Press Release
The Rivers State Chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN says the rate at which the local government council chairmen in the State are misappropriating the council funds under the pretext of security votes calls for caution and legislative regulation.
The publicity secretary of the ACN, Jerry Needam in a statement in Port Harcourt described as criminal and wicked the arbitrary allocation to themselves huge sums of money running into tens of millions of naira monthly as security votes and hiding under same to squander the hard earned tax payers’ money with careless abandon.
The ACN spokesman argued that bulk of the security votes could be conveniently used on development projects to give the council areas a face-lift.
In exercising their oversight functions, the ACN opined that the State House of Assembly should as a matter of urgent public interest, come up with a law specifying a reasonable amount of money that should be approved for council chairmen as security votes, arguing that by so doing, the reckless and irresponsible life styles of most council chairmen will be checkmated.
Commenting on the allegation of misplacement of priority by the police against some council chairmen, the ACN said not using the security votes to address the security of their respective areas is criminal and tantamount to direct looting of government treasury.
“If prudently and judiciously managed and channeled by those in charge, there is no way the security situation in the state would not be better than what it is”, the ACN reasoned.
Signed:
Jerry Needam, JP
Publicity Secretary
Action Congress of Nigeria
