Kogi gives BIR monthly target of N9bn

Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello has given the state Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) N9 billion monthly target.

Declaring open a sensitisation workshop on the implementation of “Consumption tax” in the state, Governor Bello noted that upon assumption of office, he discovered that BIR needed to be energised, and he decided to grant it full autonomy to enhance its operations for it to be able to deliver on the new revenue drive of government.

Bello said revenue from crude oil was no longer sustainable due to the sharp drop in global oil price and the renewed acts of pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta, saying there was the need to mop up all sources of taxation to enable government meet its responsibilities.

The governor also explained that he met a tax law that had been in place without implementation because of past administration’s lack of political know how to implement it, which was part of the measure to make the revenue agency more effective.

He equally granted it full autonomy and effected the relocation of the revenue office to a befitting office space, and disclosed that government would not tolerate any act of sabotage from the board in the discharge of duty of the new responsibility.

Earlier in his address, Yakubu Oseni, chairman of the state BIR, said the law on consumption tax, which would be implemented in the state by the present administration, had been operational in other parts of the country, saying the new consumption tax was 5 percent of the total cost of consumables sold in the hospitality industry, eateries and event centres.

VICTORIA NNAKIAIKE