National Assembly Tasked on Illegal Allowances, Pending RMAFC Bill

Raheem Akingbolu

As the nation faces economic challenges to meet its financial obligations amidst corrupt practices and revenue leakages, the Chairman, Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership (CACOL), Mr. Debo Adeniran, has called on members of the 10th National Assembly and other regulatory agencies, to strengthen regulatory bodies in the financial and revenue sector.

According to him, to bring sanity into the public service and uphold financial discipline among politicians and civil servants, there is urgent need to review the unbridled manner in which government officials dip hands into the treasury and allocate illegal allowances to themselves.

In a telephone conversation with THISDAY, Adeniran said the Renewed Hope Agenda of Tinubu’s administration would be an effort in futility if there is no financial discipline and conscious effort to fill the loopholes in the disbursement of wages and allowances. 

He said: “Over the years, civil servants and even members of the National Assembly have been allocating illegal allowances to themselves at the expense of the masses. Except we are pretending that all is well, we all know there is so much waste in the polity and this is adversely affecting the economy. If the 10th National Assembly is indeed committed to quality representation, they should review their allowances and the allowances due for ministries and various government agencies.” 

As a major step towards bringing in the necessary sanity, the CACOL’s chairman also called on the assembly members to, as a matter of urgency, expedite action on recommitting the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) Bill for passage as the one passed by the previous Assembly has lapsed.

After his inauguration, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed some important bills passed by the 9th National Assembly into law, which include the Police Pension Bill, Electricity Bill, Data Protection Bill as well as the Students Loan Bill, but a few other bills including the RMAFC’s is still pending.

RMAFC is a body with a wide range of statutory functions as regards the overall revenue issues including monitoring, disbursement and determining its allocation to the federal, state and local governments among other things.

The sponsor of the Bill, Senator Olubumi Adetunmbi, who represented Ekiti North in the 9th Assembly said the amendment would reinforce the commission’s mandate and powers to, among other responsibilities, monitor revenue generation and disbursement on behalf of the people and government of Nigeria.

He said: “The commission, despite being a body established by the constitution, and whose independence is further guaranteed by the Act establishing it, has been hamstrung by certain limitations.

“In a world faced with the twin challenges of dwindling revenue and spiraling population and its attendant pressure on scarce resources, the imperative for prudent management and effective utilisation of our commonwealth cannot be over-emphasised. This is particularly instructive bearing in mind that the Act came into force in 2004 and has not been updated to reflect the changing realities of the time.”

To strengthen its operations, sections and clauses contained in the RMAFC Act 2010 were amended in the bill, treated and passed by the National Assembly to grant more powers to the commission to enforce the monitoring of accruals to and disbursement of revenue from the federation account in conformity with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) among others, “Adetunmbi said.