Ekiti Assembly orders suspended LG chairs to refund N3.6bn

The recently suspended 16 local government chairmen in Ekiti state have been ordered by the state House of Assembly to refund the sum of N3.6 billion allegedly misappropriated.

This is coming as the report of a panel to investigate the chairmen indicted them of various financial misappropriation of public fund.

The decision was taken during the valedictory session of the fifth assembly on Tuesday.

The lawmaker representing Ikere Constituency II, Mr Sunday Akinniyi, on Monday presented the report of the House Committee on Public Account, which recommended sanctions for the local government chairmen.

In the move to oppose the report the PDP lawmakers in the House countered the recommendation.

But the lawmakers were overruled by the Speaker, Adeniran Alagbada, who asserted that the chairmen went too far in their actions.

Alagbada cited an example of his local government, Ise/Orun, where over N300m was set aside for the building of a secretariat, but the contract was not executed.

Going further, the assembly also screened and confirmed the nomination of chairmen and members of three commissions nominated by Governor Kayode Fayemi.

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The commissions are House of Assembly Service Commission chaired by Chief Taiwo Olatunbosun; Civil Service Commission headed by Mr Bunmi Famosanya and State Independent Electoral Commission with Justice Jide Aladejana as chairman.

Alagbada congratulated the appointees and urged them to justify the confidence reposed in them.

Recall that the16 local government chairmen and their 177 councillors were placed on indefinite suspension by the State House of Assembly last year.

The Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Gboyega Aribisogan, announced the indefinite suspension.

He said the suspension was one of the resolutions adopted after the House had debated on the report submitted to it on the recent investigation into the finances of all the local government councils.

According to him, the committee’s report exposed a great deal of corruption and other sharp practices to the detriment of the people of the council areas.

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