The Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KDIRS) says the state has generated over N44 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in 2019.
Dr Zaid Abubakar, Executive Chairman made the disclosure while presenting the agency’s scorecard for the year at a news conference on Monday in Kaduna. Abubakar said the revenue generated surpassed the N43 billion target for the year by N1 billion. Abubakar pointed out that this was the first time that the state met its revenue target and even surpassed it, describing the feat as “a new benchmark” for revenue collection in the state.
He attributed the achievement to the overwhelming support from Gov. Nasir El-Rufa’i, the political will and free-hand accorded to the agency to do its job without interference. Abubakar also cited the rejigging of the revenue administration system since his assumption of office five months ago as a major factor for the outstanding IGR.
According to him, the agency was reorganised to engender professionalism and adoption of innovations around Information and Communication technology to ease revenue administration and collection.
“So far, as of December 30, we have collected a total of N44,0179,536,34.72 and will collect more between now and December 31.
“This feat was made possible because we have been able to rejig the revenue administration system in the last five months and worked tirelessly to ensure that the revenue target is achieved and accounted for.
“The trust of our revenue drive is centred around voluntary compliance, enforcement and collection of revenue arrears.
“We have also been able to do a lot around staff welfare, the major assets of any revenue collection agency. If the staff are well motivated, you should rest assured of meeting the revenue target.
“We have equally absorbed over 100 casual staff into the agency and addressed issues around promotion and proper placement of officers in the agency,” Abubakar said.
The chairman added that the agency had also deployed adequate Point of Sales (POS) to ease revenue collection in local government areas. He said that the agency had also inaugurated Local Government Revenue Collection Committees in the 23 Local Government Areas of the state to boost revenue collection at the local level.
