By Muhammad Mukhtar Idris, Smile Sunday.
The National Assembly Press Cops, on Friday, October 2, 2020, paid a courtesy visit to Kogi State Internal Revenue Service to inspect projects and the new innovations in the organisation.
The Press Cops numbering over eighty Journalists including print and electronic media entered the premises of KGIRS which was built by His Excellency, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, shortly after the inception of his administration as the fourth Executive Governor of the State.
Conducting the August Visitors round the Revenue Service, the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Honourable Kingsley Fanwo, explained to the Journalists that before the coming of Governor Yahaya Bello’s administration, the then Board of Internal Revenue, now Kogi State Internal Revenue Service, operated from a 3-bedroom flat which thereby hampered the performance of the organisation.
Fanwo said in the past, the Revenue Service could only manage to generate a paltry sum of N250 million to N300 million monthly, the sum that cannot pay the salary of the staffers, let alone financing the physical projects in the State.
He, however, disclosed that Governor Yahaya Bello took the bull by the horn when he injected funds in the organisation and provided a befitting edifice for the Service which he said has provided a conducive environment for smooth revenue generation.
Taking the visitors round the Complex, the Commissioner stated that the newly reformed Revenue Service generates between N1 billion to N1.5 billion monthly, a feat Honourable Fanwo said no administration has achieved since the creation of the State.
In his response, the Chairman,National Assembly Press Cops, James Itodo, expressed satisfaction with the level of achievements recorded by the Service through the dexterity of the focused and committed government led by Governor Yahaya Bello.
He called on other state governments to emulate Governor Bello’s efforts in revenue generation to compliment the monthly federal allocations to enable them provide the needed basic social amenities to the people.