The Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) is set to begin processes aimed at ensuring a drastic increase in revenue accruing to the federation account. Funds accruing to the account are shared among the three tiers of government every month under the Federation Account Allocation Committee (Faac) meetings..
States and local governments with weak internally generated revenues (IGR) depend heavily on the federation account for the running of their administrations. There have been instances when some states and local councils have to default in their obligations as a result of not having enough revenue from the account.
The move by RMAFC would be a drastic departure from the activities of the commission as it has in the last decade concentrated more on the sharing formula of generated revenue for the three tiers of government. However, the 1999 constitution and other enabling laws had made monitoring the accruals to and disbursement of revenue from the federation account a major role of the commission.
Elias Mbam, chairman of RMAFC, last week announced that the new team, constituted by the federal government to pilot affairs of the commission, would fine tune existing policies, strategies and evolve new ones aimed at ensuring a federal revenue system that would increase the overall volume of the national resources available for distribution to the three tiers of government.
Mbam stated that the commission under his leadership “shall be concerned more on how to increase the size of the “national cake rather than dissipate all our energy on how to share a shrinking cake.”
To effectively actualize set goals, he stated the new team was banking on the constitutional powers to advice the federal, state and local governments on fiscal efficiency and methods by which their revenue can be increased.
‘‘To ensure efficient and effective coverage of our responsibilities, we shall operate on committee structures similar to that of the National Assembly, as policy issues shall be first presented at the plenary session and thereafter referred to the relevant committee for further works before representation to the plenary.’.
Mbam reminded the newly appointed commissioners that their assignment was very sensitive and challenging with serious implications to national unity, progress and socio economic development of the country which required indepth knowledge of the relevant laws by all.
He stressed the need for the avoidance of prejudice by any person saying ‘‘I therefore enjoin you to live above board and put national interest first; you are not here solely to represent the interest of your states but to contribute towards building a virile economically stable fiscal regime for the socio economic development of Nigeria.’’
Decree 98 of 1993 which was amended to decree 49 of 1989, now act of the National Assembly, has made provisions to the effect that the RMAFC is a statutory member of the Faac, local government joint account allocation committee, joint tax board and the commission on ecology fund. The aforementioned act also empowers the commission to demand and obtain regular and relevant information, data or return from any government agency including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), The Nigerian Custom Service (NCS), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Federal Ministry of Finance.