FRC urged to run gov’t as business

TheFiscalResponsibility Commission (FRC) has been urged to run government as a business for the country to meet its budget requirements.

The Lead Consultant, Private Sector Development, ECOWAS, Professor Ken Ife, gave the advice on Wednesday in Abuja during the launch of template for calculating surplus of MDAs by the commission.

Ife said since the FRC is the only business manager of government it must run government as a business and ensure that MDAs responded to the template appropriately.

“It is when government is run as a business that agencies begin to pay their taxes and government gains revenue,” he noted.

He said the real custodian of Nigeria’s macro economics is the FRC, stressing that every other institution was a player in different aspects.

He also urged states to key into the template to ensure its success “or else we will keep having arguments about fiscal federalism.”

The template showed that scheduled corporations are barred from investing funds without prior approval of the accountant-general.

“A number of corporations tend to invest their funds in other areas resulting in low liquidity and consequently inability to pay surplus due to the Federal Government.

“The payment of operating surplus being a distribution is not to be relegated to the practice of corporations investing their surplus in money of capital markets,” the template stated.