Revenue allocation: Look inward for more money, Jonathan tells Northern governors

THENATION

Jonathan

Governors who are pushing for a readjustment of the revenue sharing formula got a a candid advice from President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday: they should develop the natural resources in their states to generate more funds instead of relying on the shares from oil exploitation.

The President believes that if the states partner with the private sector and create the enabling environment for investment to thrive, there would be less emphasis on the oil revenues, as most of the states would be self-sufficient.

He therefore urged the state governments to draw up an agenda aimed at reviving the dead sectors of the economy.

Jonathan spoke in Makurdi, the Benue State capital yesterday during the commissioning of Teragro, a subsidiary of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp) and the first fruit concentrates processing factory in the country.

Following the dismal poverty rate released by the Bureau of Statistics recently, the 19 governors of the northern states called for a review of the revenue formula they said was in favour of some states, particularly the oil-producing states in the South-South.

The President’s statement is seen as a veiled response to the push for a review of the revenue allocation formula, including the derivation sharing ratio; a development that has divided the governors along regional lines.

The President said: “We have resources in all parts of the country to sell. All states of the federation have products they can export. The governors should work with private sector operators to produce and sell what they have not only to Nigerians but also for export.

“Nigeria is an agro-based economy even before the civil war and that is why they did not borrow money to prosecute the war. We should be able to revive this process like it happened in those period where oil is not an issue.

“If we create the enabling environment and liaise with the private sector, people will not need to steal or go into 419 before they can make it.”

Arguing that the transformation agenda of the administration would be based on the involvement of the private sector in developing the economy, the President described the commissioning of the factory as “good example of all we have been doing.”

“The idea is good because if you get concentrates, it will be easy to export since it is always difficult to export raw fruits.

He commended the state governor, Gabriel Suswam, for seeing that a factory that could not be commissioned by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2007 was finally made to work with the patnership of the private sector.

Earlier in his speech, the Chairman of Transcorp, Mr. Tony Elumelu, said the corporation decided to venture into the agro business as a way of pushing forward the transformation agenda of the administration and generate employment for the generality of Nigerians.

“What we are doing today is an answer to your call for transformation starting with agriculture. We will conserve foreign exchange with the commissioning of this factory and we are also planning to export fruit concentrates abroad.

“Already, we are getting calls from Europe and elsewhere and they have shown interest in what we are doing.”