

Also corroborating the commissioner, the supervisor for information in Abeokuta South local government, Oluwole Sunday, said the CDHR did not go through normal procedure before it could get the document.