Plateau Govt Denies Resorting To Cash Collection

Yakubu Busari

The Plateau State Government has  denied reverting to cash collection of revenue in the state.

The Acting Chairman, Plateau Internal Revenue Service (PSIRS), Mr Dashe Arlat while speaking with Journalists in Jos said the report was false and malicious.

“We ‘PSIRS’ are collecting all taxes and other payments by electronic devices automation through designated banks and not in cash as being speculated by in some quarters.

According to Arlat, PSIRS is still very much on automation and all tax payers must obtain their Tax Identification Number (TIN) to enable them to make payments to us.

He said that probably some local governments were collecting cash but not the service, which had recently frowned at it, and had directed them to resort to automation.

The acting Chairman said he had a meeting with all local government stakeholders last week and warned them against cash collection to discourage embezzlement and block leakages.

Arlat said that the service was out to ensure that its monthly collections increased to boost the revenue base of the state.

He said that PSIRS had embarked on dialogue approach with tax payers to recover tax liabilities stucked in some big time institutions.

“This approach is really paying off; it has yielded positive results from various federal institutions which were remitting their PAYEs to us”.

Arlat also said that the service would soon receive more than N2 billion from some institutions like the University of Jos and Bingham University Teaching Hospital.