By NIyi JACOBS
The Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) is at the center of controversy after its 2025 budget jumped to ₦105.14 billion — 32 times larger than its 2024 allocation of ₦3.27 billion.
Waziri Adio, founder of Agora Policy and former executive secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), described the increase as “unprecedented” and “troubling,” warning that it undermines fiscal discipline.
Writing on of the dailies on Sunday, Adio revealed that the commission’s budget was initially pegged at ₦5.6 billion but was later revised upward to ₦105.14 billion. He broke down the increases: personnel costs rose from ₦3.6 billion to ₦20.6 billion (472%), overheads from ₦1.1 billion to ₦8.9 billion (709%), and capital expenditure from ₦916 million to ₦71.5 billion (7,705%).
“The legislators, who in theory are there to provide necessary checks, went along with the cruise,” Adio wrote. “This shows that relying on supervisory institutions for restraint is an unrealistic expectation.”
For context, Adio noted that RMAFC’s total budget in the past five years combined (2020–2024) was ₦13.37 billion. The 2025 allocation alone is eight times that figure.
Adio traced the budget explosion to three key developments. First was a December 2024 decision of the National Economic Council (NEC) to allocate a share of non-oil revenue to RMAFC. Governor Charles Soludo of Anambra had briefed journalists that the allocation would be 0.05 percent of non-oil revenue, but the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has been applying 0.5 percent — ten times higher.
Second was the signing of a new RMAFC law on April 2, 2025, which formalised the revenue allocation arrangement. Third came the National Assembly’s approval on July 22, 2025, of RMAFC’s revised ₦105.14 billion budget.
According to Adio, the entire allocation is to come from the 0.5 percent statutory transfer of non-oil revenue, with ₦37.2 billion projected between January and June and ₦67.94 billion between July and December.
RMAFC intends to spend all of it: ₦20.6 billion for personnel, ₦8.9 billion for overhead, and ₦71.5 billion for capital projects.
Adio argued that while the commission deserves predictable funding, the jump was excessive. “Even a five-fold increase would have raised concerns about absorptive capacity. Instead, RMAFC ended up with a 2025 budget that is 32 times its allocation for 2024. What an amazing grace!”
He concluded that the commission has succumbed to “the feverish urge to splurge,” aided by lawmakers who failed to apply necessary restraint.
