ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTERNAL REVENUE AS IT PROMOTES SOCIAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.

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ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTERNAL REVENUE AS IT PROMOTES SOCIAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.

 

INTRODUCTION

While efforts have been made since 1976 to bring about local government as a tier of government under a three tier federal system, local government administration is still seen as an appendage of the state governments. In spite of the constitutional provision which defined functions and sources of funding of the system, local governments in the country have not been able to extricate themselves from the apron string of state governments.

Funding of local government administration in Nigeria remains a mirage. In spite, of the constitutional provisions and guarantee of funding of local governments from the federation account, local governments in the country operates a joint account with their respective state governments thereby making it difficult if not impossible to discharge their constitutional duties

and responsibilities. State governments’ releases money to local governments only to pay staff salaries and in some instances their staff are owed for months. Yet, financial paucity in local government administration could be blamed on lack of seriousness on the part of local government administrators to explore internal sources of revenue generation. Most local governments in the country are contented with the federal and or state allocations. Thereby serving as a mere distribution outlet for federal and state generated revenues; a situation Suberu (2004) describe as the cost of distributive federalism. In his words, “for a federal system that is dominated by the redistribution of centrally collected revenue, it is hardly surprising that the revenue generation and allocation issue has remained particularly contentious and intractable in Nigeria”.

 

CHAPTER 1

1.1    BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Local government administration through internally generated revenue (IGR) raises revenue to finance development programmes at the grassroots’. This is in addition to the statutory allocation from the federation account. Through such monies, it provide social amenities and services such as pipe born water, boreholes, roads, cottage industries, skill acquisition centers, maternity and cottage hospital and health care delivery, market stalls, etc. to the people.

Local government administration promotes democratic rule in the society. This is because, local government administration is the closet level of government to the people and as such, it provides the opportunity for the people to further learn the democratic values and norms. Local government administration in a federal system like Nigeria promotes nation building and

Contributes to socio-economic and political development in the country. However, despite the elaborate justification of local government administration, local government administration is faced with a number of issues and challenges, poverty of leadership at the local government level remains one of the most daunting challenges of sustainable development of the grassroots’ in developing countries. While we recognize the fact that leadership problem is a national phenomenon in Nigeria, local government administrations have come under serious criticism over years for poor service delivery and bad governance. Both political and administrative leadership are in deficit at this level of government due to financial challenges among other .pertinent issues

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ROLE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT INTERNAL REVENUE AS IT PROMOTES SOCIAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT.

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