Even as the purported law establishing Community Government Council, CGC, otherwise known as the Fourth – Tier government in Imo state by the present administration, has not been made public, the members of the Imo House of Assembly are reported to be tackling the State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha over its implementation.
Imo Trumpeta learnt that the Bill for the establishment of the Community Government Council, (CGC) which was passed into law by the Imo Assembly few months ago is still shrouded in secrecy by the state government, while it has commenced implementation of the 4th tier government.
Following the decision by the state government to promote that it will only provide N1m to each of the recognized Autonomous Communities and the Communities will also pay N250, 000 as counter part funding, most of the state lawmakers have picked gauntlet against the state Governor for acting in contrast to what was passed into law by the House members.
Another decision that prompted the lawmakers to express dissatisfaction over the approach of the Governor to the CGC implementation is the redeployment of the many staffers of the Imo state House of Assembly to their communities for the community government. According to a lawmaker who sourced for anonymity, the CGC passed into law only requested that staff of the various local governments in the state be posted to the communities and if they are not enough, only workers of the state civil service commission will be mobilized for such purpose. It now came to the surprise of the state lawmakers when a reasonable number of Assembly staffers were recently redeployed to their various communities for the CGC government. The members who verbally condemned the Governors action stated that they would take the matter up with the leadership of the House with a view to calling Gov Okorocha to order on the unwarranted transfer of workers out of the Assembly offices without recourse to the law establishing CGC. “We are another arm of the government like the judiciary and executive, why would the Governor go contrary to the laws establishing the CGC to post our staff out when it is not supposed to be so. We shall take it up with the House leadership before tackling His Excellency it is wrong, absolutely wrong for executive to trample on the legislature in the state,” the worried lawmaker fumed.
The issue of the community Speaker nomenclature which the Governor gave to some appointees connected to the CGC is brewing trouble between the executive and the legislative as the Governor is yet to re – baptize them community liaison officer which hitherto means that the community Speaker tag still remains.
Our correspondent learnt that the aggrieved lawmakers have notified the leadership which forced one of the legislative clerks in the Assembly to draft a letter to the Head of Service and Government House asking them to desist from redeploying House staffers to the communities.
