Hon. Bimbo Kolade is a former commissioner for local government and chieftaincy matters In Oyo State. He is presently the Commissioner representing the state on the board of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC). In this interview with YINKA OLADOYINBO, he speaks about the operations of the commission and the efforts to get Nigerians an acceptable revenue allocation formular. Excerpts:
How far has RMAFC been able to deliver on its core mandates of identifying, allocation, monitoring of resources in Nigeria?
The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission is a constitutional body established by the Constitution of the Federal Republic 1999 of Nigeria and as the name implies, it is the duty of the commission to mobilise, monitor and allocate all the revenue that accrue to government among the three tiers that we have in the federation. Yes, in doing this there have been challenges that the commission is being confronted with but despite that, we have been trying as much as possible to ensure that we carry out our responsibilities. It is the duty of RMAFC to monitor revenue generation organisations like the NNPC, Customs Service, Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Central Bank of Nigeria, Federal Ministry of Finance Incorporated and agencies like that.
Talking about challenges facing the commission, what are these challenges and do you think they can be surmounted?
Like I mentioned the commission has the responsibility of monitoring the revenue accruing to the government and part of the challenges we have is the lack of necessary equipment to do this effectively. Let us take for instance the NNPC, it is expected of the commission to know the daily crude oil production independently, but as at today, we still rely on the information supplied by the NNPC on the amount of crude being produced in the country, the issue of funding is another challenge facing the organisation and this has greatly affected the commission in the performance of it’s statutory functions. It is the duty of the commission to come up with revenue allocation formular among the three tiers of government on the horizontal and the constitutional provision is that every five years it should be reviewed, but the current allocation formula has been in use since 2002 during the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo and that was even done through executive order. However, there was an attempt by the commission to do a review of the revenue allocation formular between 2014 and 2015 during the time of President Goodluck Jonathan but unfortunately, that assignment could not be completed because there was a change of government in 2015. When President Muhammadu Buhari came to power, we also made an attempt to review the formular around 2020-2021, the report was submitted to the president in April 2022 and that was for the adjustment of the revenue allocation formular among the three tiers of government. The constitutional provision is that for the formular to be reviewed a report should be submitted to the president who will transmit it to the National Assembly who will legislate on it. When we submitted the report to Buhari, he accepted it from us but he did tell us that he was not going to transmit it to the National Assembly because as at that time the National Assembly was going through constitutional review and in the report we submitted we have reduced what goes to the federal government and we gave more to the states and the local governments. So President Buhari said since we have reduced the allocation to the Federal Government and the loads on the Federal Government was not reduced that he was going to wait for the outcome of the constitutional review before he could transmit the report to the National Assembly, again that did not happen before the end of his government. It is our hope and expectation that the horizontal review that has been done will be submitted to President Bola Tinubu for his consideration.
Also, sometime in 2023, we have started a review of the horizontal allocation indices that we use to distribute between the 36 states and the 774 local governments, but like I mentioned, the challenge of finance is there and this has not made us to complete the assignment because after what we have done, we need to go round the 36 states and the 774 local governments for verification of the data, that has not been done and that is what made us to approach the National Economic Council and the National Assembly for alternative funding for the commission.
How soon will your commission re-present the report on the new revenue allocation formular to President Tinubu?
It is expected that before the end this year, the report will be re-presented. Fortunately, some of what the president was waiting for that time has been done, there has been constitutional review that made some of the items that were on the exclusive list before have been moved, some moved to residual list, some to the list that state can work on, like the issues of power, rail lines, airports and so on have been affected. So as a commission, we hope that before the end of 2025 we should present the report on vertical allocation of revenue allocation formular to the president.
In the pending report to be presented to Mr President should the states and local government areas expect an increase in their allocations?
In the present allocation formular in operation, the Federal Government has the highest with 52 percent, but under that 52 percent, there are some of it that are meant for statutory purposes, the Federal Capital Territory takes out of the 52 percent, the development of natural resources, derivation funds, ecological fund also take out of it, state governments take 26 percent and local governments take 20 percent. But in the report that we presented to the president, we have some reductions in what goes to the Federal Government, we added more to the states and more to the local governments. We know that the National Assembly is equally talking about further review of the formular, so with this, there may be need for us to review what we have done before, but definitely, we know that what the state governments have been clamouring for is to have more share from the federation account and this is being considered.
During the course of performing the monitoring role by the commission, has there been discovery of any irregularity, if so, what can be done to check this?
As we all know that there is no system that we can say is totally perfect, so in exercising our monitoring role, we have seen cases whereby revenues are not fully remitted into the federation account by the paying agencies, I remember sometimes in 2020, about N72 billion was discovered as not remitted. In carrying out this monitoring duties to the oil industry and NNPC, there are things we discovered while performing our constitutional responsibility. It is an ongoing thing, like I said before that part of the challenges we have is equipment and if we have better funding, we too will be able to have real time online monitoring of the activities of these revenue generation organisations.
Is the commission considering amendment to the law that established it in order to give it more power and make it more effective?
The establishment Act of the commission is before the National Assembly, we have proposed to the National Assembly a bill that we believe will enhance the performance of the commission and enable it to carry out its responsibilities effectively. Some of what we proposed to the 9th assembly were accepted, while some were rejected. We have proposed to the National Assembly the need to have a separate office of the Accountant General of the Federation from that of the Accountant General of the Federal Government, we want what will be different from what we have now because what we have now is that the Accountant General to the Federal Government is still the same as the Accountant General to the federation, but that can be separated so that the Federal Government can have it’s own accountant general and the federation can also have it’s own accountant general that would be responsible for the federation’s accounts and we believe that with the proposed law it will enhance the functionality of the commission.
In Oyo State, your party the APC has been out of government for almost six years now, what efforts are the leaders making to close ranks and make the party stronger towards 2027?
Whatever happened in the past we should let go and use the lesson we must have garnered in moving forward and in preparing for the future. The APC is getting stronger and bigger and I know that by the special grace of God we will return to government in Oyo State in 2027. We know that the people of the state missed APC, they missed the progressive ideas and as a party we are talking among ourselves, so that we can come together and ensure unity and oneness among the members, we are appealing to ourselves, we are talking to ourselves and beyond individual ambitions, the interest of the party and that of the people of the state, who desired to align with the progressive ideology should be paramount in the minds of the gladiators. The current party chairman, Alhaji Olaide Abas is bringing in his wealth of experience into building the party.
As a senatorial aspirant of your party in 2023, what should be expected from you in 2027?
As an individual, I remained an interested party or person towards contributing my quota to the development of Oyo State. For now as an individual, I believe that joining hands together with other like-minds in rebuilding of the APC in the state is more paramount than any ambition, after making the party strong, then one can talk of personal ambition.
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