Kaduna State government and Skye Bank plc have entered into partnership to increase the state’s internally generated revenue (IGR) in order to accelerate the pace of development in the state.
Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, Kaduna State governor, disclosed this in Kaduna recently, while launching Point of Sales (PoS) terminal for revenue collection scheme of the state, powered by Skye Bank.
He also said that the current IGR of the state and the dwindling federal allocation were not enough to develop the state.
According to him, his government has a huge budget expected to be financed by the IGR, but since the past five years, the IGR has been stagnant at about N1 billion per month, hence, the need to develop new and accountable means of revenue collection.
“It is against this background that we have introduced PoS to check revenue leakages and other challenges associated with tax collection,” the governor said.
On the government’s plan to focus development on tax-paying residents, Governor Yero explained that residents who evade taxes were the ones who criticise government the most, adding that only civil servants have been up to date in tax payment in Kaduna State.
“I know it is not because many of them want to pay, it is because the taxes are being deducted from source. Politicians don’t pay their taxes until when they need tax clearance from Board of Internal Revenue for election purposes. Therefore, subsequently, if residents of Ungwar Rimi pay their taxes regularly and residents of Sabo don’t pay theirs, we will be forced to concentrate development on Ungwar Rimi,” the governor said.
Highlighting the importance of the PoS terminal in revenue collection, Kawu Mohammed, regional manager of Skye Bank, and the lead bank for the IGR project in Kaduna State, said the project would ensure accountability and ensure taxes get to the government coffers.
He said that the governor commenced the move to sanitise revenue collection since he was the state commissioner for finance in 2008, and challenged Skye Bank to develop electronic means of revenue collection for the state, saying “this is the reason we have come out with this initiative, which is the first of its kind in the North.”
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
