Nimbofa who spoke while receiving a 14 seater Toyota bus from the management of Access Bank, noted that the government of Bayelsa had abolished the cash-based tax payment system and subsequently blocked revenue leakages and boosted the state's revenue.
The Chairman, Bayelsa Board of Internal Revenue, (BIR) Chief Ayawei Nimbofa on Tuesday attributed the rise in Bayelsa's monthly internally generated revenue above the N1 billion mark to the deployment of cashless, electronic cash collection system.
Nimbofa who spoke while receiving a 14 seater Toyota bus from the management of Access Bank, noted that the government of Bayelsa had abolished the cash-based tax payment system and subsequently blocked revenue leakages and boosted the state's revenue.
He said that the progressive rise in monthly revenue from about N300 million monthly before the reforms in 2017 to reaching the N1 billion mark was a fallout of the automation of the revenue collection process.
"We are reaping the rewards of the recent re-engineering of the revenue collection process and deployment of electronic payment platforms that capture the funds accruing to the state.
"We have since abolished the cash payments and that has been responsible for the increased revenue and we leveraged on the expertise of our lead bankers Access Bank who today is donating a bus to boost our operations.
"We feel encouraged by the gesture and we express gratitude to the bank and we know that other financial institutions would follow shortly," Nimbofa said.
It would be recalled that the monthly internal revenue in October 2017 hit a peak of N1.3 bn.
Mr Kakiri Flint, Relationship Manager, Public Sector in Access Bank Yenagoa said that the gesture was part of the bank's social obligations to boost the revenue drive of the Bayelsa.government.
He said that the bank had deployed its expertise and provided technical support to the blockage of leakages in the revenue collection system.
"We have a history of relationship that dates back to 2006 and we have made progress, we played a role in the use of biometrics in the payroll which has led also to a substantial reduction of the state's wage bill from over N6bn to the current figure of about N3.8 bn.
"The donation of the bus today is meant to ease the work of the Bayelsa Board of Internal Revenue as well as part of our corporate social responsibility," Flint said.