RMAFC Commissioners May Go In May, Investigation Shows
The tenure of most of the seven commissioners remaining at the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission may end in May, an investigation has shown.
Should the seven commissioners retire in May, the commission, which oversees revenue sharing among the three tiers of government, would be left with an empty nest as it had already lost 30 commissioners to retirement.
Each of the 36 states of the federation, as well as the Federal Capital Territory, is supposed to be represented in the body but only seven states are currently represented.
The states that are still represented in the commission are Sokoto, Borno, Adamawa, Taraba, Osun, Imo and Bayelsa. This implies that 29 states and the FCT are not currently represented.
Sources close to the commission confirmed to our correspondent that most of the remaining commissioners would be due for retirement in May.
However, the Head of Public Relations at the commission, Mr Ibrahim Mohammed, told our correspondent on the phone that he was not aware of the time the commissioners were due to complete their tenure.
Although the present administration had been known for failing to fill important vacant positions in the top echelon of the public service, observers believe that its reluctance to fill the positions at RMAFC is strategic.
This is because a crippled RMAFC cannot take policy decisions such as a new revenue formula, which the states of the federation have been clamouring for. Without that capacity, the current revenue sharing formula that favours the Federal Government subsists.
The states recently hinged accepting a new minimum wage that is before the National Assembly on the review of the revenue formula to give them more resources.
Without a quorum of one-third of membership, the RMAFC cannot take policy decisions. One-third membership of the commission is 13 members while only seven members are left.
Similarly, the body has had no substantive chairman for about four years. The last substantive Chairman, Mr Elias Mbam, from Ebonyi State, left office when his tenure ended in November 2015. Mr Umar Gana, representing Borno State, has been acting Chairman since then.
Although the Federal Government had in July 2016 announced the reappointment of Mbam for a second term, the investigation showed that his name had not been sent to the National Assembly.
The absence of a substantive chairman at the commission had been compounded by the spate of the retirement of commissioners who have not been replaced.
Although the RMAFC had in 2014 finished work on a new revenue formula, the draft had not yet been presented to the National Assembly as the Presidency has yet to formally receive it and secure the approval of the Federal Executive Council.
