Kaduna – A lecturer with the College of Business and Management Studies, Kaduna Polytechnic, Mr Oteri Michael, has advised states to think like businessmen and develop capacities to create sources of revenue.
Michael told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna on Thursday that the states would attain economic viability if they were creative and operate like private entities.
He pointed out that over-dependence on federal allocation had made states to be complacent in terms of investment and diversification.
He said that such approach had put pressure on the Federal Government.
“The Federal Government is already burdened with so many issues to tackle such as security, infrastructure and the economy in general.
“The idea of federal allocation is to give support to the states not to offset their bills.
“As entities with defined boundaries, the states should be able to generate revenue without necessarily looking at the central government to finance their recurrent and capital projects.
“The states must start looking at how to augment their financial mechanism by creating investment opportunities, build industries, develop infrastructure and attract investment,’’ he Michael said.
He described the current economic challenges as eye opener for the states to develop capacity to solve their own problems.
On the inability of most of the states to pay salaries, the lecturer said that the development was beyond financial issues.
“It has a political dimension to it.
“On assumption of office, President Muhammadu Buhari approved bailout funds for some of these states and one would wonder at why some states still owed backlog of salaries.
“I do not want to believe the states are bankrupt; they are not failed states; they are still working and the only logical explanation to this is simple; mismanagement of resources,’’ he added. (NAN)
