Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger state has set a monthly internal revenue generation of N1 billion for the state’s internal revenue service beginning from March this year.
The governor gave the target on Monday in Minna while declaring open a 3-day training workshop on harmonised State and Local Government Law 2020 for revenue staff and other stakeholders.
He explained that statutory allocation to the state has been dwindling for some years making it imperative for the government to explore other areas of revenue generation in order to have funds to meet its obligations especially in the provision of infrastructures and payment of wage bills.
According to him, “We are going through a very difficult time. Our revenue has dwindled. Local governments are the worst hit while half of our 25 local governments cannot pay salaries. However, we have the potential to improve our revenue to the extent that we should not depend on federal allocations.”
Governor Sani Bello said that apart from the geographical land mass of Niger state, it also has numerous economic potentials that could generate over N30b monthly if properly harnessed.
He said, “for instance the Mariga market has more than N2.5b trading turnover every day, yet none of the state or local governments is getting tangible revenue from it”.
He however cautioned revenue staff to avoid subjecting innocent citizens to more hardship in the excuse of meeting up revenue targets adding that those who evade tax payments are not the poor people but the rich.
In a remark, the Acting Chairman of the State Internal Revenue Service, Ahmed Garba Guna, assured that his personnel will work hard to meet the target.
