The Bayelsa State Government has restated its commitment to improve on its revenue drive, as it declared N1.3 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for the month of August.
The Deputy Governor, Rear Admiral Gboribiogha John Jonah (rtd), who made the declaration at the transparency briefing for the months of August and September, 2017 on Friday in Government House, Yenagoa, attributed the increase to the aggressive tax drive of the present administration.
He commended the collaborative efforts of the state Tax Assessment Review Committee and the Bayelsa Internal Revenue Board for the successes recorded so far.
He noted that the state’s monthly IGR was about N50 million at the inception of the restoration government.
Speaking on the issue of salary arrears, Jonah explained that government had the plan to offset salaries owed workers as soon as it received expected revenues from the federal government.
His said, “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.”
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While presenting the income and expenditure for the month of August, Rear Admiral John Jonah announced a gross inflow of N9.99 billion while the balance including a brought forward balance from the month of July, 2017 stands at N2.92 billion.
The gross inflow for the month of September as disclosed by the deputy governor stands at N12.8 billion.
The amount comprises statutory allocation of N3bn, 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 the net inflow to N10.9 billion.
He, however, put the total funds available at N12.7 billion including capital receipts from IGR, for the month of August which stands at 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 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, 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 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 was backed by law.
