The Seyi Makinde led Oyo state government has called on federal government to jack up the revenue allocation formula for the local governments to enable them perform their responsibilities optimally.
The state Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters, Chief Bayo Lawal stated this on Friday in an interactive session with the 33 LG Caretaker Chairmen in the State with the Federal Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission team (RMAFC), held at the House of Chiefs, Secretariat, Ibadan.
Speaking through his Permanent Secretary, Elder Tunde Adeyanju, the Commissioner noted that the scanty purse of the LGs was as a result of little revenue available, adding that if their allocation can be pushed up by the Federal Government will enhance them to perform maximally.
He, however urged the Caretaker Chairmen to cooperate with the Commission as effort of data collation in administration cannot be over emphasized.
In his remarks, the team Lead, Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Alhaji Abdullahi Yanian, said Local Governments in the country need to fashion out a mechanism to get more Internally Generated Revenue.
Emphasizing the purpose of the team visit to the State, Alh. Abdullahi said the team was on a Nationwide Sensitization and Advocacy Tour of the 36 States and FCT on data gathering and management and will handle data collation exercise in the state, stressing that obtaining accurate data will make the government to be informed and to make decisions which would eventually be to the benefits of the people.
According to him “a framework must be put in place to let people pay for what they want. People want good roads, but do not want to pay taxes. It is time to have a retrospection on how functional the grassroot administration was during the Native Authority .”
He emphasized that local governments have potentials to generate more revenue than the state and these must be harnessed for development.
Also commenting, the Federal Commissioner of the Council cum Oyo State host, Mr. Bimbo Kolade stressed that the exercise will be in three stages: advocacy and information, data collation and verification; these he said will ensure that the collated data are accurate.
He however called for maximum cooperation of the Caretaker Chairmen and officials at the LGs in the State with the team, to enable the success of the exercise.
