Revenue allocation: Gov. Ishaku calls for collapse of sharing formula
Jethro Yerga, Jalingo
The Executive Governor of Taraba State, Arc. Darius Dickson Ishaku has called for a collapse of the current federation account allocation formula owing to its unfavorable and negative impacts on the second tiers of governments.
Governor Ishaku made this call at a 2-day Review Meeting on Revenue Allocation Formula organized by Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission at Shield Hotel, Jalingo, the Taraba State Capital.
The Governor who was represented by his deputy, His Excellency, Engr. Haruna Manu stated that latest developments in the country which had increasingly shifted the burden of governance in the face of insufficient and dwindling revenue allocation from the Federation account demands immediate review of the formula to provide an enabling environment for effective performance of states and local Governments administration in the country.
“The current Federation account allocation formula which gives the 36 states of the Federation a combined 26.72 percent, the 774 Local Government Areas a meagre 20.60 percent and the Federal Government a larger share of 52.68 percent, needs to be overhauled immediately to reflect the current situation in the country”. He stated.
The Governor who lamented that limited budget available to Local Governments had made them remained dormant for years equally reiterated that State Governments have been short changed in terms of solid resources, exploration and development.
He called for a change of the constitution’s exclusive list to concurrent one in which all tiers will have a stake to enable them effectively impact on the people especially at the grassroots level.
While expressing his administration’s commitment to continue using the limited resources for the benefit of the people, the governor noted that his Government has decided to transform the Statistics Department of the Ministry of Budget and Planning into a full- fledged State Bureau of Statistics, in line with International best practices and directed that the Commissioner of Budget and Planning should take the necessary action.
Also speaking at the event, the representative of Taraba State at the Committee for review of revenue allocation formula at the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission Abuja, Alh. Ahmed Yusuf said the event was a furtherance of the exercise embarked upon by the Commission where commissioners were asked to go back to their respective states to sensitize their respective Governments and governors so that they would come up with their position on the ongoing exercise which is going to terminate in December.
Alh. Ahmed expressed satisfaction with the Taraba State Government for declaring open its position on the revenue sharing formula, where the governor called for the collapse of the exclusive list, stating that the governor’s action was exactly what the committee was looking up for from all the 36 states and The Federal Capital Territory.
“We want all the 36 states and the Federal Capital to present their positions on this matter so that we will go and analyzed the data and come up with a formula which we will present to the president for onward submission to the National Assembly who would fine-tune the process”. He stated.
Alh. Yusuf stated that as one of the 14 Executive Commissions who are recognized by the constitution to come up with Revenue sharing formula, they would corroborate fully with other agencies in the exercise to ensure that the review exercise was done in such a way that it would conform with the current economic realities especially that the revenue allocation had not been review for the past 29 years.
He expressed satisfaction on the level of representation at the occasion as participants were drowned from various ministries, agencies, State Assembly and other facets of life, hoping that at the end of the day, they would have a robust engagement that would yield a positive result that would be beneficial to the entire country.
