IGR: Plateau generates N7.7bn in 9 months

The Plateau State Government says it generated N7.7 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) between January to September, 2017.

Chairman, Plateau State Internal Revenue Service (PSIRS), Mr. Dashe Arlat told journalists in Jos, the state capital, yesterday, that the feat was achieved as a result of hard work by the government.

Arlat described the collection of revenue as “huge’’ and “very encouraging;” and attributing the development to the commitment of members of staff of the service. He also said the recent reforms in the organization aided the boost in revenue generation.

The chairman expressed happiness over the monthly collections, which he said, were a sharp deviation from last year’s N6.6bn.

“From the records, you could see that there is a considerable increase of N1.1bn in this year’s collection above that of last year within the same January to September.

“If not for the challenges we had with our ICT and laxity from our Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) during the period, the IGR would have been more than what we have now,’’ he said.

He, however, lamented the delay in remittance of PAYE of Federal institutions in the state to PSIRS, which he noted, had recorded some short falls in the projections of the organisation.

The PSIRS boss expressed optimism that by God’s grace, by December ending, the IGR would hit N10 billion as revenue collection for 2017.

According to him, efforts are being made to ensure that the MDAs rise to the challenge of meeting up with their mandates on IGR ‘’for us to end the year on a good and impressive note.’’

Giving the analysis of collections, Arlat noted that within nine months, the service was able to hit N1.2bn in June; and another N1.1bn in August, which he said, was in sharp deviation from the past.

He said, “Even our collections on drivers and motor licenses and plate numbers rose to N97.6 million, which is very encouraging within the period under review.’’

Arlat said that PSIRS had been properly armed with the recent signing into law of the Revenue Harmonization Bill by Gov. Simon Lalong, adding that it had brought about reasonable improvement in the state’s IGR.

He appealed to the general public, particularly tax payers, to always meet up their responsibilities to the government to enable it to provide the desired infrastructure to the people.

Kingsley Chukwuka, Jos