THE recent drive of the Kwara State government to improve its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) has begun to yield positive result as the State’s Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS) generated N8.9b within the first six months of operation.
According to the report, this represents a significant improvement on the N7.2billion that was realized for the whole of 2015.
Dr. Muritala Awodun, the Executive Director of KWIRS, made this disclosure in Ilorin on Tuesday, while addressing newsmen at a media briefing organized by the State Ministry of Information and Communication.
Giving a breakdown, the KWIRS boss said a total of N977million was realised for the month of January; N1.05billion in February; N1.25billion in March; N2.07billion in April; N1.45billion for May while a sum of N1.3billion was realised so far the month of June that will end on Thursday.
According to him, the sum of N5.002b out of the total N8.9b, averaging N833M monthly, was shared as state revenue, while N3.097b was set aside as retained earnings.
Furthermore, the N833M was used to augment the shortfall in the allocation received by the State monthly, over the six month period.
The Chairman also disclosed that there were revenue leakages in the past, which were as a result of unscrupulous activities of some people, adding that the revenue service also discovered under-declaration of revenue generated in some agencies in the State.
He stressed that the efforts of the revenue service to block leakages was what shored up the IGR status of the State, a clear departure from what revenue generation used to be.
