By Umar Sa’id, Bauchi
In its efforts to improve the Internally Generated Revenue of the state, the newly inaugurated Bauchi State Board of Internal Revenue has been charged to improve on the current N30bn annual revenue generation to over N70 billion for the development of the state.
The Executive Chairman of Bauchi Internal Revenue Service (BIRS), Alh. Mu’azu Usman gave out the charge immediately after the inauguration of the board yesterday where he disclosed that the administration of Senator Bala Mohammed has increased the revenue of the state right from its inception from N6bn in 2018 to over N30bn as at 2023.
“We recognise the resolution of the Governor in the area of revenue generation and the revenue target being given is realistic because we know the potential in the state and if utilised properly, the state will be financially independent.
“Over 15 years of this board, our vision is to make the state financially buoyant. Looking at the records, when this government came on board in 2019, the IGR collection was just N6.5bn yearly but we raised it to over N30bn annually, this is the efforts of the Governor”, he added
Alhaji Muazu urged the citizens of the state to be more committed to their civic responsibility of tax payment to make the government’s projections from paper work to reality, especially now that the government is all out to provide more development projects across the state.
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Finance, Yakubu Adamu, said that Governor Bala has much expectations from the Board, saying the board is expected to fund some projects being awarded in the state, considering that a bond of N100 billion was raised last year and he said the project would be financed from the IGR not federal allocation.
“The Governor’s projection is for us to generate between N5 billion and N7 billion monthly. This is a challenge to us. We have made a lot of changes in our IGR base. We have changed our consultants and made recommendations to the Governor who gave us approval to look for another competent consultant,” the Commissioner said.
