19 States Lack Automated IGR Collection System – Fed Govt
Only 17 states out of the 36 states of the federation have fully automated their Internally Generated Revenue collection systems, the Federal Government said on Thursday.
This implies that 19 states lack automated IGR collection systems.
The Secretary, Joint Tax Board in the National Steering Committee of the States’ Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Sustainability Programme for Results, Aishat Obomeghie, advised states to automate the IGR systems.
Her advise was contained in a statement issued in Abuja by the States’ Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Sustainability Programme for Results.
The SFTAS is domiciled in the Home Finance Department of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National, which serves as the Programme Coordination Unit.
Obomeghie advised states to take bold and courageous steps in automating their IGR collection systems so as to increase revenue inflows to the state consolidated revenue account.
The statement read in part, “She disclosed that at the moment, only the Federal Inland Revenue Service and 17 states out of the 36 states of the federation have fully automated their IGR.”
According to Obomeghie, the states that had so far automated their IGR are Abia, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Edo, Ekiti, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ogun, Ondo and Taraba.
Also commenting on the activities of states, the Director-General, Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha, observed that more than two-thirds of states now submit on timely basis comprehensive quarterly debt reports to the DMO on debt stock and debt servicing.
She noted that two-thirds of states had passed public debt management laws and/or fiscal responsibility legislation which mirrored the Federal Government’s Fiscal Responsibility Act.
The DMO boss further disclosed that the states had also established fiscal and debt rules as well as limits and responsibilities for contracting states debt with functional state debt departments.
Oniha stated that for both 2018 and 2019, half of all states achieved debt-to-revenue ratios below the debt sustainability threshold set by the Federal Government.
The Chairman, Commissioners of Finance Forum and Benue State Commissioner for Finance, David Olofu, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, commended the Federal Government’s fiscal intervention which bailed out most states from financial distress.
