IGR: Abia generates N15.5bn in six months – Official

The Abia State Government has said that it recorded about N15.5 billion Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) between January and June 2024.

The Commissioner for Finance in the state, Mike Akpara, disclosed this on Monday while speaking with reporters on the outcome of the State Executive Council meeting at the Government House, Umuahia.

Mr Akpara said that the state recorded a significant increase in its IGR and expressed delight that the figures had continued to improve every month.

“Before now, we were running at year to date around 59 per cent or 58 per cent but as at today we were doing 62 per cent and it is quite different from what we used to get.

“The IGR we got from January to June was N15,499,482,456.70. And as at 1 July to 6 July, we got N17,010, 976,942.34,” the commissioner said.

He said that from January to date, the state generated an average of N17 billion, while in 2022, the IGR was N16 billion.

He also said that in 2023, there was a slight increase when the present administration came in and figures showing a significant increase were recorded in the state’s IGR.

Mr Akpara said that the monthly average revenue is a crucial metric for understanding income patterns because there are times it could either increase or decrease.

“The way revenue comes in, you cannot say your IGR will be N3 billion.

“There is something called monthly average revenue, if you look at monthly average revenue from June 23 to June 29, it was N2.5 billion.

“If 23 June to 29 June had an average revenue of N2.5 billion, that provides a clearer picture of the consistent income flow during that period.

“This means there might be a time when one would do N3 billion there might be a time one would do N2.1 billion

“As at 1 July to 6 July, we were doing N2.7 billion as an average, and this indicates that IGR is cyclical. It has a cycle of how it runs,” Mr Akpara said.

He said the government had set a target for itself in monthly revenue generation as an encouragement to boost the state’s IGR.

According to him, beyond the state’s budget, the government had given itself the target to generate N4.3 billion average monthly and a target of N52.4 billion by the end of the year.

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“We have ourselves set a target that is far away from what is in the budget so that it will ginger us to make sure we meet the target.

“But in the budget, it is not what we have but we are looking up to this to be able to meet the target stated in the budget,” he said.

Also, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Ferdinand Ekeoma, said that the government had set up a multipurpose task force as a mechanism to ensure that taxes were paid effectively.

“For the fact that we are doing these, it means we are going to experience consistent increase in the revenue generation.

“We expect to do far better than we are doing at the moment,” Mr Ekeoma said.

(NAN)