Tag: States

With no end in sight to the crushing burden of workers/pensioners emoluments that has left the economies of most states in the federation prostrate, one of the more heart-warming developments must be the announcement by Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun on July 21 of a record haul of N559.03 billion into the federation account. Rising from the July meeting of the Federal Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC), the minister had announced that the amount, the highest so far this year, comes with a dramatic upshot in the gross revenue accruing to the federation by N301.32bn, also the highest in a long time.More significantly, she attributed the increase in revenue to efficiency in collection by the revenue generating agencies:  “The big cause of the increase is the improvement of non-oil revenue from FIRS. The FIRS improved its performance between last month and this month by N165 billion…there was also an improvement of N12.6 billion by Nigeria Customs Service…”

Withthe cash haul probably no more than the proverbial tiny droplet in a swathe of parched land, it was no surprise that nearly all of the finance commissioners present opted to keep mum on the development perhaps for fear of raising expectations at their states.Yet, at a time many of our governors have thrown up their hands in surrender to the threatening insolvency, the achievement needsonly to be seen in the broadercontext of the current economic meltdown to be appreciated. Indeed, that appears to be the high point of the 135th Meeting of the Joint Tax Board held in Abeokuta – a week after the minister’s announcement. Speaking at the occasion, the executive chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, Tunde Fowler, let it be known that70 percent of the amount came from non-oil while only 30 percent came from oil sources (Never mind that, N79.27 billion represented gains made from exchange rate differential).

If you thought that was remarkable, he would attribute the sterling performance to “massive new taxpayer registration drive, tax education and engagement through the establishment of the Federal Engagement and Enlightenment Tax Teams, FEETT, audit of five key sectors: banks and the financial sector, aviation, power, telecoms and oil and gas is beginning to yield result” just as healso disclosed at the forum that FIRS has added over 700,000 new corporate accounts in since he assumed office with a target to register at least 10 million additional taxpayers by December 31 – and this in addition to the cumulative figures of 10 million registered taxpayers from states Boards of Internal Revenue and the FIRS combined.

Indeed, an elated Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, would effusively tell the representatives of FIRS and other revenue generating agencies present: “Whatever you, Customs and others did last month that ensured that we ( federal, states, shared over N500 billion at FAAC, please continue to do it. It is good for the Federal Government. It is good for states. It is good for Local Governments. It is good for the nation’’.

That admonition by the accountant governor, in my view, ought to have been directed to his governor colleagues most of whom have done little else than moan since the price of crude oil took a plunge. For many, governance has taken flight leaving an industry of excuses. If you ask me, the message to them at this time ought to be that they should put on their thinking caps to address the problems they were elected to solve. Topmost of the problem is the issue of unpaid wages and pensions.

The import of the development is to see it as signposting the latent possibilities in taxation as a key driver of government, the promise of a new dawn in the nation’s quest to carve out a future less tied to the vagaries of oil. That FIRS is able to rake in that much at a time when economic activities are at their lowest ebb makes it even more remarkable.  While it might seem early to clink glasses in celebration given the vast grounds to be covered, there is certainlya lot to be said of the steady and remarkable transformation of what was once a laid-back revenue collecting agency of the federal government on the one hand, and the equally steady regression of the states’ Boards of Internal Revenue (minus Lagos) to such an extent that some of our governors have been reduced to whining administratorstoday.

There would of course a few exceptions among the governors;  the overall picture however is a class that have since lost it: a class that has become an appalling spectacle in lack of preparedness and imagination; a revelation in the profound lack of understanding of the challenges of governance, and above all, a class lacking the will to tackle headlong the problems as they come.

Evidence? Where else to look but the ritual of endless cleanup of payrolls in search of ghost workers –exercises that  are increasingly looking more like motions to buy time than anything else; the emergency embrace of placebos – which comes by the usual refrains about getting back to agriculture even when the policies that make such prospects promising have barely incubated in the minds of their promoters; variety of ill-thought measures that present appearances of something being done to the outright hare-brained ones such as the one proposed by Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State to reduce the five working days to three.

To these we may add the endless supplications in government houses for a rebound in crude prices.

It is perhaps trite here to counsel that the current problems will not disappear by mere wishes. The truth is that there is nothing in the problems in the states that cannot be solved by hard thinking and work. Time our governors sat down to work.