Federal Government was yet to justify the 52 percent revenue allocation .

Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola yesterday said the Federal Government was yet to justify the 52 percent revenue allocation it received monthly from the federation account.

Fashola spoke at the flag-off of the expanded Lagos State Economic and Empowerment Programme (EEP) at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium, Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja.

The governor, who described the central government as the big brother, lamented that the inability of the central government to deploy the larger percent of the allocation it received from the federation account to provide the basic social amenities like power and adequate security, had made life not too meaningful for the citizens."

"There are three governments in the Nigeria family-the Federal, State and the local governments. The federal government gets 52% of the total income of the country; the 36 states governments share 26%, while the local governments share 22 percent. This is how our family is run. The big brother (the federal government) has taken more than half of the total revenue.

We get income from three major sources; there are other ones but these are the main sources. One is oil, the other is charges and import duties. On imports duties, the central government in 2013, made an income of N1.4 trillion in six months. And this was from the Apapa Ports alone. We do not collect taxes from companies; all the companies in Nigeria, once you declare your profit, certain percentage is paid to the federal government. What we collect is personal income tax on the employees of the companies.

"Yet, the federal government has failed to provide constant electricity for its citizens. If there is power today, many companies will pick up.

"In Lagos State, we are looking at an alternative to national failure because we would soon start to hear a lot of stories. Just remember that we used to have Berec batteries, where hundreds of people were employed."

Earlier, Deputy Governor, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, said over 10,000 women were targeted for empowerment through the training and vocational skill acquisition programme under the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, WAPA.

She said the empowerment programme was open to all women in Lagos State, urging unemployed women to register for the programme beginning on August 25.

Meanwhile, the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC has lauded the Lagos State Government on the flag off of its EEP for the unemployed in the state.

The party said that the programme adds to a rich list of the laudable and effective programmes the Lagos State government uses to deal with the great challenges of hosting the largest concentration of Nigerian educated and non educated youths in the face of the aggravating problem of poverty in the country.

In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, APC said by this welfarist attention to the plight of the unemployed and the disempowered, the government and the APC were demonstrating readiness to deal with the problems of poverty being exacerbated by the anti-peoples policy of the PDP federal government. [Vanguard)