Niger State government generates N31.6 billion from all sources in 6 months

Niger State government generates N31.6 bn from all sources in 6 months

Olabode Adaramola
The Niger state government said it has so far generated over N31.6 billion from all sources between January and June this year.

This disclosure was made yesterday by the state House of Assembly Committee on Finance which investigated the financial position of the state government for the period under review disclosed in its report submitted at plenary on Wednesday.

According to the report, the statutory allocation to the state from the Federation Account Committee was N11.7billion , while Value added Tax (VAT) brought in was N4.3billion and exchange gains stood at N141,149,065.01.

The Internally Generated Revenue(IGR) for the state in the period under review was N2.427billion while the bail outs got from the federal government were N2.5billion n and N10billions respectively .

The committee in the report also said that the Single Treasury Account introduced by the administration raked in N424,619,198.52.

The report presented by the Chairman of the Committee, Alhaji Abdullahi A Mammagi also disxlosed that the State government within the period expended N26.6billion out of which N18.9billion was meant for salaries, overheads and releases to Ministries Departments and Agencies, (MDAs) almost N500millions spent on the Consultants that were engaged to improve the state’s IGR and the officials of the Board of Internal Revenue Service.

The Committee said N2.8billion out of the N10billion meant for Infra structural Development had been utilised on various projects “ spread across the three senatorial zones of the state “ leaving a balance of N7.137billion.

The committee however expressed dismay thart the “poor performance of our internally Generated Revenue(IGR) despite the seeming reforms carried out to improve the revenue base of the state. In fact there was no significant improvement as to what obtains in the past”.

The report described as “fraudulent” the arrangement where a consultants engaged in a specific area was paid  a percentage of the total collection” saying that the engagement of the consultants “ which is supposed to improve the revenue of the state is worsening the situation”.

It therefore called for a total overhaul of the state Board of Internal Revenue to make it more result oriented and that the law establishing the Board should be amended in such a way that it would provide for separate salary regimes for all category of staff to encourage them to do more for the state.

When the report was put to vote majority of members endorsed it and the Speaker alhaji Ahmed Marafa directed the clerk of the House to prepare a clean copy of the report and forward it to the Governor .

In July this year when the government could not pay salaries of workers in full thereby slashing the workers pay by 30percent leading to a one week industrial action the House invited the Commissioner for Finance to appear before it and present the state of finance of the government.

The report by the commissioner for finance was thereafter forwarded to the House Committee on Finance for detailed investigation.