Chairman, Oyo State Internal Revenue Service (OYIRS), Mr John Adeleke, on Monday, disclosed that the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) was being jacked up monthly with the state hitting N2.7 billion in October.
Up from what he described as a miasma of revenue generation of the immediate past administration of about N1.3billion monthly, Adeleke said the OYIRS was poised to follow the trajectory upwards in IGR such that there will be less reliance on federal allocation for the state to run its affairs.
Speaking alongside members of a group named “Friends of Seyi Makinde” at the state Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism, Adeleke said the state’s IGR was increasing because the revenue service had plugged hitherto leakages and was using creative ways to expand the tax net to capture both the formal and informal sector.
This was as he added that several residents of the state were voluntarily contributing revenue and paying taxes owing to their trust in the Governor Seyi Makinde led governance.
“We are bringing about a revolution in revenue generation activities of Oyo state. Oyo state today has moved beyond the miasma of revenue of between N1.2 billion and N1.3 billion per month in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
“I am happy to inform you that last month, our IGR was N2.7 billion and we intend to keep on in this trajectory. We are going to follow the trajectory of steady growth until within our first year; we are able to double Oyo state revenue from where we met it. That is our goal.
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“We can see a groundswell of support for the current administration in the sense that a lot of people, in terms of business premises contribution or environmental contribution or signage are prepared to contribute their quota.
“We know people that have voluntarily invited the government to their various areas, communities saying they can do a bit more for the government.
“We will be cashing on the enormous goodwill represented by the governance of Engineer Seyi Makinde to exploit fully the potential of our informal sector and ensure that we cast the net wide so that all that should be in it are in it,” Adeleke said.
In his earlier remarks, coordinator “Friends of Seyi Makinde”, Mr Funsho Abiri avowed that Makinde’s steps over the past five months pointed to a government that was committed to the delivery of good governance to the greatest number of people.
According to Abiri, the Makinde government had brought about a paradigm shift going by his declaration of free education, regular payment of salary and pensions, appointments based on merit, distribution of books to public schools, release of grants to schools, desire to transform farm settlements into farm estates, purchase of 100 security vehicles and investment in the health sector.
In living up being friends of Makinde, Abiri said the group was working towards facilitating the generation of Hydropower from Asejire and Eleyele dams as well as establishing a new medical centre of excellence in Ibadan to engender healthcare tourism.
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