THE Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) will spend N1.3 billion to prepare the new revenue allocation formula for the three tiers of government this year.

The amount is contained in the details of the 2013 budget passed by the National Assembly last month, and awaiting presidential assent.

Details of the capital expenditure spending plans of the agency showed that the preparation of the new revenue formula will gulp 78.8 per cent of its total capital budget of N1.65 billion.

NAN reports that the existing revenue formula, which came into force in 2002, has been modified twice.

Under the current revenue sharing formula, the Federal Government gets 52.68 per cent, while states and local governments receive 26.72 per cent and 20.60 per cent respectively.

State governors have been agitating for ``a new, equitable and just revenue formula’’ that will give them more allocations and the agitation was intensified in the first quarter of 2011 when a new Minimum Wage Act took effect.

NAN also recalls that the Northern Governors Forum (NGF) has repeatedly said that states in the northern part of the country were economically marginalised under the current sharing formula.

In July 2012, the chairman of RMAFC, Elias Mbam, told NAN that the commission would conduct public hearings in the country’s six geo-political zones on the new revenue allocation formula.

He said the hearing would provide an opportunity for Nigerians to make input on the new allocation for the three tiers of government.

However, due to funding constrains in the 2012 budget, the commission could not embark on the sensitisation campaigns.

Officials of the commission, who spoke to NAN on condition of anonymity, have expressed the hope that adequate funds would be provided for the exercise this year.

They hinged their optimism on the November 7, 2012 resolution of the House of Representatives that compelled the commission to advise President Goodluck Jonathan to submit the new revenue formula to the National Assembly.