Taraba Workshop: HOLGA Commends LGSC
OKERAFOR ATHANATIUS, JALINGO
The Taraba State chapter of Heads of Local Government Administration, (HOLGA) has commended the State Government especially the Local Government Service Commission (LGSC) for organizing a training workshop for HOLGA members, directors of budget, planning, research and statistics of the 16 Local government areas of the State.
Comrade Isa Mohammed
The chairman HOLGA in the State, comrade Isa Mohammed spoke to Reporters shortly after the training workshop held at the conference hall of Galaxy Hotel, Jalingo.
Isa Mohammed said the workshop was aimed at equipping the participants with strategic plans on proper implementation of government programmes at the local government level.
“We have our budget department at every local Government and then we have directors of planning, among others”.
“We have learnt a lot in terms of planning strategy in the implementation of government programmes and policies in our various local government councils”.
Mohammed further revealed that the clamour across board for the actualization of the local government autonomy has now come, the challenges of inadequate resources and/or poor funding faced by local government administration over the years can be easily surmounted now that the autonomy has been approved by the supreme court.
The HOLGA chairman in another development, described the State Government as their superior, saying HOLGA executives are not operating independently but working as a team with State Government executives.
“We don’t operate independently, we work as a team with each other”.
“I don’t think that there’s any where in this country where a state will try to contravene what was decided by the supreme court. Of course, we are all believers of the Nigeria constitution and we must obey it”.
“Normally, the challenges are always inadequate resources. If you plan and the resources are not forthcoming, it means that all you have planned are bound to fail”.
“But with this autonomy, we will be able to plan based on what we have on ground”, he added.
Also in an interview, the Permanent Secretary of the State Local Government Service Commission (LGSC) Jibrin Kasim said the workshop was organized by the Commission in collaboration with Industrial Training Fund (ITF).
The major focus according to Kasim was to equip the participants with the knowledge of strategic budget planning for effective budgeting in their various places of assignments.
The Permanent Secretary, who described the topic of the training workshop as, “Strategic planning in local government administration” however, called on the participants to make effective use of the knowledge acquired during the workshop to improve their services.
He also urged them to implement same for development to thrive at their various local government councils.
