A Judicial Commission of Inquiry instituted by the Governor Sullivan Chime led Government of Enugu State to probe the activities of local governments has uncovered how N11, 901,545,490.00 was stolen from the coffers of the councils within the period between 1999 and 2007.

The Period covered was during the reign of Governor Chimaraoke Nnamani of the Ebe a no fame.
The commission of inquiry, which submitted its report to Governor Chime, stated that the sum represented allocations to local Governments in the State within the period, which remained unaccounted for.

Chairman of the seven-member commission, Justice Anthony Onovo, who spoke while presenting the report of the commission to the governor, wants the government to take steps to recover the stolen money. 


Among the outstanding recommendations of the commission are the recovering of over payment of security votes made to council chairmen between 2006 and 2007 and recovering of N232, 602,437.70 from treasurers of 11 local governments who failed to post the money paid to the council into their main cash books.


It decried cases of missing public documents some of which were allegedly burnt beyond recovery and “further recommended the recovery of N777, 396,336.52, N3, 423,475,356.84 and N3, 076,429,603.32 from the former Accountant-General who refused to give any explanation for those transfers and non appearance of the funds in JAAC Account”.

It also indicted the state’s Local Government Service Commission and the Ministry of Local Governments “for failure to discharge their statutory responsibilities on issues of guidelines and monitoring of the activities of the councils” and recommended that local governments should, on a monthly basis, prepare bank reconciliation statements and submit to the commission before receiving the next allocation.

On how it unearthed the huge discrepancies in the books of the 17 councils, Onovo explained that the commission went through the cash books and payment vouchers provided by the councils and the 39 local government development centers and that it scrutinized 50,094 payment vouchers of the local governments from the year 2006 and also inspected and verified projects executed.

According to him, some personnel of some of the councils, who were expected to help the commission in its investigations, did not cooperate and that

“up till the point of submitting the reports, treasurers that served in four development centers, namely Nsukka East, Ezeagu North, South, and West have not fully submitted their cash books and payment vouchers as demanded by the commission at its inauguration in 2008.



The commission observed that the total amount received by the local governments within the period set for the probe is N79, 442,748,374.49 made up of N7, 759,582,888.37 direct payment to the councils and N71, 683,163,165,483.12 being allocations paid to the councils through the Ministry of Finance.

The report also showed that while the 17 councils received N7, 759,582,888.37 from June 1999 to April 2002 by direct allocation, N38, 898,617,109.41 was through the Ministry of Finance for the same period. 

The investigation further revealed that the commission “could not find explanation for the sum of N3, 423,475,356.84 transferred out of JAAC account into various state government accounts”.