Cross River governor, Prince Bassey Otu, has signed into law the amended Cross River Local Government Law.
The law remains a significant legislative milestone aimed at enhancing governance and service delivery in the grassroots and across the state.
Speaking at the signing ceremony held at his temporary office in Calabar, the governor commended the State House of Assembly for its proactive and people-centered legislative duties, affirming that the amended law would strengthen representation at the grassroots level while driving meaningful development across the entire state.
“In no distant time, the difference at the grassroots level will be clearly felt, even as the chairmen would have no options than delivering on their mandate,” Otu assured.
He expressed satisfaction that the amended law was apt as it would address most of the issues that were lacking, adding that, “with the Assembly’s status as a fully All Progressives Congress (APC) legislature, the People’s First mantra of his administration as well as the President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope agenda, would be achieved.
Giving a breakdown of the amended law, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Elvert Ayambem, said “we increased the LG appointees from 28 to 50, equated the Office of the Head of Local Government Administration (HOLGA) to that of a Permanent Secretary and this is like a booster to those at the local government level.”
According to him, while the amendments were imperative and aimed at encouraging people, it would also curb the rural-urban migration to a large extent.
“We also made a provision for 0.5 percent to the Office of LG Auditor General, abinitio, the Auditor General once he swings into duty, he begins to wait for funds from those he is going to audit or from state government and we looked at it and said no, if you are going to audit people you don’t need funds from them because once you receive money from those you are auditing, you would be compromised,” Ayambem explained.
Among the other amended areas the Speaker mentioned were, the provision of 0.5 percent to the state planning commission, 4 percent to Road Maintenance Agency, 0.5 percent to the Cross River University of Education and Entrepreneurship, and 0.5 percent to the State College of Agriculture.
“Ayambem further stated that “the total number of percentages that we did are 16.5 for all of these MDAs in order for them to carry out their duties effectively.
“All these percentages are from the laws as contained in the Principal Laws, so what the House did was to simply make adjustments within those percentages and no additional deductions were made.
“The first amendment of 2008 and second amendment of 2011 are hereby repealed by this recent amendment in order to make for clarity while reading the Local Government Law, so the provision of those two repealed laws are equally included in this extant amendment,” he clarifies.
Ayambem informed that no part of the amendment infringes on the Local Government Autonomy, admitting that one captivating aspect so captured was the construction of rural roads.
He maintained that the House of Assembly would continue to perform its roles as the watchdog, especially on the local government chairmen through public accounts.
His words: “We are assuring the people that for every penny that gets into the local government system, it must be properly and judiciously used even as accountability would be top-notch in this 10th Assembly.”