Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has decried the inability of some local governments in his state to pay salaries without borrowing.
“In my state, nine LGs out of the 13, cannot pay salaries with their allocations from the federation account. It means they will have to borrow every month, to meet that obligation,” Sule said on Saturday.
The governor spoke at a ceremony to flag-off the construction of classroom blocks, toilets and solar-powered boreholes at Mahanga community in Awe.
The projects are being executed by the Sustainable Development Goals office in the state.
The governor blamed the inability to pay the salaries on the huge workforce of the LGs and the lack of initiative of the leaders to generate additional revenue internally.
“Local governments must begin to look inward to generating money to pay salaries and save, even before they get allocations from the federation account.
“They (local governments), must be able to generate money to complement allocations because relying on allocations alone is archaic,” the governor added.
He warned local government chairmen against tampering with government funds, saying that anyone caught would face the full wrath of the law.
Sule said that he was among the first set of governors to support the idea of financial autonomy for LGs, and promised never to tamper with their funds throughout his tenure.