RMAFC blames modalities for delays in direct allocation to local govts

Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has said work was still ongoing to finalise the modalities for effective implementation of the direct revenue allocation to local government councils.
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Chairman of the commission, Dr Mohammed Bello Shehu, gave the clarification in an interview with The Guardian, yesterday. The Supreme Court had, in July last year, ruled that local government councils should get their allocations directly from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) as against what currently exists, where local government allocations are paid into a joint account operated by both the state and the local government councils.

However eight months after the judgment, only 25 local government councils out of the 774 have opened accounts with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) while local government allocations still go to the joint account.

Shehu said contrary to the insinuations that state governors were sabotaging the implementation of fiscal autonomy for local government councils, there were some issues that needed to be sorted out.

He said: “The local governments have certain obligations, some have taken loans, and there are some statutory things they are supposed to be paying back, these need to be sorted out before they can begin to get their allocations directly.”

He said soon after the Supreme Court judgment, the President mandated the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) to summon a stakeholder engagement involving RMAFC, Office of the Attorney General of the Federation, Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), the office of the SGF itself and the Ministry of Finance, to come up with a modality on how the direct allocation would be done effectively.

“The technical committee drawn from the engagement is still working, when they are done, they will present their report to the larger house where the framework for proper implementation of the policy would be finalised,” he said.

According to him, RMAFC is passionate about local government autonomy and has consistently called for it.

“The local government autonomy is long overdue. Even under the military the local government were functioning, but under the 1999 Constitution, for some reasons, things changed, and local governments became like an appendage of state governments, their money were taken at will, that should not be so,” he said.

He added that empowering the sub-nationals with adequate funding would drive inclusive development and also charged elected officials to rededicate themselves to serving the people by focusing on people-oriented projects and avoid wasteful spending.