The Chairman of The Forum of Heads of Services in the 18 local government areas of Edo State, Tom Ebhotemen, says local government authorities will commence investigation into the staffing of the primary schools in their LGAs to determine if the teachers being paid salaries are actually there.

Tom Ebhotemen said this resolution was arrived at, after the joint allocation meeting where it was discovered that the 18 councils will be left with 599 Million Naira to pay salaries out of the 1.8 billion Naira Allocation from the Federation Account.

The statutory 5% of the allocation for traditional rulers, one percent training fund and teachers’ salary gulped 1.2 billion Naira.

“Because of the very large chunk of monies that goes for teachers’ salaries we have resolved that we will carry out snap checks on primary schools to ensure that the teachers we pay salaries to are really on ground.

“If you look at the total amount paid to teachers by all the local governments and other mandatory expenditure you have a total of N1.2 billion out of a total of 1.8 billion Naira.

“You will now appreciate the difficulty that local governments are getting. Certainly with what we have left, most of the councils will find it difficult even to pay salaries and our normal obligations to our workers.

“But you realise also that these mandatory expenditures are not imposed on us by the government, they are our statutory responsibilities.

“We have also resolved that marriage registry should be strengthened in the various local governments.

“This is as a result of the Federal Government establishing marriage registry in some states of the Federation whereas the issue of marriage registry, registration of births and deaths is the statutory responsibility of the various local government as provided by Schedule (5) of the Nigerian 1999 Constitution as amended.

“We have also resolved that councils should look more inward, since allocation has continued to dwindle and the Governor has advised us that we should be very hardworking so that our areas of revenue we can utilise all.” (Channels TV)

•Photo shows Edo Governor Godwin Obaseki.

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