The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, (RMAFC), has commenced a sensitization programme aimed at engaging stakeholders on review of revenue sharing formula in the country .
The commission represented by its committee Chairman on indices and disbursement, Dr. Chris Akomas disclosed this at government lodge, Aba when he paid a courtesy call on Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu.
Akomas who assured that the programme would offer a new and people-oriented revenue sharing formula for the nation in the shortest possible time, solicited necessary and positive contributions through interactive sessions and submission of memoranda.
He noted that the sensitisation programme was part of the commission’s mandate, as stipulated in relevant sections of the 1999 Constitution, to review the country’s revenue sharing formula to meet the yearnings of both the three tiers of government and the generality of the people in the light of changing realities.
Akomas, who was a Deputy Governor of Abia State said, “this sensitization is to enlist the interests of stakeholders through interactions at various levels in order to get informed and make useful inputs that can provide workable template to assist the Commission in the onerous task of evolving and bequeathing to the nation a fair, just and equitable new revenue sharing formula”.
He assured that when concluded, the templates would yield a new revenue formula that would benefit the citizens and called for contributions from government at all levels.
Responding to the RMAFC’s address, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu recalled how old Eastern Nigeria economy flourished under the leadership of Dr. Michael Okpara because various regions were allowed to control their revenues and pay royalty to the central government.
Ikpeazu who observed that every region is not equally endowed by nature, suggested that regions must be allowed to enjoy the advantages of those endowments since they also live with the disadvantages of such endowments, especially environmental degradation.
He demanded that funds reserved for federal roads by the federal government be given to the States to fix bad federal roads in their States, explaining that his administration was handling many federal roads in Abia, which was a heavy load on the State’s purse.
“Even if 100 percent of the state’s allocation is deployed in the Abia axis of Enugu-Portharcourt express way, it would not be enough to fix it”, the Governor lamented, while urging other States to join Abia State in contributing to the ongoing crusade by the RMAFC, to achieve the desired results.
