An Ad hoc panel of the House of Representatives investigating the alleged failure of the Revenue Mobilsation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to comply with rules governing some areas of its operations, has vowed to deploy sanctions against its Acting Chairman, Umar Gana and management team of the commission.
The Committee headed by Hon. Mark Gbillah on Tuesday frowned on the nonchalant attitude of Umar, who had repeatedly in the past shunned the panel’s summons, to appear at its resumed hearing, or at least send representatives. It was investigating the manner in which the commission gathers, manage and use data in sharing revenue to the three of government, following a petition over alleged fraud in the process.
Gbillah said the committee’s initial appeal to Speaker of the House, Yakubu Dogara to drop sanctions against the chairman might be reviewed, “because from what we have seen today (Tuesday), the Chairman does not respect the constitution of Nigeria, he feels he is above the law, so we are urging relevant authorities and supervising bodies to see this action as the highest level of recalcitrance”.
While insisting that there was no constitutionally backed revenue sharing formula for the country at the moment, the lawmaker accused the commission of taking actions in breach of its operations rules, as over 30 sits of Commissioners who should represent their respective states of the federation were vacant at the moment.
According to him, the action of the Commission contravenes Section 32(b) of the Third Schedule Part I of the 1999 Constitution, which stipulated the “review from time to time, the revenue allocation formulae and principles in operation to ensure conformity with changing realities.”
Gbillah who frowned at the flagrant disregard for the extant laws,observed that the Commission has the responsibility of collection and maintenance of the integrity of data utilized for the computation of indices for horizontal revenue sharing in the case of Federation Account and both vertical and horizontal revenue sharing in respect of the 13% Derivative Funds, so that nobody is shortchanged
“RMAFC’s failure to undertake the review of the 2012 horizontal an vertical allocation sharing formulae after over five years of obviously changing realities as statutorily envisaged has stifled equitable revenue allocation that will enhance good governance”, he said.
