Kwara Revenue Board Injects N13.5bn in Special Projects

Hammed Shittu in Ilorin

The Chairman of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS), Dr. Muritala Awodun wednesday disclosed that the agency has injected about N13. 5 billion to the state’s special infrastructure development fund (IF-K), since the fund was inagurated in September 2016.

Awodun stated this in Ilorin while speaking with journalists on the agency’s performance for the second quarter of 2018 of the agency.

He said the evolution of IF-K has significantly assisted the state government in executing capital projects across the state.

He stated that the agency now remits the sum of N530 million to the Fund on monthly basis, up from the initial N500 monthly remittance.

According to him, “in 2015, there were over 60 projects abandoned across the state and there was no money but with the coming on board of the fund all the projects were completed and by 2016 given the available scenario government would not have been able to start any new project.

“However, with the IF-K, government was able to start several new projects and most of them are still ongoing across the state,” he said.

Given a breakdown of the performance of the agency in the second quarter of this year, Awodun said, “the agency collected the sum of N1.3 billion in April; N1. 2 billion in May, and N1. 3 billion in June, totaling N3. 8 billion.

“When added to the N6. 44 billion collected in the first quarter, the agency has collected a total of N10. 32 billion into the state’s coffers in the first six months of this year,” he said.

While acknowledging the influence of the political environment on operations of the adency, Awodun said his team had put in place strategies to ensure the continued success of the service in coming years.

“In the second quarter we started a process of engaging to be taken through the process of international certification; the ISO in two major areas; quality management system and business continuity management and we are going to be the first revenue agency in Nigeria to do this and we expect that by the end of this quarter we would have been certified.

“The essence of this is that whoever comes into the system would have a seamless process that does not depend on an individual to succeed,” he explained.