According to the governor, the IGR is not close to 50% of what he expected.
Governor Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra State on Wednesday lamented that the state currently has a deficit in its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
According to the governor, the IGR is not close to 50% of what he expected.
This comes about five days after Governor Soludo celebrated his one year in office.
Inaugurating the state board of internal revenue service - the Anambra Internal Revenue Service (AIRS), Governor Soludo said that the state ought to be making more than N3 billion per month but the AIRS could not meet up half of that in the first four months given to it.
He said, “I inaugurated the Board of the Anambra Internal Revenue Service (AIRS) with clear terms of reference and a task to increase the state's internally generated revenue.
“The Internal Revenue Service is the life-blood of all government operations, if it doesn't work, nothing works. The results of IGR are not even close to 50% of what we anticipated to achieve.
“We expected to have the revenue body double its initial revenue within its first four months, which did not happen.
“The Anambra state government should be making more than 3 billion naira per month, which is yet to happen, and the 2023 budget is expected to generate 4 billion naira per month, currently the State government is running a deficit on IGR.”
The governor said that Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) allocations are unpredictable, but the state has an economy with an estimated value of up to 5 trillion naira.
He said, “If we have a 5 trillion naira estimate and collect 1%, that is 60 billion naira per year. If we collect 2%, that's 120 billion naira per year, or a minimum of ten billion naira per month on average. If we receive 5% of income, we will have 300 billion naira per year.”
Soludo said, “As of Monday, we were dangling around 1 billion naira per month, which is extremely low. You can see how far we are doing in relation to the potentials that exist. The internal revenue service requires a 180 percent turnaround.
“The current path we are taking will not get us very far because we have been trying it for a year. Members of this board must get to work right away because there is a lot of work ahead of them. We will interface and evaluate performance every three months.
“It will have a high mortality rate and a three-month life span. If this board fails, we will disband it and create a new one. Mr. Richard Madiebo is the Board Chairman.”