KUNLE OLUTAYO
President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday appointed Shehu Mohammed Bello as the new Chairman of Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission.
Addressing journalists after the inauguration ceremony at the Presidential villa in Abuja, Bello said that though the task is challenging, the commission under his leadership will generate more revenue for the government.
“I want to thank God for making Mr. President, to bestow this big responsibility on my person. I may not be the best in Nigeria, but in his wisdom, he decided to make me the chairman revenue, mobilisation, allocation and fiscal commission.
“I’m very happy. That task is challenging. We all know the situation that Nigeria is, or even globally, when you look at contemporary African countries like South Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Egypt, all the economic issues that are facing including Nigeria. We had the COVID-19, we had recession, we now have the war with Ukraine, which has affected many countries and revenues are down all over.
“So our task, as revenue mobilisation is how we can assist Mr. President, to get more revenue for the Federation, block leakages, looking at the constitutional responsibility of the Commission, which of course are, monitoring of accruals, to Federation account and disbursement, and also monetisation, taking care of the salaries of political office holders, and judicial officers, as enshrined in the Constitution that had not been reviewed since 2008. And I think there is agitation for that.
Speaking further, he said that the new revenue allocation formula, which the commission successfully did, sometimes in February this year have been submitted to Mr. President.
“What he stated at that time was that he was waiting to see what the National Assembly will do in terms of looking at concurrent list and exclusive list and constitutional amendment.
“If he’s satisfied with what the National Assembly does, he will forward a recommendation and make it an Act so that it becomes a law.
“Revenue allocation formula had not been touched for about 29 years, the Constitution says after a period of five years it can be reviewed, looking at the circumstances of the country, you know, more states have been created and also our other responsibility, like monitoring of CBN, monitoring of Ministry of Finance, customs, NNPC, those are huge task for the committee. And of course, don’t forget that revenue mobilization is also a satutory member in the joint tax board, local government joint account a political fun NDDC.”
He sassufed that the Commissions will do whatever it takes to assist the President to look for more revenues before he leaves office and furthermore will maintain the commission’s independence like it had been enshrined in the Constitution.
“Our task is how we can get more revenue for Mr. President. I know there is a lot of debate on whether there is operating surplus, like some of the agencies of government will claim that what they are getting is stop loss of revenue. Revenue is revenue as far as the commission is concerned.
“So my task is to get our members respond to the task that Mr. president gave them in 2019, when he swore in the new board that try as much as possible to get more revenue and strengthen your monitoring mechanism. That is what we are going to do with all the stakeholders FIRS and NNPC, Federal Ministry of Finance, every revenue generating agency, we have to collaborate and collaborate to be able to assist Mr. President get more revenue before he leaves office. This is a task that should be done by every meaningful member of the commission.”
