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Govs reject new revenue
formula
�Reps get new revenue
allocation
By Uchenna Awom and Chesa
Chesa,
National
Assembly Correspondents, Abuja
A new dimension in the revenue
sharing formula controversy arose on Thursday as Governors rejected the
formula recently submitted to President Olusegun Obasanjo by the Revenue
Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
The Governors who met with
Vice President Atiku Abubakar stated their resolve to reject the new
revenue sharing formula which gives the Federal Government 47 per cent,
states (31.1 per cent) and councils (15.21 per cent) of the Federation
Account.
Also on Thursday, the Speaker
of the House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, was presented
with a new revenue allocation formula by the Revenue Mobilisation,
Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
Presenting the new revenue
formula to the Speaker in his office in Abuja, RMAFC�s director of public
relations and National Assembly liaison, Salihu Mohammed Jega, said the
commission has accomplished the review justifiably and accurately bearing
in mind the circumstance of the country�s governmental system. After
rejecting the new formula, Governors Bola Tinubu (Lagos State) and Chris
Ngige (Anambra), who spoke to State House Correspondents on the outcome of
the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting, said the meeting was
inconclusive because the board of the RMAFC that submitted the formula had
been dissolved.
Besides, the Governors� Forum
would take a firm stand at its next meeting and wait till the President
takes the proposal to the National Assembly before tackling it frontally,
they said.
Ngige said, �We are going to
look at the issues at the Governors� Forum and we will take action.
Whether we are satisfied or not, for now, is no longer material because
the rule is that the RMAFC will handover their recommendations to Mr.
President and from him to the National Assembly. It is only the National
Assembly at this stage that can alter anything on that formula�.
The governor disclosed that
the deadlock over the issue was compounded by the inability of Hamman
Tukur, whose board of RMAFC had been dissolved, to brief the meeting.
Tukur, however, did a memo on
the formula to the NEC, the governor added.
Tinubu told reporters that
with the expiration of the tenure of the RMAFC board, �I think I repulse a
body that is statutorily dysfunctional and there�s nothing much you can do
because the commission has made its recommendations to Mr. President. The
President will forward it to the National Assembly where it will be dealt
with�.
The Lagos governor
emphatically rejected the new proposed formula, arguing that it was
unfavourable to states and local governments, which have been given the
added burden of funding primary education.
�I am not in agreement with
that. How do you reduce revenue attributable to the local governments and
return the entire condition of education to the state; the primary schools
and you don�t give the funding that is necessary to it? The constitution
is very clear on this and that is the judgment of the Supreme Court. There
is no special funding anywhere. Anyway it is still a recommendation but
these are my areas of quarrel�, he added.
Receiving the formula, Masari
said it would be the first revenue allocation formula that the commission
would be presenting in five years, hoping that the recommendation has
taken care of the realities on ground.
According to him, �As
representatives of the people, the House will look at the recommendation
dispassionately, hoping that it will go a long way to assist it, to have a
true federal system, where the states, local and federal government are
properly funded, adding that the House would also look at what will be
left for the states and local governments.
�We cannot say we are fully
operating a federal system of government that will address the
peculiarities of the local governments. It is very sad when you talk to
people at the local government level, they will refer to the non-release
of federal budget as the problem militating against the development of the
local government. So if we work assiduously on the new formula, we will
put the local governments on its toes to perform well�, he said.
However, Masari promised that
the House would approve the formula that will meet the aspirations of
Nigerians.
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