The members of Ogun State House of Assembly, on Thursday, grilled the Commissioner for Finance, Adewale Osinowo, for over two hours, over the recently released N17.3bn last tranche of Paris Club refund, and the delayed payment of backlogs of workers’ cooperative deductions.
The issues were discussed during a session which held at the House Conference Room 215 at Assembly complex, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta.
The members also grilled Osinowo over the alleged hijack of local governments’ role in the area of Internally Generated Revenue.
Apart from the issues of non-payment of arrears of workers’ cooperative deductions, taking over of IGR of local governments, non-compliance with financial autonomy, and the issue of delay in payment of severance allowances of past political appointees also came up.
A member representing Ewekoro constituency, Israel Jolaoso, had insisted that the government had taken over councils’ roles in revenue generation, but the commissioner denied this.
Osinowo had argued that aside from the issue of signage and ticketing of commercial motorcyclists, the state had not taken any other role of the local governments in terms of the IGR.
There was, however, a mild drama when the visibly rattled commissioner, after questions from the legislators, told the lawmakers at the session that “I think we should go for refresher courses in order for us to understand ourselves better.”
Osinowo’s remark infuriated the lawmakers and the session became rowdy for about two minutes with the Chairman of the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Victor Fasanya, who presided over the session, calming down the aggrieved members.
While the bedlam lasted, another member, Rasak Oduntan, fired back at the commissioner.
He said, “If he (referring to the commissioner) thinks we deserve refresher courses, he should organise one for us.”
When normalcy returned to the session, the lawmakers insisted on the need for the commissioner to make full disclosure on the last tranche of Paris Club refund.
Fasanya later saved the day when he adjourned the meeting, saying the commissioner would be re-invited on the matter.
He said, “There are still more questions begging for answers.”
Speaking later with journalists, Osinowo attributed the delay in the payment of the deductions to the recall of the fund earlier released by the Federal Government.
The commissioner said, “Actually, the funds were recalled due to some certain parameters that must be fulfilled before it will be returned to individual states but that parameter and conditions have been met now, which we did with the local chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress in Ogun State.”
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