Joint Account Allocation Committee is a parastatal under the Ministry of Local Government of every state. It’s a committee responsible for the reception, monitoring, evaluation and distribution of financial accruals from the Federal Allocation Accounts to local governments in Nigeria. The JAAC as called has in some states its chairman as the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs. Other members include Accountant General of the state, Auditor General for Local Government, Accountant (treasurer) of the Ministry of Local Government Affairs under whose office the JAAC situates, a permanent secretary, representative of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria in that state and a number of cashiers reflective of the number of local government areas each state has as nominated by the chairmen to represent their respective local government areas. There are other members of the committee as determined by the governor of such a state.
In Ebonyi State, the issue of over bloated wage bill for local government civil service has been one of a great concern over the years as the wage bills served local government chairmen by the Joint Accounts Allocation Committee every month keeps surging and one wonders the rationale behind it since workers retire every year and recruitment of new ones is seldom carried out. Several committees have been set up by the state governments in the past to ascertain what the issues were, but members of the committees who’re usually politicians with zero professional backgrounds on accounting system and computing always fail to arrive at a solution, thereby exonerating members of the JAAC as being responsible for the leakages and other malpractices that lead to financial heist at the local government system.
The case of Ebonyi JAAC is one that deserves professional investigation into. The spate of financial malfeasance that happens there is one relevant agencies of government for accountability should wade into. Investigation we carried out has revealed an organized system of corruption bedevelling the system which leaves local government chairmen frustrated after paying salaries of political officials, civil servants and teachers. The JAAC brings to the chairmen wage bill charts for their local governments and instead of the bills maintaining commensurate correspondence, they keep increasing every month when there’s no increase in labour force.
The wealth amassed by members of the JAAC in Ebonyi has become a source of suspicion to the fact that lots of financial malpractice go on there untracked. For instance, the treasurer of the JAAC in Ebonyi State who doubles as the accountant at the Ministry of Local Government, Mr Richard Ezeanya is one of the richest civil servants in Nigeria. His membership of the JAAC dates from 2015. He has been there as a professional for nine years now and has amassed enormous wealth for himself and generation. He owns a fleet of vehicles, houses, factories by surrogacy and public buildings in the state, yet fashioning himself as a lowkey civil servant. Civil servants see him as untouchable as reports have it that he sends financial support to a prospective governor who comes in and retains him at the JAAC.
The corruption in the JAAC in Ebonyi State is the major setback to performance of local government chairmen as most of them are merely picked from the streets and made chairmen thereby lacking the knowledge of tracking the leakages that characterize the wage bills presented to them by the JAAC. They know that something is fishy, but lack the intellectual capability to track it. This has led to delayed payment of workers at the local governments and the inability to recruit new ones. To contain or curtail the financial malfeasance that comes from the JAAC, ALGON, an association of local government chairmen in Ebonyi has attempted to embark on table wage payment system which was why payment of the September salaries to workers is lingering till November, 2024. Chairman of Afikpo LGA, Timothy Nwachi has designed a mechanism to track the menace. He has announced his plan to issue identity cards to workers in his local government. This includes teachers, political office holders and civil servants. He believes that this mechanism could assist in tracking the heist that’s taking place at JAAC, and to reduce the wage bill that accrues to his local government every month.
The suspected financial malfeasance that characterize JAAC in Ebonyi State shall not stop if government of the state fails to conduct a rapt check on the activities of the staff there. A professional auditing company should be contracted to do justice to this so as to proffer a lasting solution to the menace. Without this, local government finances shall continue to suffer cuts that go into the pockets of members of the JAAC and their enablers.
