KPSGRDP targets public finance reforms for productivity

The Kogi State Public Sector Governance Reform and Development Project (KPSGDP) is currently working to ensure it become more productive in the state.This, according to the State Project Coordinator, Ebenezer Bayode, has become necessary in the face of developments currently happening in the state.

The project, which is an initiative of the World Bank, is conceived to support the state in the reform of its public finance management and human resource systems.

Bayode, who spoke during a one-day workshop for practicing Journalists in the state indicated that Kogi is a beneficiary of the credit approval of $18.95 million that is meant for a period of five years with 40 years maturity period and 10 years grace.

The key components of the projects are; the public financial management, human resources management and capacity development and thirdly, monitoring and evaluation capacity development.

Bayode explained further that the project is a veritable platform for judicious application of state resources, thereby ensuring the delivery of more dividends of democracy to the people.The coordinator recalled that a recent state-wide tax survey carried out uncovered over 400, 000 new tax payers.

He said the potential for the internally generated revenue in the state are yet to be explored, adding that if all avenues for revenue generation are explored the state would have no business with unpaid workers salary.

According to him, a consultancy assignment that was undertaken by OMNI-B consulting for the board of Internally Revenue for State wide tax survey uncovered over 400, 000 new tax payers who should have been paying tax but actually were not paying.

He said the new people would be brought to the tax net with a view for them to be paying tax.Bayode said there are lots of ways to generate revenues for the state, which are not being explored.

“Look at the Ajaokuta Road, which is a state road, nothing stops the state from erecting a toll gate there to generate a lot of revenue.“Look at the commercial motorcycle riders if each one of them is paying a token to Government daily it would amount to huge sums of money every month. He talked about car, generator and motorcycle mechanics, taxi drivers, as some of the lots of people who are not paying taxes saying if they had been paying the roads would be good and the cost of repairing their Motorcycles would be significantly lowered. “With that in place the state would be the better for it when people who are supposed to pay tax are made to pay.

“From investigations many workers in Obajana are not paying any significant tax to the State and we understand that some of them who are actually supposed to pay taxes to Kogi are paying to Lagos State that is because there is no effective mechanism to compel them pay.
“A lot of them are from Lagos State but they are not paying to the State where they are making their livelihood.”