We have no problem with judicial financial autonomy – Ganduje

Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State says his administration has no problem with granting financial autonomy to judicial arm of the government in the state.

Ganduje made the remarks during an interactive session with newsmen as parts of event to mark `Democracy Day’ in Kano on Monday.

“Judiciary is independence. Here in Kano, we have no problem with financial autonomy of the judiciary, we have been paying the judiciary what they are supposed to be paid.

“They acknowledge that we are doing what we are expected to do,” the governor said.

Recall that the state government paid more than N100 million as medical allowances to High Court Judges and over N20 million as allowances for Magistrates and Sharia Court judges.

Also, N20 million is paid as furniture allowance and N46 million monthly as over-head cost to the judiciary.

“On independence legislature for Local governments, we have conducted free and fair councils election.

“We always give them what they are suppose to get from the Federal Government.

“Sometimes we do joint project, so they are independent too,” our correspondent quotes Ganduje as saying.

The Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) had on April 6 embarked on strike to press their demand for implementation of financial autonomy for the judicial arm of government.

The union, however, called off the strike on June 9.