FCT to embark on aggressive revenue drive
- Aims to beat Lagos
The Federal Capital Territory(FCT) Minister, Muhammed Bello has said his administration would embark on an aggressive revenue drive in the territory to beat Lagos as the highest revenue generating state in the country.
According to him, the era of dependence on revenue from oil to fund the budget was over in the country.
He vowed to activate the principles of revenue diversification in such a way that would put the FCT ahead of other states in IGR, especially Lagos.
The minister spoke on Wednesday at a workshop organised for FCTA Revenue Desk Officers with the theme, ‘Improving revenue generation for FCTA’.
The minister who was represented by the FCTA Mandate Secretary in charge of Economic Planning, Revenue Generation, and Public-private partnership, Lukman Dabiri Agboola, said the exercise of revenue diversification is a new beginning for the FCT administration.
He said, “I am not happy that our revenue drive drastically falls below Lagos with an IGR of 69.1 billion, which is the second-highest in the country.
“There is the need for an aggressive revenue drive in the FCT to compete with Lagos State revenue base, not minding the stigma the move would bring to the revenue officers.
“Presently all over the world, the dependence on oil and budget is coming to an end.
“The only way out for us is to build on our revenue base, budget is about procrastination because it is the money you do not have at hand. But revenue is the sure money we can always plan for.
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“Today, Lagos State depends solely on revenue collection, not on a budget. We have NEPAD and other international institutions for support, but the only way we can get them to come to us is if they have the assurance that we will pay the money back to them.
“If there is no way that we will pay the money back to them, they will not be there to give us any support or soft landing. If Lagos State today needs N400 billion support from any institution abroad they will get it within a week, because of their revenue base. I want the same thing for Abuja and FCTA.”