SGF tasks RMAFC on non-oil revenue drive

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, on Thursday charged the newly inaugurated chairman and commissioners in Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) to commit their efforts more to boosting the nation’s non-oil revenue in line with current drives of the government.

Specifically, Mustapha, who spoke with State House reporters shortly after the inauguration of chairmen and commissioners of three commissions by President Muhammadu Buhari, tasked them to drive the necessary process to mobilise funds from the non-oil sector in the face of serious shortfall in the nation’s earnings occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic.

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He said: “The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission is very critical, particularly now that we have very serious shortfall in our earnings. The essence of the revenue mobilisation is to look at the non-oil sector particularly in terms of mobilizing revenue for the country.

“I believe that now that they have full complement of their membership, they should be able to give it the necessary drive”, the SGF added.

On the strategic roles of the three commissions, namely the Federal Character Commission (FCC), Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC), and RMAFC to national development, the SGF pointed out that   “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 re-energising the system”, he stressed.

The newly sworn-in members of RMAFC are Ahmed Yusuf (Taraba); Bello Wamakko (Sokoto); Oladele Gboyega (Osun); Adamu Dibai (Borno); Alfred Egba (Bayelsa) and Hajiya Salamatu Bala (Adamawa).