Simeon Mpamugoh
The Executive Chairman, Kwara State Internal Revenue Service, Professor
Murtiala Awodun, has attributed the increase in the Internally
Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state to technology and changes in the
process.
Speaking to journalists at this year’s Nigeria Institute of Management
(Chartered) Members’ Forum in Lagos, Awodun disclosed that the state
government realised there was a huge leakage regarding the revenue
process of the old board of internal revenue, and decided to enact a
new directive christened ‘Kwara State Revenue Administration,’ which
created Kwara State Internal Revenue Service, (KW-IRS).
He said the agency was autonomous and independent of the ministry
pointing out that under the old arrangement, the board of internal
revenue was a department in the Ministry of Finance while the newly-
created agency was saddled with the responsibility of collecting all
the internally generated revenue within the state, and reports to the
governor instead of the Commissioner for Finance.
He said that the transformation that took place helped to shore up the
revenue base of the state adding that in 2015, the state IGR was 7.2b,
(N600 million monthly). “But by the time we did the first year in
2016, the revenue moved up to N17.4b (N1.45 billion monthly). In 2017,
it galloped to N19.6 (N1.63 billion monthly), while in Q3 of
operation, it moved to N23.7b (N9.9 billion monthly). So, you can see
the progression, which is as a result of the change in people,
process, and technology (PPT),” Awodun stated.
He said: “We recruited fresh graduates, and took them through the
process of the vision to emphasise the role of people in the transformation. They are performance-driven, and they get bonus apartfrom their salaries. So, we have the right-thinking kind of people to drive the revenue of the state. The issue of getting the leadership right, which is about management getting the management right, which is about people and the staff being very important.”
He disclosed that about six states in Nigeria including a tax force
led by Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) boss Dr Babatunde Fowler,
visited the state to see how well the it had done and to understudy
the way “we have done it because it would be difficult for other states to want to copy Lagos because the state is a city of its own.”
Awodun who was appointed the executive chairman of the agency on
October 1, 2015, disclosed that using technology and changes in the
process blocked all the leakages, stressing for instance that swearing
an affidavit in court officially costs N50 while receipts were issued
for N500. “What happens to the N450?” he asked, adding that those were the kind of leakages that were blocked in the transformation that took
place.
On how to internalise the gains of the Process, People and Technology
(PPT), he said, “this is why we decided to bring ourselves to international best practices, which is the certification. The quality management certification committee was concerned about that; we brought people, train them and they are delivering. Everybody knows
what to do. The process must be clear to everybody so that if I’m no
longer there and somebody else comes, the person knows what to do. He just needs to provide leadership,” he added.
He said that Kwara State was concerned about convenience of the
taxpayer adding that the state devised a taxpayer service called Community Impact Programme (CIP), which made it possible for the agency to penetrate into the rural areas to be able to practice inclusive valuation. “No matter how small what they are meant to pay,
it is important to drag them into the tax net.
“In those rural areas, we also appraise their needs and try to meet some of them. We provide transformers, sink boreholes, and build toilets in markets as our own give back programmes,” he stated