By Dawud Ahmed in Lokoja.
The Executive chairman, first left) and his directors.
The Executive Chairman,Kogi State Internal Revenue Service, GIRS,Alhaji Sule Salihu Enehe, says the Service has put in place security joint task force to clamp down on all illegal tax collectors who are also considered as security threat to the state.
Enehe,who disclosed this on Thursday in Lokoja during press briefing, described the prevalence of the illegal tax collectors in the revenue generation process of the state government as totally unacceptable.
He said that he had written to all security agencies to help the Service enforce the drive towards clamping down all illegal tax collect collectors in the state.
“It is only in Kogi state that somebody,an individual, can create a tollgate,the new law has criminalized that,”he Said.
According to him,the security agencies had also realized that the illegal toll collectors are among those giving information to criminals.
He said that removal of illegal Collections, especially the produce taxes, would reduce the price of commodity and the attendant effect on the cost of living.
The executive chairman expressed optimism that the staff of the Service would utilize their potential to drive and achieve the in realizing its aims and objectives of sanitizing tax collection in the state m
He said in this regard,staff of the Serve who would drive process were being motivated through, training, due promotions and other incentives.
On the revenue tax of the Service Enehe who said that that the Service generated N23 billion in 2023, adding that N30.4.billion had been projected for it in the 2024 budget of the state,assured that the Service would block all revenue leakages to meet the target.
Alhaji Enehe told the journalists the state now had harmonization law which criminalized multiple tax collection points.
“Not only that, the law,”Amended Revenue Harmonization Law”, has criminalised collection of tolls,” he stressed.
The law,he added, had also empowered the Service to take charge of the revenue collections in the state.
