With focus on the IGR sector
Internally Generated Revenue is the lifeblood of all government operations, if it doesn’t work, nothing works. FAAC allocations are unpredictable, but we have an economy with an estimated value of up to 5 trillion naira.
“It is critical to highlight the enormous potentials that exist as well as the appropriate benchmark and targets “.
“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. With Anambra’s economy , we barely generate 20billion naira per year
- Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo.
I extracted the above words from Governor Soludo speeches at his 1year in office celebration and the most recent inauguration of the Board of Internal Revenue Service.
I did that for ndi Anambra to get a clear picture of happenings at the IGR sector and for them to know the target of Governor Soludo administration.
If you want Anambra to be like Lagos, you have to support government by paying your tax.
Under Governor Soludo administration, I will say that notwithstanding the blackmail of those that have been cornering our IGR to their personal pocket that the Governor stopped from milking the State IGR, the State IGR sector has been repositioned for transparency, accountability and better performance in the last 1 year.
The best way we can support Governor Soludo administration transformation agenda is by paying our tax.
If our economy is estimated to be 5 trillion naira, we can do better by ensuring that government gets atleast 2 % of it that is about 120 billion naira per year as tax from us.
I decided to bring to the public domain, the challenges being faced by the IGR sector for ndi Anambra to know that those shouting that Governor Soludo is killing the people of the State with heavy taxation are merely blackmailing him without having any justification to do that.
The Governor has high expectation from the IGR sector and as at today, work is still in progress by managers of the IGR sector to enable them meet up with the Governors expectation.
So far so good, below are the giant strides recorded on the IGR sector.
1) provision of hardware servers at AIRS.
2) installation of same servers alongside long lasting UPS to support the power availability
3) Commenced eventual migration of all tax payers data across all MDAs.
4)Provision and laying of internet optical cable for a provider base station.
5) Network all the offices in Revenue house
6) Powered high speed Internet connection with high bandwidth to improve activities.
7) Provision of a framework and model for the collection and management of the informal sector Revenue for the State.
8) Developed and launched a digital biometric enumeration systems for both the Commercial transport and market revenue in the State with an issuance of a system generated biometrics payer ID.
9) Commenced the Digital payment and collections that is designed to run as a subscription/bouquet model with options of payment available to various operators. This has increased.
10) Creation of three Zonal Tax Authorities one covering each Senatorial zone.
11) Classified Tax Stations under each jurisdiction and assign collection budgets based on its coverage area.
12) Appointed Zonal Tax Authorities who manages all Revenue related business in all the locations.
13) Redesigned and developed an intuitive system for tax payers enumeration using valid data from National identification database.
14) Data Scrub that led to the collection of about 500,000 tax payers valid data.
15) Launch of a digital tax payer enumeration system that includes that commercial transport and market traders. This process brought in over 100, 000 tax payers into the tax net.
16) Created avenue for tax payers to check the status of their tax payment and print Electronic Tax Clearance Certificate.
17) introduced and engaged PSSPs that has agency banking network across that States.
18) In addition to the bank branch which was the only payment channels before Governor Soludo administration, they engaged over 3 more bank agency and increased the payment and collection points to over 5, 000 points across the States via POS/Mobile money agencies.
19) Ensured that instant receipts and evidence of payments are issued immediately payment is done at any location.
20) Engaged Anambra State Health insurance Agency to design a free medical health insurance scheme.
21) The scheme takes a contributory sum of N250 per week from all the compliant commercial transport operators as a fee for their health insurance.
22) An enrolment process/structure opened to every compliant driver at the point of payment of their operational permit. Subsequent qualifications is tied to the payment/subscription of the payment.
23) Designed and developed a digital enforcement app that will be used for the confirmation and validation of payment by the operators.
24) Engaged and trained all the Enforcement agencies of the State on how to use the enforcement app.
25) Reduction of transporters tax rates.
Below is the current rates.
KEKE Weekly 2500
Monthly 10,000
TAXI Weekly 3000
Monthly 12, 000
SHUTTLE Weekly 3000
Monthly 12000
OKADA Weekly 1000
Monthly 4000
MINI TRUCK Weekly 3750
Monthly 15000
URBAN BUS Weekly 3750
Monthly 15000
INTER STATE BUS Weekly 5000, Monthly 20,000
26) Suspension of loading and offloading collection from January 1, 2023 to date all over the State.
From the above reeled out achievements, it’s evidently clear that Governor Soludo is repositioning the IGR sector to be able to compete with States like Lagos and Rivers.
It’s achievable with our support.
Let’s not forget that Governor Soludo is truly delivering dividends of good governance in our beloved State and the only way we can support him to do more for us is by paying our tax.
Daalu nu.
Evang Chinedu Obigwe
