RMAFC creates tools to increase revenue production and sharing.
The income Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) claims to have created software to improve transparency in income generation and distribution among the three levels of government.
Mr. Mohammed Shehu, Chairman of the RMAFC, stated this in a conversation with journalists on Sunday in Abuja.
According to him, the software would assist the commission in performing one of its primary responsibilities, which is to review the revenue allocation formula for the entire federation on a regular basis.
“There’s a formula for allocating revenue vertically; who gets what percentage—federal, state, or local government (LG)?”There’s also the horizontal formula, which determines how that percentage is distributed among states and LGs.
“That involves taking into account aspects such as population, school enrolment, land mass, and hospital beds, to name a few.
“Previously, what we did was manually request the required information, and then the commission would go and do the inspection manually,” Shehu explained.
He also stated that the commission obtained data from relevant institutions such as the Federation’s Office of the Statistician-General and the National Boundary Commission.
“We now have software that the states and LGs will use to input the necessary data into the system.” They have a secret code.
“We will collect the data that they sent, analyse it, and then send our own team for verification,” he stated.
Technology, according to the chairman, is the way to go now.
In terms of revenue generation, he stated that the commission was also attempting to develop a data bank through which it could monitor revenue-generating entities.
“The commission should be able to see what enters their system in real time.”
“We have already moved from multiple accounts to Treasury Single Account,” he explained, “but RMAFC also wants to have a system in place so that as revenue comes in, we can analyse it.”
He urged all income-generating agencies in the country to join the commission’s work to successfully assure the optimal use of government resources.
“The Federal Government and the sub-national governments are concerned with increasing revenue while also preventing leakages.”
“Technology will save us time going through documents and assist us in reducing a lot of leakages,” he said.