November 2, 2017

The Plateau Government says it generated N7.7 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from January to September 2017.

Mr Dashe Arlat, Chairman, Plateau State Internal Revenue Service (PSIRS), told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Jos that the feat was due to hard work.

Arlat described the collection of revenue as “huge’’ and “very encouraging” and attributed and also linked the development to the commitment of members of the staff of the service, coupled with the recent reforms in the organisation.

The Chairman expressed happiness over the monthly collections which he said were in sharp deviation from last year’s N6.6 billlion.

“From the records, you could see that there is a considerable increase of N1.1 billion in this year’s collection above that of last year within the same January to September.

“If not for the challenges we had with our ICT and laxity from our Ministries, Departments and Areas (MDAs) during the period, the IGR would have been more than what we have now, ’’ he said.

He, however, lamented the delay in remittance of PAYE of Federal institutions in the state to PSIRS which he noted had recorded some short falls in the projections of the organisation.

The PSIRS boss expressed optimism that by God’s grace, by December ending, the IGR would hit N10 billion as revenue collection for 2017.

According to him, efforts are being made to ensure that the MDAs rise to the challenge of meeting up with their mandates on IGR ‘’for us to end the year on a good and impressive note.’’

Giving the analysis of collections, Arlat noted that within nine months, the Service was able to hit N1.2 billion in June and another N1.1 billion in August, which he said was in sharp deviation from the past.

“Even our collections on drivers and motor licenses and plate numbers rose to N97.6 million which is very encouraging within the period under review.’’

Arlat said that PSIRS had been properly armed with the recent signing into law of the Revenue Harmonization Bill by Gov. Simon Lalong which he said had brought about reasonable improvement in the state’s IGR.

He appealed to the general public, particularly tax payers, to always meet up their responsibilities to the government to enable it provide the desired infrastructure to the people.