“Absence of 30 commissioners does not ground RMAFC’s activities”

The Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) has refuted claims that the absence of 30 Commissioners was grounding the activities of the Commission.

The Acting Chairman of the Commission, Shettima Umar Abba Gana made this refutation in a chat with press men Monday in Abuja.

Abba Gana pointed out that since most of the said Commissioners vacated office in November 2015 following the expiration of their respective tenures, their departure has never affected the work of the Commission even as the few members that remained on board have continued to discharge their responsibilities without let or hindrance.

He explained that the Act establishing the Commission explicitly stated that only 5 numbers of Commissioners constitute a quorum and that the 7 remaining members from the different parts of the geo-political Zones were sufficient to discharge the routine and specific duties related to the statutory mandate of the Commission.

He however added that it was desirable to have all the Commissioners in place.

For instance, the Acting Chairman recalled that RMAFC had successfully carried out verification and reconciliation of collections by Banks where recoveries totaling over N73 billion were made, while similar exercises on Stamp duty collections and Tax liabilities of the three tiers of government on With Holding Tax (WHT) and VAT yielded N27 Billion and N168 billion respectively.

Furthermore, Abba Gana disclosed that the Commission as a Member of the Federation Account Allocation Committee and Chair of the Post Mortem Sub Committee has been effectively supervising the disbursement of the statutory monthly allocation including preparing attribution and indices for the 13% Derivation given to oil-producing States.

The Acting Chairman also recalled that RMAFC had in 2016 carried out a Nationwide Monitoring Exercise on revenue leakages in the solid minerals sector where potential revenue of 10 out of 50 commercially-viable mineral types of up to N5 trillion was established.