THE Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) is set to begin work on two controversial fiscal issues: the Revenue Sharing Formula between the three tiers of governments, and the states/local councils joint accounts maintained and run by the states.The states want the RMAFC to review the existing Federation Accounts sharing formula to favour them because of their commitments, and are opposed to plans by the commission to dissolve the operations of the joint states and local council accounts aimed at allocating councils' resources directly to them to be administered by elected chairmen at that level.Addressing journalists yesterday in Abuja, Chairman of RMAFC, Engr. Elias Mbamsaid the commission was organising advocacy workshop in the six geo-political zones to seek stakeholders' input on the sore subjects as well as seekthe cooperation of the tiers of government on the need for more revenue generation through diversification to other sources other than oil mineral resources.At the end of the advocacy and consultations, Mbam said the commission would come up with an opinion upon which it will raise bills to address the fiscal issues.He also hinted that the advocacy outreach would be used to collate input on another thorny issue: the pay relativity between political office holders and civil servants to narrow the wide gaps between the two classes of workers in the same economy.Mbam spoke more on the advocacy workshop which begins next week: 'You may recall that on my assumption of duty in December 2010, 1 mentioned in my inaugural address that the commission will focus on how to increase the size of the national cake with a view to reducing the over-dependence of governments on oil revenue. This, the commission believes, can only be achieved through the diversification of sources of revenueaccruing into the Federation Account.'It is in this regard that the commission is organizing a series of zonal workshops to be held in each of the six geo-political zones. The theme of the workshop is: 'Economic Diversification for sustainable national development.' The opportunity provided by the workshop will allow stakeholders from each of the zones to share experiences on how to exploit and develop the various resource endowments available in their respective states and local councils in generating more revenue.'At the end of the six zonal workshops, the commission will produce a working document that will be a broad based guideline to governments at all levels towards the diversification of the revenue base in accordance with constitutional mandate which is to advise the Federal Government and state governments on fiscal efficiency and methods by which their revenue can be increased.
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