Incompetence And Inexperience Of Plateau’s IGR New Collector (Smart Taxes) May Soon Lead To Crashing Of Plateau IGR As Low Revenue Generation Is Recorded

Yakubu Busari

Plateau State Government may likely to hit rock before the second quarters of 2017 owning to the problem of the inability of the new consulting firm to improve the internally generated Revenue to the state.

It was gathered the feuds between the former Governor Jonah David Jang now Senator representing Plateau Northern senatorial district and Governor Simon Bako Lalong would be deepen with crisis of political differences that marred the collection of revenue accrued to the state.

The past regime of Governor Jang in 2011 seek for a consulting firm toward improving the IGR with a targeted income amounting to N6billion which ranked the state as  number seven position in revenue generation in the country.

Information available to this medium revealed that since the assumption of Governor Simon Bako Lalong change mantra the state internally generated revenue remains dwindling owing to the new firm’s inability to collect reasonable funds.

The Taxo firm which was on board during former Governor Jang’s administration that handled revenue collection was transparent and accountable to all the staff of the board to access how much was collected daily, a case which is different with new IGR’s collection firm, the new smart taxes.

As learnt by this medium, the old Taxo company machines are more advanced and of standard quality that even  some staff of the new firm don’t have the requisite training that will enable them operate on them effectively and efficiently.

Universalreporters247.com gathered that the new policy is more of window dressing with very poor policy to generate revenue because nobody understands the performance and the platform used by smart taxes.

Plateau state citizens are moving into the second quarter of the calendar year without any clear picture of how much has been generated to the state and the consultant is busy rushing with the process of collection of tax.

The ongoing recruitment exercise where list of successful candidates placed on notice board were changed and fresh list where the consultant sent an SMS to people’s phone shows that it only favours politicians’ candidate in the state.

It would be recalled that Thousands of invited guests scrambled for food at New Government House Rayfield after several hours of waiting in vain during the flag-off ceremony of the Plateau Board of Internal Revenue House, Smart Taxes.

It would be recalled that the programme was rescheduled when Governor Simon Lalong and his cabinet unceremoniously left for Abuja to see President Muhammadu Buhari.