FG launches software to enhance transparency in revenue generation among govt tiers
The Federal Government has announced the development of software aimed at improving transparency in revenue generation and sharing among the three tiers of government in Nigeria.
The Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr Mohammed Shehu, revealed this in an interview on Sunday.
“There is the vertical revenue allocation formula; who gets what percentage – Federal, State or Local Government (LG).
“There is also the horizontal formula; how do you share that percentage among states and LGs?
“That means you have to consider factors like population, school enrollment, land mass, hospital beds; these are some of the indices.
“Previously, what we did was to request for the required information manually, and then the Commission will go and do the inspection manually,” Shehu said.
The software is expected to assist the commission in fulfilling its responsibility of periodically reviewing the revenue allocation formula for the entire federation.
This formula determines the percentage of revenue allocated to the Federal Government, State Governments, and Local Governments. It also determines how the allocated percentage is distributed among the states and local governments, taking into account factors such as population, school enrollment, land mass, and hospital beds.
Recall that the Commission had to manually request the required information and conduct inspections. However, with the new software, states and local governments will be able to input the necessary data using a passcode.
The Commission will then collect and analyse the data, send a team for verification, and agree on the horizontal formula for revenue sharing.
The chairman emphasised the importance of technology in this process and mentioned that the commission is also working on building a data bank to monitor revenue-generating agencies.
“The Commission should be able to see in real-time what comes into their system.
“We have already moved from multiple accounts to Treasury Single Account, but RMAFC also wants to have a system so that as revenue is coming in, we are analysing it,” he said.
He called for the cooperation of all revenue-generating agencies in the country in the Commission’s effort to ensure the optimal deployment of government revenue effectively.
“The Federal Government and the sub-national governments are concerned with how to make more revenue by also blocking leakages.
“Technology will save us the time of going through documents and help us cut down on many leakages,” he said.
