Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has listed Nigeria’s 10 highest
revenue receiving states based on the federal allocations in 2013.
The states, according to her, earn more than the annual budgets of some
neighboring countries.
The allocations are as follows:
Akwa Ibom N260 billion,
Rivers N230 billion,
Delta State N209 billion,
Bayelsa N173 billion,
Lagos N168 billion,
Kano N140 billion,
Katsina N103 billion,
Oyo N100 billion,
Kaduna N 97 billion
Borno N94 billion.
Okonjo-Iweala gave the breakdown of the allocations on Sunday at Babcock
University’s 12th Convocation at which she delivered a lecture with the theme:
‘Transforming Nigeria economy: Opportunities and Challenges’
“These were the allocations that all these states got last year, so the question is
what did they do with it? Analysis shows that many Nigerian states receive
revenue allocation which are larger than budgetary allocation of neighbouring
countries such as Liberia which is $ 433 million, Gambia $210 million.
” So you see that our top 10 states receive more money than these countries
and therefore you should be asking what is this money being used for?”
Okonjo-Iweala said.
She noted that some states use their allocation better than others adding that
“that is why we can actually see what they are doing with their infrastructure,
education, while others do not”.
” We should also ask ourselves what is the role of our state government and
local government in supporting our transformation? We know from the
constitution that provision of public services such as health, education,
agricultural services and so on are all on a concurrent list and therefore are joint
responsibilities of the federal state and local governments.
“However it is not often that you hear people asking what has your state done?
Most of their attention is turned to the federal government so we also need to
ask what do our state and local government do with the resources they get?”
Okonjo-Iweala stated.
No comments:
Post a Comment