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Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, at a two-day retreat, tagged: “Reforming Local Government Administration in Edo,” organised for Local Government administrators in Benin City, has pledged his administration’s commitment to work with the councils to boost their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
He said the drop in crude oil prices had made it impossible for Federal allocation to sustain LGAs, as such, his administration has decided to put in place measures to assist them enhance their revenues.
The Governor said: “Let us be frank with ourselves, we need to strategise on how we can boost revenue and reduce costs; those are the solutions I can see. We have introduced the use of technology to collect revenue for LGAs in the state. In the pilot phase of the scheme, we were able to raise IGR from N42, 000 to N500, 000 at nine different collection points in Oredo LGA on a daily basis.”
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He promised that the state would make 15 out of its 18 LGAs viable before September this year through the new method of IGR collection, while also urging the administrators to support the process.
He emphasised the need for the local councils to improve on their intelligence gathering system to curtail security challenges in state.
The Chairman of the Unified Local Government Services Commission, Simon Imuekheme, revealed that the retreat deliberated on ways of improving education, security, IGR and technology at the LG councils.
