Edo govt gives marching order to revenue generating ministries

Edo State Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki,  has given revenue generating ministries and the state internal revenue board the marching order to mobilise their men to the field immediately for the commencement of revenue collection, saying that government was losing so much in revenue. The ministries are Agriculture, Environment, Minerals, Oil & Gas.

Consequently, the State Deputy Governor, Rt Hon Comrade Philip Shaibu, has met with commissioners and permanent secretaries in the ministries of Agriculture, Minerals, Oil & Gas, Environment and chairman and the executive directors in the  Internal Revenue Board with a view to working out the modalities.

At the meeting, the deputy governor emphasised government’s commitment to do away with consultants/contractors in the business of revenuecollection in the state, warning that the entire process must have a human face, saying that the era of thuggery and brutality was over for good.

He said although manual collection would be used for now until February 1, 2018, when it would be fully automated, “the process must be very transparent to maximise revenue for the government in the various beats. You must do away with the old order where there were a lot of leakages when government money ended in private pockets.”  According to him, “this pilot project is for three months only,  the manual collection starts November 1 and last ends  February 1, 2018, when the process would be fully automated”.

He mandated the ministries concerned to take advantage of the one week window between now and November 1 to liaise with the revenue board for the proper training of their staff before deployment to the field.

The deputy governor told the meeting that the Board of InternalRevenue Service  remained the authorised collecting agency of government revenue while the ministries provide the technical support, adding that all the ministries concerned should meet with the revenue board immediately on how to  jointly work and deploy their officials to the various beats for effective coverage. He said that the meeting would be held monthly to review the collection and entire process.

It would be recalled that government abolished all manual collection ofrevenue in the state and the use of contractors/ consultants effective from January 1, 2017. It has since reintroduced the collection in the transport sector and market places after the full automated to minimise leakages and fraud.