Intrigues force agency to shelve new revenue formula

mbamIT was an unprecedented verbal warfare. And the actors were northern and southern leaders. At the root of this tirade was the national revenue sharing formula. Each section spoilt for action with aim of getting a lion share of the national cake.

This renewed agitation, was aggravated by the promise of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to release a new revenue formula by the end of first quarter 2012.

But yesterday, the commission dashed the expectations of the state actors, saying it could not meet the deadline because the issue has provoked unholy rivalry among the federating states and their leaders.

RMAFC Chairman, Mr. Elias Mbam, who bared his mind on the matter, said the plan of the commission to give Nigerians a new revenue formula had been stalled by political considerations.

Mbam told journalists when he received the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko in Abuja yesterday, that though he had promised that a reviewed formula would be ready by the end of March this year, “challenges” that touched on the unity of the country had made it impossible for him to keep his word.

He said: “It is true that I promised that at the end of this month (March) we should have a new revenue formula, which will be ready for presentation to the media, unfortunately, I had a lot of challenges, in fact national challenges. First, the budget year was moved and so many other challenges…that have a lot of implication for the unity and progress of the country and we are conscious of these and we are very careful.

“I promised that at the end of first quarter I would brief you (journalists) of the progress so far made, but it would be difficult because it will not be ready within a week. We have made reasonable progress but we cannot continue talking about it because this issue is very sensitive, and borders on the very nerve of the unity of Nigeria,” Mbam said.

In the wake of the fresh agitations for an equitable revenue formula for the states, northern governors had declared that the region was being shortchanged under the current arrangement. They blamed the underdevelopment of the region on poor allocations to their states and even questioned the propriety of the 13 per cent derivation for the Niger Delta region.

Their action came under virulent attacks from their southern counterpart, who insisted that the North cannot blame its woes on the revenue sharing profile.

Dikko had told the RMAFC boss that his visit was to seek the commission’s support for the service in the form of strengthening its legal framework to enable the agency perform better.

Dikko said: “The support we need from the commission is political. We are in the review of our legal framework…the current law is a very big obstacle to our revenue collection drive. The fine for some offences is too meagre, the highest for an infringement is just N200. So, we are now intra-regulated by this constraint backed by the law.”

He hinted that the commission plan to hold a capacity building workshop for commissioners from the states to enable them be abreast with the workings of the NCS.

Meanwhile, the Arewa Youth Forum (AYF) has urged the government to balance the revenue allocation formula between the states in the North and South.

The group alleged that the present allocation formula favoured the states in the South and therefore rejected it.

After a meeting in Kaduna yesterday, the group said:

“Northern states should have an increase in allocations from the Federation Account based on the fact that the disparity between what oil producing and non-oil producing states in the same country get is too wide.”

President of AYF, Malam Gambo Ibrahim Gujungu, told journalists after the meeting that “since the constitution says that the revenue formula be changed or looked into every 10 years, and in some cases every five years, we agree with the northern state governors that it is now over 20 years that our revenue formula was reviewed and it would be unfair for the North to continue in this state of affairs.”