Bayelsa IGR hit N1.3bn, plans to sustain progress

THE Bayelsa State government has restated to sustain the success recorded in its monthly Internally Generated Revenue, (IGR), in the month of August, 2017, in spite of the economic recession. The state declared N1.3 billion.

The improvement was attributed to the aggressive tax drive of the present administration.

Deputy Governor, Rear Admiral Gboribiogha John Jonah Rtd made the declaration at the transparency briefing for the months of August and September, 2017 in Government House, Yenagoa.

He commended the collaborative efforts of the state Tax Assessment Review Committee and the Bayelsa Internal Revenue Board for the successes recorded so far, noting that the state’s monthly  IGR was about N50 million at the inception of the restoration government.

On the issue of salary arrears, the Deputy Governor explained that government has the plan to offset salaries owed workers as soon as it receives expected revenues from the federal government.

His words: “We have a plan for the arrears. We must offset civil servant salaries that we are owing because it is the responsibility of government. As a government, we will not run away from it. We will pay but we cannot tell when exactly that will be done. ”

“We are still expecting a few things from the Federal Government. If it had been coming regularly as we had expected, this question would not have arisen.”

While presenting the income and expenditure for the month of September, Rear Admiral John Jonah announced N12.8 billion as gross inflow from the Federation Account Allocation Committee, FAAC

According to him, the amount comprises statutory allocation of N3billion, 13% derivation, N8.7 billion, value-added tax N765 million and refunds of petroleum profit tax N147 million while refunds from other states stood at N57.5 million.

The Deputy Governor said first line deductions came up to N1.8 billion thereby bringing net inflow from FAAC to N10.9 billion.

He, however, put the total funds available for spending at N12.7 billion following the receipt funds from other sources including August IGR of N1.3 billion and refunds from local government councils in respect of the bailout funds.

On expenditure, he said government spent N2.2 billion on bank loan repayments, civil servants salaries N3.7 billion, salaries of political appointees N298 million, cost of IGR collection N72.6 million.

The Deputy Governor, who announced N4.9 billion as the balance of funds available at the end of September, noted that a total of N4.3 billion was expended on recurrent and capital payments.

The Special Adviser to the Governor on Treasury, Accounts and Revenue, Mr Timipre Seipulou gave further insight into the improvement of the state’s IGR, attributed the remarkable increase in the IGR to the appropriate measures taken by the government to compel some defaulting corporate bodies to pay their outstanding taxes.

In his remarks, the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Daniel Iworiso Markson stressed the need for media practitioners to always report accurately facts and figures of the statement of accounts presented to them.

Iworiso-Markson also restated that the transparency and accountability policy would out-live the present administration since it is backed by law.