The Revenue Mobilization Office on Monday said that the demands by the three tiers of government has placed undue pressure on the federation account, stressing on the need for state governments to develop strategies to boost their internal revenues.
Elias Mbam, Chairman of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission ( RMAFC ) receiving the Annual States Viability Index (ASVI) from the Editor-in-Chief of the Economic Confidential, Yushau A. Shuaib in his office in Abuja, noted that the Federation Account Allocation is overstretched by the over-dependence of the tiers of government and hence the need for state governments to look at other income sources.
“The over-dependence in the monthly Federation Account Allocation has made it imperative “for state governments to boost their internally generated revenues (IGR)”.
“The annual ASVI report apart from providing a good source of information to the general public also has been identified as a source of information that would drive RMAFC on its mandate to encourage states of the federation to improve their Internally Generated Revenue”.
Speaking on the report, the Editor-in-Chief of the Economic Confidential, Yushau Shuaib said the ASVI report assessed and ranked States by their annual IGR in comparison to their receipts from the Federation Account Allocation.
He said the report has shown that without the monthly disbursement from the Federation Account, many states cannot survive as the indices showed that seven (7) States are insolvent due to very poor IGR that were far below 10 percent of their receipts from the Federation Account.
“Apart from Lagos and Ogun States that ranked high in the revenue generation in 2019, more states have recorded impressive and encouraging IGR in 2019 compared to 2018.
The report shows that only Rivers, Kaduna, Enugu, Kwara and Zamfara States did well with regards to impressive revenue generation in 2019 compared to their IGR in the previous year 2018 by improving more than 10 percent.
“The states with the worst IGR performance in 2019 thus rendering them insolvent according to the report are Katsina, Kebbi, Borno, Bayelsa and Taraba States “with extremely poor IGR”.
