Abuja, Sept. 17, 2023: The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) says it has developed a software to enhance transparency in revenue generation and sharing amongst the three tiers of government.
The RMAFC Chairman, Mr Mohammed Shehu, said on Sunday in Abuja that the software will help the commission perform one of its major functions of reviewing the revenue allocation formula for the entire federation from time to time.
“There is something called the vertical revenue allocation formula; who gets what percentage – Federal, State or Local Government (LG).
“There is also the horizontal formula; how do you share that percentage among states and LGs.
“That means you have to consider factors like population, school enrollment, land mass, hospital beds; these are some of the indices.
“Previously what we did was to request for the required information manually, and then the commission will go and do the inspection manually,” Shehu said.
He said that the commission also got data from relevant agencies like the office of the Statistician-General of the Federation and the National Boundary Commission.
“So, we now have a software through which the states and LGs will input the required data in the system. They have a pass code.
“We will collect the data that they sent; analyse it and also send our own team to for verification, and then we will agree on how that horizontal formula will be,” he said.
According to the chairman, technology is the way to go now.
He said that in terms of revenue generation, the commission was trying to also build a data bank whereby it could monitor revenue generating agencies.
“The commission should be able to see in real time what comes into their system.
“We have already moved from multiple accounts to Treasury Single Account, but RMAFC also wants to have a system so that as revenue is coming in we are analysing it,” he said.
He called for the cooperation of all revenue generating agencies in the country in the commission’s effort to effectively ensure optimal deployment of government revenue.
“The Federal Government and the sub-national governments are concerned with how to make more revenue by also blocking leakages.
“Technology will save us the time of going through documents and help us cut down on a lot of leakages,” he said.
He said that improved funding will enhance its independence and improve efficiency in performing its statutory functions.
According to Shehu, it is important for the commission to be properly funded because when we are properly funded we are able to assert our independence much better,
He said that the commission was presently being funded from one source, which is the envelope system of the ministry of finance.
“The commission is a federation commission which deals with the national and the sub-national governments.
“We believe that the administration is looking at the funding issue, and we have appealed to the Governors’ forum and we believe they are also looking at it.
“The commission should be well funded as the funding will give us better capacity, better training, better environment, better salary, and then better productivity and better monitoring, ” he said.
Shehu said that RMAFC had potentials of becoming a world-class commission if properly funded.
“My vision is to see this commission to become a world-class commission.
“We believe that the government is interested in making more revenue and doing good things for Nigeria and they should carry RMAFC along, ” he said.
