By Olusegun Emmanuel, Abuja.
Conference Committee on Power Devolution has unanimously agreed to jerk up monthly allocation of both states and local government to 57.5 percent against current allocation of 47 percent to states and local governments.
Briefing the newsmen at the end of the committee closed door meeting, the co-chairman of the committee Victor Attah, said out of the 57.5 percent meant for states and local governments, the states will be entitled to 35 percent while local government will receive 22.5 percent.
Attah explained that the positions of the committee on sharing formula were not just on consensus but they were unanimously agreed by every member of the committee.
He said, “The issue we reached were not just consensus, but they were unanimous, when we come back from lunch we are going to look at horizontal sharing formula.”
Also speaking, Jack Tiley-Gyado also said that about 20 items were knocked out of the exclusive list.
“We felt that the federal government is too hegemonous, we are still conscious of the fact that federal government is in charge of police, agriculture because we have devolved some powers from federal government to states and local governments, we generally agreed to knock out ten percent of current allocation of federal government,
and push down to state and local governments on items that are knock off.
“We talked about agriculture, health, even up to tertiary education, 20 items were knock off, we have about 80 of them on exclusive list.”
