1.1 Background of the Study
Local governments have and will continue to be of the prime of developments in different part of the world and their important and impact on the daily activities of citizens cannot be over emphasized.
The terms local government refers to a political authority set up by a nation or state as a subordinate authority for the purpose of dispensing or decentralizing political power. in the English sense, it means local self government.
Local government is a political sub division of a national government or in federal system, a sub-division of regional government in fact, local government administration is so intentioned with community development that any discussions on one out of necessity involves en essence was created solidly to bring development to the communities at the grass root.
Community development is defined as a process by which the efforts of the people themselves are lives with those of government authorities to improve the economics, social and cultural conditions of the communities, to integrate into the life of the action and to noble them to fully contribute to the national progress.
Also the role of local government in the promotion of development at the local level is clearly recognized as one of the underlying basis of the 1976 local government reforms which emphasis that none of the principal objectives of local government is to mobiles human and material resources though the involvement members of the public in the promotion of local government.
Many communities had built schools, constructed roads and bridges and organized higher education, scholarship schemes for their children etc. Community development as we recognize today is based on and has grown out of experience of the past.
What is new is that these principles are now becoming more widely recognized than ever before. The principles of community development are not new, but it is the emphasis which makes almost a revolutionary. The concept of community development is based on the faith. in the ability of people to learn to help them self attain an improved standard of living building better communities taking one step at a time.
Rural development has thus remained one of the priority items of the programmes of one administration. In drawing up the blue print for rural development, government of Imo state aims primary at sensitizing and mobilizing the people at the grass root level and deliberately ad actively involving them in effective community development, encouraging integrated and multi-dimension approach community development for the government to achieve the grass roots development, it must get closer to the people. Community development groups and local government should work very closely, because for instance, a service project such as maternity dispensary or school which is built without the full support of the relevant local government, has very lean chances of survival, since the running and main tenancy expenses of such services are usually too heavy to be borne unaided to such community.
Organization of Ohaji Egema Local Government
Ohaji Egbema council was created in 1976. Then in 1991 Egbema local government was caved out from main/former Imo state local government area.
The council consists of six (6) major department's personnel, health, works, financials, agriculture and education and development. The council is made up of two sets of staff. The executive and the carrier officers. At the Zenith of the organization, the chairman is the chief executive and the controller of both men and materials including finances.
Below him is the chairman who assists and co-ordinates the activities delegated to him from time to time. Below their levels are the four line supervisors charged of agriculture, health, education, community development and works respectively. Both the chairman and the supervisors are the policy maker as far as the council is concerned.
On the other hand, the local government service commission is the employer of all carrier officers' civil servants under this local government system. At the zenith of the carrier officers is the secretary director of personnel who is in charge of the day to day administration. Below him is a deputy secretary who co-ordinates the activities of both senior and the junior staff including other functions in his schedule.
The internal auditor occupies a central position midway between the carrier officers and the executive chairman. He is the alarm clock of the council especially when the envisages that anything goes wrong with the expenditure of government fund. He may raise an audit alarm. Below this levels are the line carrier staff known as heads of department. Each occupying specific department such as agriculture, 1-6 above.
Each HOD maintains discipline within his area, check the attendant and roll call and distribute functions amongst the rank and file senior and junior staff under him.
In local government there are some operative statutory committee charged with specific functions.
- The junior staff management committee with a chairman and secretary. This organ is charged with discipline, promotion, transfer and conversion of junior staff under grade level 01-06.
- F and A This is an organ responsible for monetary approval and expenditure above to 500, 000.00 to 1 million. The executive chairman acts as the chairman while the local government secretary acts as the secretary.
Community development is a department solely charged with co-ordination development activities in various communities between the councils area of jurisdiction.
However, the department cannot carryout or execute its functions department or units within the council for example, community development as a department needs fund which must be raised and released by the finance department from its internally generated revenue sources.
In addition, for a community project to be implemented the survey and planning department must be carried out his own specific duties in town planning and market designs, building of markets, as well as agricultural development cannot succeed without the works department engineers and agric officers. Health is one of the major premises of community development functions.
1.2 Statements of Problems
Our understanding in this study is to investigate and appraise to what extent the local government council as represented by Ohaji Egbema local government area of Imo state, has been and to mobilize human and material resources for development of its area of authority. In line with the 1976 local government reforms.
The researcher will also in this course of this study to find answers to the following problems
- To what extent has the community development objectives of the present local government system bee realized in Ohaji Egbema local government area.
- To what extent has the local government approach to community development facilitated the realization of the reforms including the present military government rural development objectives?
- Is there not a better alternative to the local government councils current altitude to community development?
The above questions are closely interlinked and will be my guide to conduct this appraisal work and suggest some possible solutions where necessary.
1.3 Objective of the Study
The essence of local government is to bring about the following:
- About sustained development at the grass root level.
- To find effective ways of stimulating teaching and helping people to adopt new methods and to learn new skills.
- To ensure the preservative of the community spirit.
- To find out if there are wider political representation.
- To determine if there are cheaper service.
- Establishing a good base for the collecting for economic planning.
1.4 Research Questions
It is necessary to be given questions which guide the researchers to collect data relevant to the attainment of the specified or stated questions.
- Has poor management of funds resulted in ineffective functioning of Ohaji Egbema local government in rural development?
- To what extent has lack of visionary leadership affected the performance of Ohaji Egbema local government in rural Development?
- Does state interference in the affairs of Ohaji Egbeme local government area in rural development?
- Has Ohaji Egbema local government area has enough funds to embark on developmental projects?
1.5 Statement of the Hypothesis
As a result of the numerous of local government area that is Ohaji Egbema local Government Area of Imo state. The emphasis therefore, should be the role of local government in community development lots of constraints were encountered in the course of this project ranging from financial and ignorance on the part of the respondents.
But by the Grace of God, I was able to assembly to the best of my ability the key information that will form a picture of what the study demands and hope that these constraints will pave a way in subsequent studies tom make for enhancement where necessary.
1.6 Significance of the Study
This study is geared towards correcting the misconception some people have as regards the value of local government. It will go a long way in detecting the idea that local government is an extension through which federal government and those in the authority in particular share government money or wealth to politician or their supporters.
1.7 Scope of Study
This research work is aimed at studying the efforts of Local Government councils towards community development in Imo State.
1.8 Limitation of the Study
It is therefore, pertinent to print out that because of time, space or distance and financial constraints; the study is limited only to Ohaji Egbema local government area.
This scope is justified by the fact that it is practically impossible for the researcher to take into this study all efforts made towards community development in the country. The difficulties that were over come during the process of this research work are:
Time constraints, the problem of time was not to the advantage of the researcher and this did not allow for more comprehensive study of this piece.
1.9 Definition of Terms
The key terms in this work are the local government role community development.
Local Government
Nworji (2004) Local government is an organ of the state put in place to peddle the developmental activities of a particular place or district with the view of making the impact of government being felt at the grassroots level. Also Eyiyere (1999) see local government as the smallest government body created to take care of all local interest that requires government attention.
Role
According to Oxford advanced dictionary role means the function that a person is expected to have or the function a person has.
According to Oxford dictionary, community means the people living in one place, district or country, considered as a whole.
Development
It means a programme change gear towards the equipment and sustainability of the value of life. Development entails change that is continuously taking in man and his physical environment.
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