The mandate secretary of the Economic Planning, Revenue Generation, and Public-Private Partnership (EPRGPPP) secretariat, Hon. Agboola Dabiri, has made a case for the improvement of revenue-generation to ensure adequate and qualitative infrastructure in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
He made this call in Abuja, during an interactive session with revenue-generating secretariats, departments and agencies (SDAs) and other stakeholders in the FCT administration, harping on the need for them to redouble their revenue-generation drive to boost the internally-generated revenue (IGR) profile of the administration.
Dabiri explained that the meeting was critical, given the dwindling revenue base of the administration, adding that revenue generation is very critical in economic planning and development.
He said that without revenue, government cannot provide public infrastructure such as good roads, hospitals, schools and other welfare services for the people.
The secretary, therefore, urged all heads of revenue-generating SDAs to brace up to the challenge by working in synergy with other stakeholders for effective revenue generation and tracking. He charged every SDA to identify all revenue-yielding sources, pursue their revenue targets and block all loopholes and revenue leakages.
He further expressed appreciation to the management and staff of FCT Inland Revenue Service for setting a revenue target of N200 billion in 2022. While promising to give maximum support and assistance to the SDAs to surpass the revenue generation efforts of the service, the secretary urged them to be circumspect and retrospective in their strategic planning not only for optimum revenue generation but also in exploring new revenue sources in the FCT.
“Let’s know what you did in the past and what you want to do now. Ascertain your revenue targets, and plan on the way forward. You need to identify and collect data on all revenue collections and remittances. You need to identify all revenue- generating SDAs that have not remitted revenues over the years. You must be transparent and accountable in your activities.”
In the area of capacity-building for staff, Dabiri emphasised the need for every staff to be properly trained in their various areas of specialisation and revenue generation to ensure efficiency and increased productivity. He promised to organise training workshops and retreats for the staff to enable them to prepare and cope with the challenges facing them in their assignments.
One of the high points of the interactive session was the presentation of the first and second quarter reports of the Department of Economic Planning, Research and Statistics (EPRS) on Revenue Monitoring and Tracking for the 2021 Financial Year.
Presenting the report, the assistant director and head, economic planning division of the department, Mr. Baba Adukke, explained that the revenue monitoring and tracking exercise was initiated by the former director, late Isa Ari, to oversee and coordinate the activities of the various SDAs in the FCT in respect of revenue-collection, monitoring, tracking and remittance, which are critical in formulating the revenue framework of the FCTA.
“The monitoring exercise was to measure revenue performance against revenue target set in every year budget and to ensure that all revenue collected is dully remitted to the FCT Treasury. The main objective of this exercise, therefore, was to boost internally generated revenue (IGR) in the face of dwindling funds from the Federation Account with enormous responsibilities of providing basic infrastructures, which require huge funding,” he stated.
A statement by the secretariat’s head of public relations, Nnachi Okafor, said the meeting was attended by heads of revenue and other representatives from the various SDAs of the FCT Administration, including the health and human services secretariat, agriculture and rural development secretariat, Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), FCT Water Board, transport secretariat, among others.
