Bauchi leads North-east states in IGR, growth – Fowler

The Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Babatunde Fowler, has disclosed that Bauchi is the highest in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) earner in the North East.

He disclosed this while speaking at the 142nd Joint Tax Board (JTB) meeting being held in Bauchi.

Fowler who is also the JTB chairman said the quarterly growth for Bauchi State in the third quarter of 2018 which was put at 10.01 placed it among the top 10 highest quarterly growth in the country. “At the regional level, Bauchi State is actually setting a healthy pace for the region as the 9 months collection in 2018 is just over 26% of the entire revenue collected by the six states within the region.

“Computation of IGR for Bauchi State for The President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Engr. Adekunle Mokuolu, has urged the Federal Government to resuscitate the country`s iron and steel sector in order to stave off the current overdependence on oil and the 9 months period January to September 2018 hit N7.04 billion. This figure has already outperformed the Full Year 2017 IGR figure of N4.36 billion with a percentage margin of 61.2%,”he said.

In his opening address, Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar said the state government after seeing the challenges amidst low income, falling federal allocations and backlog of debts it inherited devised means to improve its revenue.

He said as part of the measures, it gave ýa greater autonomy to its Internal Revenue Board to bring out initiatives in revenue collection for better fiscal strength of the administration.

Speaking, chairman, Bauchi Internal Revenue Service (BIRS), Jibrin Hussaini Jibo said that, the board has recorded significant rise in its revenue collection by 40%. gas.

Engr. Mokuolu made this call yesterday at the 2018 Engineering Week and Annual General Meeting of NSE.

Mokuolu said iron and steel held the golden key to the development of all sectors, including automotive, construction and machinery industries.