ACN faults George's comment on council polls
THE Lagos State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has demanded detailed justification for the proposed N485.2 billion budgets by Governor Babatunde Fashola.
Meanwhile, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the state has faulted claim by the former Deputy National Chairman of PDP, Chief Bode George, that his party won most of the councils in the recently-held local council polls in the state. In a statement signed yesterday by the PDP Publicity Secretary, Mr. Taofik Gani, the party stated that since the take-over of governance in the state by Governor Fashola, the state's yearly budget has increased astronomically, but with no actual social service or development commensurate to the huge budgets.
According to Gani, the assumed developments in the state cannot be linked directly to the huge budgets. He said the developments in the state are, in fact, the contributions and investments of corporate bodies, non-governmental organisations, Federal Government and individual philanthropists.
According to him, such assumed services and developments include recent donation of 600,000 books to Lagos schools by Rotary Club. Another bank donated school buildings in Surulere.
The PDP commended the companies and NGOs that have taken seriously such corporate social responsibilities. The party noted that these supports of the companies in the beautification of parks, streets, adoption of public schools and provision of medical facilities, to mention a few, have greatly alleviated the effect of lacking such opportunities in the state.
It thus called on the state government to support the companies and NGOs by removing incidences of multiple taxes.
"If over 60 per cent of primary functions of the state government are either abandoned or taken over by other persons/institutions, then Lagos States indigenes demand to know where exactly their taxes, Internally-Generated Revenue (IGR) and Federal Government allocations are expended," the PDP said.
It urged the House of Assembly to use this opportunity of budget scrutiny to rebut the allegation.
Denying the claim by George that PDP won most councils in the recent elections, Lagos ACN said it was a means by George to stave off the allegation by a faction of his party that he misused the funds given to the party by the national PDP and merely made ludicrous claims of victory when he failed woefully in the last election.
In a statement signed by the Lagos State Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Joe Igbokwe, the party described George as "a soiled and desperate man that is not fit to lead any political party that has its eyes trained on honour and integrity."
"We are not surprised that instead of answering to the damning allegation by Adeseye Ogunlewe that he misappropriated the N50 million war chest released by his party's national headquarters to do the impossible job of winning Lagos councils after the grand failure in April, Bode George is trying to advance very outlandish and ludicrous claims that the PDP won most of the local councils in Lagos during the council election recently. That Bode George continues desperately to paint LASIEC and ACN in bad lights and has refrained from proving his claims in court shows that he is a finished blackmailer that lives on petty gossips and trading on falsity for political gains," ACN said.
The Guardian