LGA: Councils can decide to subsidize staples

Local Government Authority (LGA) has announced that councils had the authority to subsidize staple products.

Secretary-General of LGA, Shammoon Adam informed reporters that there wasn’t any legal barrier to prevent councils from subsidizing staple products.

“From a legal perspective, they can do it using their income. They can do it in accordance with their policy,” said Shammoon.

Ungoofaaru Council recently announced that it was going to subsidize staple products for the people living on the island using its budget.

Shammoon said that LGA had looked into the case, and found no issue with it.

“At some point, when they want to do something, they will need to pass a supplementary budget. It’s their legal prerogative. Now we looked at whether they had passed a supplementary budget. From the information we gathered from the council, they had passed a supplementary budget,” he said.

However, Shammoon warned councils they were an extension of the government, and that people should not be made to feel like councils were challenging decisions made by the government.

He said that LGA would make an official decision regarding Ungoofaaru case during the Board meeting scheduled for October 26.