Lagos, Ogun, Enugu, two other lead in ASVI as 17 states can’t survive without FAAC
More reasons why majority of the states of the federation will not subscribe to true federalism and restructuring have emerged.
Otherwise, the economic diversification of the current administration which many states had subscribed to are not taken seriously by other 17 states who have remained insolvent in their financial balance sheet in 2017.
Latest figures from the Economic Confidential Group, released weekend have shown that facts from its Annual States Viability Index (ASVI) show that 17 States are insolvent because of their Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) in 2017 are far less than 10 per cent of their receipts from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) within the year under review.
The IGR are generated by states through Pay-As-You-Earn Tax (PAYE), Direct Assessment, Road Taxes and revenues from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
Whereas the report by the economic intelligence magazine indicates that the IGR of Lagos State of N333bn is higher than that of 30 States put together, other states with impressive returns in excess of 30% IGR apart from Lagos are Ogun, Rivers, Edo, Kwara, Enugu and Kano States who generated N607bn in total, while the remaining states merely generated a total of N327bn in 2017.
Just as the report provides shocking discoveries the states with less than 10% IGR have jumped to 17 from 14 states in the previous year 2016. The poor states may not stay afloat outside the Federation Account Allocation due to socio-political crises including insurgency, militancy, armed-banditry and herdsmen attacks. Other states lack foresight in revenue generation drive coupled with arm-chair governance.
The states that may not survive without the Federation Account due to poor internal revenue generation are Bauchi which realized a meagre N4.3bn compared to a total of N85bn it received from the Federation Account Allocation (FAA) in 2017 representing about 5%; Yobe with IGR of N3.59bn compared to FAA of N67bn representing 5.33%; Borno N4.9bn compared to FAA of N92bn representing 5.41%; Kebbi with IGR of N4.39bn compared to N76bn of FAA representing 5.77% and Katsina with IGR of N6bn compared to N103bn of FAA representing 5.8% within the period under review.
Other poor internal revenue earners are Niger which generated N6.5bn compared to FAA of N87bn representing 7.43%; Jigawa N6.6bn compared to FAA of N85bn representing 7.75%; Imo N6.8bn compared to FAA of N85bn representing 8.1% and Akwa Ibom N15bn compared to FAA of N197bn representing 8.06%, Ekiti N4.9bn compared to FAA of N59bn representing 8.38%; Osun N6.4bn compared to FAA of N76bn representing 8.45 %, Adamawa N6.2bn compared to FAA of N72.9bn representing 8.49%, Taraba N5.7bn compared to FAA of N66bn representing 8.70% and Ebonyi N5.1bn compared to FAA of N57.8bn representing 8%.
