Soludo to sack revenue board members on poor IGR
By Raymond Ozoji, Awka
Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo of Anambra state says he would not hesitate to sack members of the newly inaugurated Board of Internal Revenue Service in the state, if the Internally Generated Revenue does not improve after three months from the date of the inauguration.
Soludo’s charge which was contained in the press statement released by his Press Secretary Mr. Christian Aburime, expressed concern that the revenue base at the moment is abysmally low; that there is an urgent need to upscale as well as upgrade the revenue base to meet current realities in the state.
He made it categorically clear that it is incumbent on members of the just constituted Board of Internal Revenue Service to think outside the box to ensure that the state sourced more revenue windows to augment her current meagre IGR base.
The governor also pointed out that the Internal Revenue Service being chaired by Mr. Richard Madiebo is the life-blood of all government operations, emphasising that if it doesn’t work, nothing works.
The Governor noted that results of IGR were not even close to 50 per cent of what he anticipated to achieve, stressing that he expected to have the revenue body doubled its initial revenue within its first four months, which did not happen.
He therefore maintained that the state government should be making more than N3 billion per month, which has yet to happen, and that the 2023 budget is expected to generate N4 billion per month, adding that Anambra state government is running a deficit on IGR, which is one of the key projections.
Soludo said, “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 benchmarks and targets.
“If we have a N5 trillion estimate and collect 1 per cent, that is 60 billion naira per year. If we collect 2 per cent, that’s N120 billion per year, or a minimum of ten billion naira per month on average. If we receive 5 per cent of income, we will have N300 billion per year.
“As of Monday, we were dangling around N1 billion per month, which is extremely low.
“You can see how far we are doing in relation to the potentials that exist,” Soludo said.
“The internal revenue service requires a 180 per cent turnaround. The current path we are taking will not get us very far because we have been trying it for a year.
“Members of this board must get to work right away because there is a lot of work ahead of them.
“We will interface and evaluate performance every three months. It will have a high mortality rate and a three-month life span. If this board fails, we will disband it and create a new one.”
