Femi Folaranmi, Yenagoa
Bayelsa State Government, on Tuesday, described as incorrect Federal Government’s categorisation of the state as insolvent due to its low internally generated revenue profile.
Chairman of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), Mr. Elias Mbam, while receiving r the Annual States Viability Index (ASVI) from the Editor-in-Chief of the Economic Confidential in his office in Abuja on Monday, stated that Bayelsa, Borno, Katsina, Kebbi and Taraba states had become insolvent because of their “extremely poor IGR” performance in 2019.
However the state government in its official reaction through the Technical Adviser to the Bayelsa State Governor on Treasury, Accounts and Revenue, Mr. Timipre Seipulou, said the state was not financially insolvent.
Seipulou who spoke at the presentation of the income and expenditure profile of the state for the months of May, June and July 2020 explained that the actual problem was in the lopsided nature of the country’s funding structure.
He contended that the federal government allocates 54% of federal revenue to itself leaving the states with a little over 20% to share among them.
According to him a lot of monetary and fiscal policies were being driven by the federal government at the detriment of the states.
Seipulou expressed regret that Bayelsa with its vast deposits of oil and gas does not benefit from taxes and other revenues accruing from such resources to shore up its internally generated revenue based on the lopsided federal system the country operates.
“If you look at the type of federating structure we operate, even the federal government depends on federation allocation. And so we cannot say that any state is technically insolvent. Besides, the 36 states of the federation are not companies that should be declared financially bankrupt.”
The technical adviser further contended that Bayelsa remains one of the states that is able to meet the obligations to its workers and appointees as civil servants and political appointees are not being owed salaries.
Meanwhile Governor Douye Diri has inaugurated the new State Executive Council with the swearing-in of the 24 new commissioners.
Diri while charging them to be servant leaders urged them to innovative and creative to fashion favourable climate for generation of ideas in their various ministries.
He said: “You are assuming office in the extra-ordinary times, this inuaguration ought to have come earlier than today, but this government took over on February 14, 2020 which coincided with the outbreak of COVID-19, we have been fighting the consequence of destructive impacts of the virus, which was why this exercise was prolonged.
“People’s expectations from you are high, with this inauguration, you are expected to keep the ground running immediately and put the necessary structures, let’s join hands together for the common course of the people.