Revenue Allocation: Gombe Governor advocates upward review to States, LGAs

The Gombe State Governor, Muhammadu Yahaya has advocated for an upward review of the statutory allocation to States and Local government areas in Nigeria.

This he said would enable them tackle the ever expanding challenges of socio- economic, human and infrastructure development.

Speaking at the nationwide flag-off on the Review of Existing Revenue Allocation Formula by the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission RMAFC in Gombe, Governor Yahaya said the last review was conducted since 1992, some 29 years ago.

He said a lot of changes had taken place across the social, political and economic spheres, thus, necessitating a review to ensure a fairer and equitable allocation formula that is compatible with current realities.

Governor Yahaya said this first phase of review would focus on how the revenue would be shared among the three tiers of government; FG, States and LGAs.

“In the existing formula, all the 36 states only collect a paltry sum of 26.72% while our 774 LGAs collect 20.60% of all the accruals from the federation account, leaving the Federal Government with a lion share of 52.8%. Over the past decades, the roles of State Governments have expanded while our revenue allocation has remained the same. States are forced to deal with emerging challenges like insecurity, environmental degradation, decaying infrastructure, inadequate funding for primary healthcare and basic education. As the roles of States keep expanding, there’s the need for a proper review of the allocation formula to ensure states get the required resources to be able to deliver on new and existing responsibilities,” Governor Yahaya said.

Consequently he welcomed the sensitization workshop with the hope that the outcome of the engagements across the country would lead to a fairer and more equitable revenue allocation formula for the country, one that is compatible with the prevailing economic, social and economic realities.

He said the discovery of oil in Gombe State and the imminent commencement of exploration activities presented a new dynamic in fiscal relations and management, noting that the conversation will no doubt take centre stage in the subsequent phases of engagement that will follow.

“For us, we shall remain resolute and focused on utilizing our scarce resources for the benefits of all our people. I therefore call on all our people especially relevant stakeholders to fully participate in this sensitization exercise in order to enrich our fiscal culture for fiscal efficiency in Gombe State began soon after taking over the leadership of the state. 

 “We ensured robust implementation of the Treasury Single Account, deploy technology-driven tools to eliminate absenteeism, redundancies and inefficiencies within the civil service, and ensure transparency in government business through a more robust implementation of key metrics under the State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Initiative. As a result of that, we were able to save many of our local government from financial collapse, enabling them to meet their financial obligations,” the Governor said.

He said the government was working hard to diversify the economy of the state and put Gombe State on a sound industrial footing.

“The ongoing work on the Muhammadu Buhari Industrial Park and numerous other projects are meant to strengthen Gombe’s place as the commercial and industrial capital of the Northeast sub-region. It is these policies and achievements that earned us the special recognition as the number one state in Nigeria in terms of ease of doing business,” he said.

He said given the special position of Gombe State at the center of the North-east, the state equally served as the regional shock-absorber, playing host to the internally displaced persons from frontline insurgency states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States.

“This puts tremendous pressure on our basic infrastructure and services. It is therefore only fair that the special consideration being extended to these 3 states be also extended to Gombe State to enable us deal with new challenges,” he added.

He said his administration would give the team all the needed support to succeed in its assignment, while expressing the hope that the deliberations would produce more effective, fair and equitable fiscal allocation formula for the country and enhance the existing fiscal federalism.

Enlightenment campaign
The Federal Commissioner representing Gombe State in the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission Mr. Mohammed Kabiru Usman Kukandaka, said the objective of the sensitization was to enlighten stakeholders on the need to participate and make relevant contributions in the process of the review in order to assist the commission come up with fair, just, equitable and acceptable revenue formula for the country.

Kukandaka said the constitution had mandated the RMAFC with the responsibility of periodically reviewing the revenue allocation formula and principles in operation to ensure conformity with changing realities.

“In 1992 the vertical share of revenue to be allocated to the three tiers of government as proposed by the RMAFC was as follows: Federal Government 48.5 percent States 24.0, Local Governments 20.0 percent, stabilization 0.5, derivation 1 percent, FCT 1 percent, development of mineral resource areas 3 percent and ecology 2 percent”.

He said despite the upward review of the vertical formula by the Obasanjo administration to meet with current realities, the horizontal sharing formula which takes care of States and Local Government Areas in the country is anchored on equality population landmass social development factors and Internally Generated Revenue IGR.

Kukandaka said in 2014 the Commission reviewed the sharing formula but its final report transmitted to the President for onward action is yet to see the light of the day expressing the hope that this exercise will produce the desired result.

Nneka Ukachukwu