by Isi Esene

The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) which was mandated to formulate a new revenue sharing formula for the three tiers of government have complained of insufficient funds.

The commission which admitted to twice postponing the completion date of the important assignment says it is unsure as to when the new sharing formula will be ready for implementation.

Currently, the federal government gets 56.68 per cent, states get 26.72 per cent while the local governments get 20.60 per cent.

The need for a new sharing formula came in the realisation that, since the 1992 revenue allocation formula, the nation is yet to have constitutionally backed sharing indices for the federal government, states and local governments.

The chairman of the RMAFC, Elias Mbam cited paucity of funds as one of the major constraints hampering progress on the revenue sharing formula.

“There is need for adequate funding in order to enable the commission complete this national assignment. We are hoping that the 2013 budget will take care of this.

“The revenue formula exercise is a big one requiring extensive traveling and verification of socio-economic indices and other critical information in various states. Funding is required to travel, arrangements of 37 members in all parts of the country, hire consultants and perform other sundry logistics required before the exercise can be completed. But I want to say that we are hoping that we can do all that in 2013,” Mbam said.

He reportedly expressed the hope that if the budgetary allocation to the commission in the 2013 fiscal year was good enough, it would enable its continuation of the field exercises to the geopolitical zones where workshops would be held and stakeholders’ inputs considered before the finalization of the fiscal exercise.

According to him, “The success of the review of the new revenue formula depends on variables; one of such variables is funding.”