Layi Olanrewaju, Ilorin
Executive Chairman, Kwara state Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS), Muritala Awodun, on Wednesday, said the internally generated revenue of the state in the last four months rose to the region of N7.7 billion
The chairman KWIRS told reporters, in Ilorin, the Kwara state capital, that though the projected collection for the four months is N11 billion.
Awodun said, “What we are looking at is to begin to run after a realistic N33 billion budget for 2018, which is N2.7 billion per month. Looking at it from that angle our performance in the last four months as compared with that of last year; the month of January the total collection was N2.3 billion as against the budget of N2.7 billion, February was N2.39 as against N2.7 billion.
“The total collection was N1.8 billion as opposed to N2.7 billion and in the month of April the total was N1.29 billion as against N2.7 billion.
“That gives a total of N7.7 billion a far cry from N11 billion projected for collection for the four months. That is 70 percent performance. But specifically, if you look at it against last year 2017 you will realise that in the first four months of last year a total of N7.4 billion was collected.
It is a marginal increase we have seen but taking into consideration that we had to go through a lot of restructuring and all that. One can understand while it is marginal.
“The internally generated budget for 2018 signed into law by Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed was N38 billion and while we are having our strategic sessions that had been realistically brought to N33 billion because we have to point out some areas in the budget that can be called the unrealisable.
“There is no point leaving what is not realizable in the budget. Because we want to face reality some things had to be taken away from the budget. Specifically, two major things were expunged from the budget.
“We also factored a lot of things in during the strategic sessions. One of such is the fact that we are in the political year. And activities of KWIRS had to be tailored around the realities of the environment we are in. we have however put in place strategies that will not allow that have significant impact.”
Awodun also said that, “We have carried out some restructuring in the service, so that we can be properly focused for growth. That restructuring affected some directorates. It also affected the movement of some people and all that. We also had to do some training of our staff focusing on the strategies for growth”.