Plateau MDAs spurred to increase IGR beyond N9.1b

Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs), in Plateau state were on Thursday encouraged to grow the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) beyond the N9.1 billion recorded in 2016.

The call was made by the chairman, Plateau State Internal Revenue Service (PSIRS), Mr. Dashe Dasogot, at the unveiling of the Smart Revenue System, held at the Government House in Jos on Thursday.

The PSIRS boss said that out of the N9.1billion generated, only N2billion came from the MDAs, an effort which he said is below average as states that have done remarkably well in their IGR performance had their MDAs contributing a significant percentage of 50-60 percent of the states’ total IGR collection, like in Kwara where a total of N17billion was generated for the period under consideration out of which N10billion was generated from MDAs.

Mr. Dasogot said that the same success MDAs stories is also told in Kogi, Benue, Kano and Kaduna states respectively, adding that an adoption of a far reaching resolutions and recommendations from all stakeholders is needed to move the Plateau state IGR forward.

“There is no reason whatsoever for our MDAs to not perform ahead of some of the states mentioned above; every single MDA in Plateau State has potentials and capacity, what is left is the will power of government and leaderships in the MDAs.

“Each of them must wake up to explore and harness their services as income generating activities, in order for our IGR projections to attain and even exceed the budgetary expectations,” he said.

Unveiling the Smart Rvenue System, Mr. Dasogot said the effort will put the service ahead in terms of ease of collection of taxes and other receipts, saying that the system specially creates a seamless procedure for tax payer enumeration, registration and the generation of Tax Identification Numbers (TIN).

He added that it is a direct improvement on the elements of convenience, flexibility and promptness for tax payers, while enabling better transparency and accountability of revenues collected by the Service on behalf of Plateau State Government.

In his remarks, the Plateau state governor, Bar. Simon Bako Lalong, called on all Plateau citizens and tax-paying constituents, entities and individuals to embrace the positive developmental efforts and policies being executed by government to optimize the internal revenue collections, adding that government is keen to sustain the gains being made to help business grow to their full potential.

“Every taxable entity and individual should in turn, reciprocate and commit to voluntarily pay their taxes for the greater good of the state”, Lalong said.