The governor of Osun State, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has announced the creation of 31 new Local Council Development Areas, LCDAs, by his administration, Premium Times reports.
Aregbesola stated this Tuesday, March 8, 2016 in a state broadcast to the people of the state. He said additional 31 Local Council development Areas, 3 area councils and two administrative offices were created.
Osun State Government workers are being owed over ten months salaries and it is one of the states in a dire financial situation.
The governor said his administration would make judicious use of its revenues in a way that increasing the number of councils will least constitute any financial burden.
Aregbesola also announced the dissolution of the management committees of the existing 30 Local Councils and Area Office, their executive secretaries, deputy executive secretaries, members, special advisers and other functionaries.
The government had sent a request for additional local councils to the state House of Assembly, which later passed the bill.
Speaking on why the state was creating more councils at a time of financial challenges, Aregbesola said his administration had given the decision sufficient consideration, and had put in place measures to cut cost.
He added that the responsibilities of the new councils include bringing development to the people, managing the markets, generating more revenue, amongst others.
The governor said the state would be saving huge cost with the new councils. He said no new appointment would be made as the same number of staff will still run all the councils.
He said the entire local government system would be managed by Council Managers for three months. The managers are to be appointed and deployed by Local Government Service Commission from among the substantive grade level 14 officers in the local governments.
”Many would be wondering and asking: why create more councils at this special time of financial challenges? We have also given sufficient consideration to this. With this new parliamentary system, it will cost less to run the new councils and save a lot of money for the government than in the past.
“The primary responsibilities of our new local government system are sanitation, market management and revenue mobilisation and generation. This is consistent with local government administration worldwide.
“The beauty of this new system is its parliamentary nature, which requires the chairman and the vice chairman to be elected by the councillors from among their own ranks, thereby saving cost,” the governor said.
