Nigeria Content Online

Edo State spends at least N2. 3 billion every month
on workers salaries and over head cost. This was revealed in Benin City
in a valedictory press briefing yesterday by the out going Head of
Service of the state, Simon Imuokheme. While defending the state
government’s aggressive pursuit of its Internally Generated Revenue
(IGR), Mr Imuokheme said the policy has helped the state government to
meet up its basic responsibilities to the people of the state. “Right
now, we are spending about N2.3 billion generally for both salaries,
pensions, pay gratuities and specific overheads of various ministries.

That is why we are saying that the only way the state can survive is to
focus on Internal revenue because in some months. The federal
allocation is not even up to that N2.3 billion and that means that we
have to even use what we generate internally to meet our recurrent
expenditure.” He confessed. Mr Imuokheme said going by his long years
of experience in the system, there was need for political leaders to
push the tax laws of the country. “The challenges has to do with the
political will to enforce tax collection.

On the issue of internal
revenue, this government takes it as a matter of priority. It is the
first issue in every exco meeting on Wednesdays, the first topic is IGR
and there is a task force in the state in charge of revenue.” He said
the civil service in the state has been positioned to meet with current
challenges in the system