Reduce cost of governance, RMAFC urges FG

The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission has
called for a reduction in the cost of governance in the
country.

The acting Chairman, RMAFC, Shettima Abba-Gana, stated this in
Abuja on Tuesday, during the National Policy and Development Summit
jointly organised by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to
the President on Policy Development and Analysis and the Office of
the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.

He said the cost of governance could be minimised by reducing
the executive structure of the optimum cabinet, limiting the number
of political appointees and aides, merging and rationalising
government agencies with similar functions and adhering strictly to
approved remuneration of political and public office holders.

According to him, the pursuance of cost reduction policies,
emphasis on the development of infrastructure and attitudinal
change in terms of disposition and lifestyle of political leaders
are viable options to prune the cost of governance.

Abba-Gana, in his presentation titled, ‘Interrogating the change
agenda: Challenges and lessons learnt in the implementation of the
Federal Government’s change agenda’, said the high cost of
governance in Nigeria was caused by “the expensive nature of the
presidential system of government, large bureaucracy–duplication of
government ministries, departments and agencies and endemic
corruption.”

He stated that other factors were the high cost of public
service delivery due to infrastructure failure, high-security costs
as a result of insurgencies, kidnappings, ethnoreligious agitations
and armed robbery, multiple salaries and severance allowances;
extravagant activities and expenditures, high domestic and foreign
debts and weak enforcement institutions.

He said, “To consolidate the change agenda gains of the revenue
collecting agencies, the RMAFC recommends a comprehensive review of
the 1993 Production Sharing Contracts and the introduction of
initiatives to stem down pipeline vandalism as well as crude and
product losses in order to increase production to maximise benefits
from production.

“Granting of waivers and concessions should be carefully
implemented. The Mining and Inspectorate Division of the Ministry
of Mines and Steel Development should be upgraded to a full-fledged
agency for the purpose of improving the collection of solid mineral
revenue.

“The FIRS and NCS, being the major non-oil revenue collecting
agencies, must improve their performance to move the country away
from over-reliance on oil revenues.”

Abba-Gana stated that the RMAFC recovered N73.175bn unremitted
taxes and duties for 2008-2015, N168.5bn from tax liabilities owed
by the federal, state and local government councils, $1.747bn and
$1.554bn of costs of assets divested to the Nigerian Petroleum
Development Company by Shell Petroleum Development Company and
Nigerian Agip Oil Company, respectively.

“Higher revenue from other tax types recorded during the
post-agenda period over the pre-agenda period is a sign of
achievement. However, more needs to be done. Juxtaposing revenue
collections in the pre-change agenda period against the post-change
agenda period with fall in oil prices indicates much work was
done,” he said.

He added that the total post-change agenda returns of the
Nigeria Customs Service were higher compared to the pre-change
agenda period.

“We can attribute this to the change agenda policy of the
government. However, there is the need for the NCS to make more
efforts,” Abba-Gana noted.

A former Military Administrator of Lagos State, Brig. Gen.
Mohammed Marwa (retd.), in his keynote address, said
anti-corruption crusade was not all about arrest and prosecution of
corrupt persons.

He said, “Anti-corruption is much more than that. It is the sum
total of actions taken by a government or private organisation to
put a wedge between people that are interested in converting
resources meant for a specific purpose into private use.

“If this is anti-corruption, why are we so interested in the
reactive fight against corruption, whereas the latent fight is
yielding more results?”