STAKEHOLDERS in Ebonyi State Revenue Service have identified gaps in revenue generation and called for the creation of an automation template for revenue generation in the State.
They observed a drop in Ebonyi revenue between 2022 and 2023 since tertiary institutions in the State didn’t remit their IGR and other fees, thus the need for the automation template through TSA, to include tertiary institutions to pay every IGR and fee that belongs to the State.
The revenue officers also recommend the reconstitution of the joint State Revenue Committee and the Committee members should comprise experts and revenue officers from MDAs with a mandate to review the State Revenue Law for the expansion of the revenue base of the State.
The recommendations were made at the Ebonyi State quarterly IGR coordination meeting which took place in Abakaliki with participants drawn from Ebonyi State Internal Revenue Services (EBSIRS) and relevant revenue MDAs in the State.
The meeting was funded by USAID State Accountability, Transparency, and Effectiveness (State2State ) Activity Ebonyi Field Office.
Item Syĺvester from EBSIRS, Goodness Mgbaja, representing the Civil Society in the meeting, urged the State Government to stop hiring contractors for IGR collection in the State.
Chukwuemaka Chijioke, MD and global partner of IRS Consult, who is the State IGR Consultant, noted that the coordination meeting was an awareness and a strategy campaign for all the critical stakeholders in revenue in Ebonyi State to put more effort into making the revenue system more efficient.