KADIRS collected N58.1bn revenue in 2022, not N77.1bn – Chairman

By Philip Yatai

The Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) has refuted the Auditor General Report on IGR which put the revenue generated by the state in 2022 at N77.1 billion.

The Executive Chairman of the service, Dr Zaid Abubakar refuted the figure in a statement in Kaduna on Thursday.

He said that the actual Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for 2022 was N58.1 billion.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Citizens Accountability Report (CAR) on the implementation of the 2022 budget claimed that the government generated N77.1 billion IGR in 2022.

According to the report disseminated to citizens on May 10, the N77.1 billion represents 87.1 per cent of the N88.5 billion targeted IGR for the year.

CAR is a series of graphic and tabular illustrations of the content of the Audited Financial Statements prepared by the State Audit Office for citizens, to ensure accountability of public funds.

The accountability report is based on the 2022 financial year and reports on state budget, revenue, and expenditure.

Similarly, the 2022 4^th Quarter Budget Performance Report, produced by the Office of Accountant General with support of the State Planning and Budget Commission, puts the IGR figure at N59.98 billion.

According to the report, published on the Planning and Budget website in Jan. 2023, the N59.98 billion represents 80.5 per cent of the N74.5 billion IGR target for the year.

Abubakar, however, said that the reports citing IGR collection figure for 2022 different from N58.1billion did not emanate from the authorised agency of the Kaduna State Government and should be disregarded.

He said that the Kaduna state has maintained a steady trajectory of growth in its IGR – N44.9 billion in 2019, N50.8 billion in 2020, N52.9 billion in 2021 and N58.1 billion in 2022.

“These remarkable strides owe much to the legal and institutional reforms undertaken since 2015 to strengthen the ability to collect revenues and to block leakages.

“The Tax Codification and Consolidation Law enacted by Gov. Nasir El-Rufai Government appointed the Kaduna State Internal Revenue Service (KADIRS) as the sole collector of government revenues.

“It also outlines all the taxes and levies payable in the state and prohibits the cash collection of revenue by any public officer.

“These efforts have been remarkably successful, quadrupling the IGR from less than N13 billion in 2015 to N52.9 billion in 2021 and rising to N58.1 billion in 2022,” the chairman said.

The KADIRS boss noted that the unprecedented levels of IGR collection in the state have been a notable feature of the El-Rufai administration.

According to him, the reforms that led to the successes in IGR have created a viable platform for the incoming government to build on for further progress in expanding state revenues.

Reacting to the conflicting 2022 IGR figures released by different government agencies, Mr Yusuf Goje, a public finance analyst described the development as “very disturbing”.

Goje blamed part of the problem to the unrealistic budget of the government, leading to suspicion on the credibility of published budget performance data.

He said the development shows lack of synergy and coordination around data management among relevant government agencies.

Goje stressed that if KADIRS refuted the Budget Performance Report and Auditor General Report on IGR, “then it means someone is fabricating the data. Who could this be?

“This calls for reform on information management such that responsible government agencies would validate all data before it would be made public,” he said.

According to him, putting out conflicting data by different government agencies only deepens citizens’ suspicion on published government data.

“This is disturbing because the essence of the Open Government Partnership that the state government signed unto is for citizens to have accurate and unquestionable data.

“When we are talking about transparency, we are talking about data that is usable for citizens to effectively engage the governance process.

“This conflicting data has cast a doubt on the credibility of official government data.”

Goje called on the government to urgently explain the situation to rebuild citizens’ confidence on available government data.

(NAN)