The Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State yesterday said the Federal Government was yet to justify the 52 percent revenue allocation; it received monthly from the federation account.
Fashola spoke at the flag-off of the expanded Lagos State Economic and Empowerment Programme, EEP, at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium, Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja.
The governor, who described the central government as the big brother, lamented that the inability of the central government to deploy the larger percent of the allocation it received from the federation account to provide the basic social amenities like power supply and adequate security, had made “life not too meaningful for the citizens.
There are three governments in the Nigeria family-the Federal, State and the local governments. The federal government gets 52% of the total income of the country; the 36 states governments’ share 26%, while the local governments share 22 percent. This is how our family is run. The big brother (the federal government) has taken more than half of the total revenue.”
“We get income from three major sources; there are other ones but these are the main sources. One is oil, the other is charges and import duties. On imports duties, the central government in 2013, made an income of N1.4 trillion in six months.
And this was from the Apapa Ports alone. We do not collect taxes from companies, all the companies in Nigeria, once you declare your profit, certain percentage is paid to the federal government. What we collect is personal income tax on the employees of the companies.
Yet, the federal government has failed to provide constant electricity for its citizens. If there is power today, many companies will pick up.
“In Lagos State, we are looking at an alternative to national failure because we would soon start to hear a lot of stories. Just remember that we used to have Berec batteries, where hundreds of people were employed.” – Vanguard.
Why has Lagos State government not been able to generate enough electricity for Lagosians as the nations ‘Center of Excellence” Let their govt set the pace and others will follow.