The Kano State Government at the weekend advocated the need for improved revenue allocation to local governments to ensure improved socio-economic development of the grassroots in the country
The government’s position on the revised revenue allocation to the third tier of government was expressed by the State Commissioner for Local Government, Alhaji Murtala Garo, during a sensitization programme on data gathering and management for Local Government officials, organized by revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
Garo described the current 20.6 percent revenue disbursements to the LGAs under the current sharing formula as “meagre considering the responsibilities of the Local Governments”.
The commissioner, who the sensitization programme as timely, pointed that if revenue allocation to the LGAs is reviewed upward, it will enhance their performance optimally and deepen current drives to improve the socio-economic wellbeing of people living in the grassroots
Garo recalled that the government, in its efforts to improve the state’s internally generated revenue (IGR), had organized seminars and conferences for local governments on how to improve their revenue generation capacity.
In his remarks at the sensitization forum, the RMAFC Commissioner, Alhaji Ibrahim Bagudu, said the Commission organized the exercise to share ideas with all stakeholders with a view to charting ways on how state and local governments could create and maintain a functional data bank.
Bagudu said that the event would help the government to create and maintain a data bank for timely record keeping and by so doing enable it to render a credible data to the RMAFC.
At the end of the programme, participants resolved on the need to upgrade the existing solid minerals unit under the office of the special Adviser to the governor a full-fledged ministry; for local governments in the state to broaden their tax collection base; automate their data base to conform with global practices; enforce the use of E-treasury receipts; resuscitate tourism infrastructure and capture small and medium enterprises, among others.
