Stakeholders back independent revenue committees on IGR

Revenue committees in local councils and local council development areas (LCDAs) of Lagos State will adopt the professional standards of the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) to improve collection and increase internally generated revenue.

This was the resolution of stakeholders in revenue collection system in the councils at a workshop held in Lagos to deliberate on the prospects of professionalising revenue collection.

In his keynote address, LIRS Chairman, Mr. Ayo Subair, represented by the Station Manager, Ikeja, Mr. Segun Tijani, said that failure of local councils to manage revenue collection professionally had created a lot of problems for the state government and led to the enactment of laws that made the state the agent of the councils in collecting land use charges, signage and advertising, and lately, the management of parks.

Subair, therefore, recommended nine policies to transform the council areas to take professional charge of their revenue so that they can meet the expectations of the citizens.

Meanwhile, former Board Secretary of LIRS, Mr. Bicci Alli, while addressing the participants, urged the councils to introduce and maintain professionalism in revenue collection to encourage the state to have more confidence in their ability to collect revenues. He said that modern revenue collection requires skills in technology, data gathering, analysis, accounting and statistics. He said there are taxation applications that can be deployed to enumerate and estimate the taxable population to promote efficiency.

The workshop participants adopted the revenue committee model of Igbogbo-Baiyeku LCDA and the need to define the boundaries between the traditional authorities and the local council currently in progress at Ejigbo LCDA, following the presentation of both chairmen, Sesan Daini and Monsuru Bello Obe.

Daini explained how his decision to set up an independent revenue committee with its members of staff increased the council’s revenue from N70 million in 2017 to N180 million last year.

Obe suggested that the workshop should also involve traditional rulers to enlighten them on the limits of their powers over revenue items in local councils.