FG charges revenue commission to mobilize funds from non-oil sector

By Egena Sunday Ode

The Federal Government on Thursday charged the newly inaugurated chairman and members of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation And Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), to activate the necessary process to mobilize funds from the non-oil sector to make up for oil prices fall.
The charge was handed down in the face of serious shortfall in the nation’s earning occasioned by COVID-19 global pandemic.
Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, gave the charge while speaking on expectations from chairmen and members of Federal Character Commission (FCC) and Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) and the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation And Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), after their inauguration by President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House Abuja.
In May, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, had announced that Nigeria’s oil revenue target fell by N125.52 billion in the first quarter (Q1, 2020) to N940.91 billion.
The World Bank had also in May projected that based on its assessment of Nigeria’s economy, the country would plunge into a recession, the worst in recent times.
Speaking to State House Correspondents at the end of the ceremony, the SGF said President Buhari charged all three commissions to take their constitutional responsibilities seriously so that the administration could deliver on its Next Level agenda to the Nigerian people.
Mustapha said: “Basically, they have some constitutional responsibilities because all these commissions are mentioned in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and so that presupposes that already the constitution has provided for them a mandate. More especially as we are notching towards the end of the President’s tenure.
“We have just spent a year and we have three years to go but there are so many things that we want them to begin to do in terms of reenergizing the system.”