Commission Wants States To Domesticate Fiscal Responsibility Law

The Fiscal Responsibility
Commission (FRC) Tuesday, advised state governments to establish their respective fiscal responsibility commissions and enact laws that would foster financial discipline.
The FRC Commissioner for Policy and Standards, Dr Sylvanus Mordi, who was in Calabar to represent the FRC Chairman, Alhaji Aliyu Yelwa, in a two-day retreat on “Awareness on the Provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), 2007,”  gave the advice in an interview in Calabar.
He said Nigeria had recorded achievements in macroeconomic stability after the inauguration of the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007 and  cautioned against “co-operative federalism’’ where states behave as if there was no need for fiscal responsibility.
The commissioner said that the centre and sub-national governments were partners in development.
“Before the Fiscal Responsibility Commission came into being, the corporations were not obliged to pay operating surplus into the Federal Government consolidated revenue fund.
“From inception to 2012, the FRC urged the corporations to increase their contributions from nothing in 2008 to N17.09 billion in 2009 and progressively thereafter to N86.77 billion in 2012,’’ he said.
He said that the Calabar retreat discussed the FRA 2007, and possible amendments to the act, as well as the medium term expenditure framework to improve the national budget.