Foroyaa wishes to inform the president that we are concerned about the growing involvement of the councils in festivals and celebrations. Economic realities are very stubborn and no one can keep them under the carpet. Councils are economic entities. They have to pay for water supply and electricity. They have to feed their employees. They have to build infrastructure and maintain them.
This requires financial discipline. It calls for elimination of conspicuous consumption in the form of partisan ceremonies and the mobilization of savings to meet priority expenditures.
If the National Assembly members were to ask how much each council owes the sum is likely to be colossal. Such indebtedness is not sustainable. It often results in delay in the payment of salaries, cut down of services and reduction of investment in the building of new infrastructure or maintaining old ones.
In our view there is need for the establishment of a commission to look into council finances before it is too late. The Government should know that if the councils become indebted they will increase taxes and scrape the back of the poor and where this become inadequate they would have to turn to the Central government for a rescue package. Wise counsel is food for an enlightened government. Will wise counsel be heeded? The future will tell.
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Posted - 13 Aug 2010 : 19:22:16
