Media Relations Tips by YAShuaib

POSTSCRIPT II

MEDIA PERCEPTION ON RMAFC

THISDAY EDITORIAL (Excerpt)

As Tenure of RMAFC Ends...

Thursday August 19, 2004

By the end of September, just six weeks away, the tenure of the current members of the Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) would have expired.... Members are appointed for a five-year term at the pleasure of the president. Although the commission which has a representative from each of the 36 states and Abuja is appointed by the executive, the constitution grants it autonomy in the discharge of its duty. This, no doubt, is in recognition of the delicate nature of its assignment…In each of its functions, the incumbent commission has performed in a way that has not called into question its independence and integrity. Whether the commission was determining the revenue formula or fixing the salaries of political appointees, its conduct has generally inspired public confidence. Since his appointment as the chairman of the commission in 1999, Mr Hamman Tukur, a former federal permanent secretary, has come off as a fellow with a clear grasp of the dictates of his office. He has at every turn, demonstrated that the commission is not a stooge of any arm or tier of government. In line with its constitutional mandate, the commission has carried on in a manner that has earned it the admiration and respect of a majority of Nigerians... Both in determining the formula and fixing the wages of political office holders, the commission has demonstrated enough sensitivity to the public mood.. Even when it seemed clear that the commission's position on certain issues was unpalatable, the chairman and commissioners kept to their oath to serve without fear or favour. This is what makes it tempting to call for his re-appointment for another term.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE(Excerpt)

Business and Economy Page

September 13, 2004

The Commission successfully campaigned for transparency in the oil sector where it took on NNPC under Gaius Obaseki to account for differences of crude oil sales and receipts into the Federation; It proffered better solutions for funding JVC and called for the cancellation of Priority projects in the NNPC Budget as to eradicate wastage of public fund...Another controversial water where the commission fished is in the introduction of monetisation for political office holders. With the monetisation policy in the public sector, the salaries of all political office holders at the three tiers and three arms of government where monetised to minimize wastages of public funds. The success of that policy necessitated its extension to civil service by the federal government. It ensured that all its reports and submissions are statistically presented that could not be disputed even by ardent critics… Despite the giant strides of the Commission, politics, greed, blackmail are some of the challenges that it has to crush. Most stakeholders treat Commission’s recommendations with political undertone instead of considering their constitutional or legal implications. Examples are annexation of LGCs funds by governors without following laid down procedures, and the recent rejection of revenue formula by Federal Government…However no agency or body has ever disputed the commission’s facts and figures even when some of the revenue agencies refused to disclose their official data to the Commission.

WEEKLY TRUST (Excerpt)

Special Report

September 18, 2004     

In the five years that the board has been in place Weekly Trust discovered that the commission has done much to cover all the areas it is constitutional expected to cover. It is the commission for instead that introduced the monetization policy in the public sector to minimize wastages of public funds as such benefit were monetized and paid to the public office holders. The RMAFC had also advised the government in matters concerning the Federation Account insisting that monies from the account belong to all the tiers of government and not the Federal Government alone…More than once both the ministry of finance and the Accountant-General of the Federation have received queries from the Commission whenever there is an anomaly in the disbursement of monies from the account. The Commission also succeeded in bringing to order the uncontrolled tampering of local government funds by the state governments… The RMAFC also intervened and resolved disputes oil wells between some states. It was also the Commission that intervened in deciding a more objective benchmark in the 2004 budget, which was eventually pegged at $25 per barrel instead of $23 the executive suggested. It is also a fact that apart from these the Commission had during the period under review submitted three revenue formulae to the government…But that does not in any way suggest it had been a smooth sail for the Commission all the while. The Commission had for instance been engaged in constant scuffles with various agencies and tiers of government over its stand on some of the issues.

THE SUN (Excerpt)

Sani Zorro’s Column

September 14, 2004

Integrity and experience are not granules of diamonds, yet are the rarest of virtues in our land. You earn the first with the correct upbringing and through moral conduct, while you need luck and the intellect to acquire the second. By His special grace, Allah has conferred both on Engineer Hamman Tukur, a technocrat. Together with a team of dedicated men and women, he has relentlessly kept the nation informed of its earnings, and supposed balances in the nation’s accounts. Although, not the nation’s Chief Accounting Officer or its Auditor, he has over the last five years, engineered series of equitable revenue allocation formulae to the admiration of all tiers and organs of government. To his credit, there is perhaps nowhere you can lay your hands on data and accurate information on the nation’s revenue than at the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission, which he has chaired in the last five years.