The Chairman of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service(KWIRS), Dr. Murtala Awodun has said that, the agency has generated the sum of N7. 7bn between January and April this year, a slight improvement in its performance of N7.4B of last year. Awodun also said that Kwara state will hopefully in the next administration stop depending on the monthly federal allocations to survive when it starts generating N4.5b monthly.
He said 70% of the revenue are generated from corporate organisations in the state,hence the continuous drive of the state government to improve on the infrastructure development in the state so as to attract more investors. The KWIRS chairman disclosed this in Ilorin yesterday at the quarterly media parley on the state of revenue generation in the state.
According to him, “The sum of N2. 2billion was generated for the month of January, N2.3billion for February, N1.8billion for March and N1.29billion for April as against the total sum of N7.4 billion generated at the first quarter in the year 2017.”
He explained that, the development was due to the persuasion and civility being used to interact with both formal and informal sectors of the state,stressing that the drive of performance would be less this year because its an election year. He also hinted that two the agency has obtained court judgement against two tertiary institutions in the state but decided to dialogue with them because of the sensitivity of closing the institutions.
He said,”Unlike what happened in other state,I won’t rush to close any institution over default in the payment because of their sensitivity.They will still pay on the long run,so of what use is the closure that would affect the stakeholders negatively during the period”
Awodun added that, the gentleman approach to the revenue generation has gone a long way towards assisting the agency to garner more taxes without any hindrance among the teeming populace of the state. On the return of revenue collection meant for the 16 local government councils in the state, Dr. Awodun said that, the agency decided to cede the revenue meant for councils to be collected by them so as to enable the councils in the state fulfil their rightful obligations to the people of the grassroots.
He said that, “since the state government believe that the local government councils have learnt their lessons in the management of revenue resources meant to them, the agency early this year relinquish the power to collect revenue meant for the councils to them without any hindrance. What the agency is doing now is advising and monitoring of their activities as way of helping them to be alive more to improved revenue generation at the grassroots so as to meet the yearnings and aspirations of those that elected them into office. And this would assist them to add values to the socio economic development and growth of the grassroots in the delivery of dividends of democracy to the people of the state at rural areas”.He added.
The chairman also enumerated some of the agency’s community impact activities within the first quarter to include: “Renovation of marriage registry and distribution of books to pupils of schools in the Kwara north senatorial district.” Others include ,clearing of drainages around Tanke area, contribution of endowment funds to the forthcoming convocation of the Kwara State University, Malete and donation of vehicle to the National Union Road Transport Workers (NURTW); sponsoring of symposium at KWASU, donation of borehole to Ifelodun community in Alagbado area, as well as clearing of Yoruba road market among others.”. Awodun therefore appealed to the residents of the state to continue to support the agency in its bid to meet its target so as to help the state to move forward.
