Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta has appealed to the Federal Government to increase the revenue allocations to states and Local government councils in view of their increasing responsibilities.
Uduaghan made the appeal when the Commissioner, representing the state at the Federal Character Commission, Sir Emmanuel Ebimami, visited him in Asaba.
The governor noted that the current revenue allocated to them could no longer sustain their responsibilities.
Uduaghan charged the commission to take it as additional mandate to address revenue sharing formula in the country to enable states and councils to meet their needs.
According to the governor, some state governments owe salaries because what they receive as allocations is not enough to meet their demands.
“I believe that there should be fair and equitable distribution of the oil revenue. A situation where the Federal Government has the larger chunk of the resources does not give room for fairness,” Uduaghan said.
He noted that the commission was central to addressing the complexities in terms of appointment and resource sharing in the country.
The governor said that this was because it was often difficult to balance resources in a cosmopolitan country like Nigeria.
He said that one of the reasons for the Niger Delta crisis was due to grumbling by the communities which felt that they were not getting enough.
He stressed that the state was currently saddled with the funding of some federal projects like the Ughelli-Asaba expressway among others.
He added that the state would have liked to support the commission in terms of logistics to enable it to train its staff and carry out other duties on its mandate but for fund challenges.
Earlier, Ebimami thanked the governor for the opportunity given to him to serve on the commission.
He appealed to the state government to give the commission some logistics support to enable it to train staff to attain its mandate.
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