Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State, on Thursday, said
his administration was making efforts to stop relying on federal allocation in
the next four years.
El-Rufai disclosed this on Thursday in Kaduna in an
interview with journalists, shortly after declaring open the 147th meeting of
the Joint Tax Board, NAN reports.
He said the state has been boosting its tax collections and
channelling the funds to infrastructure, education and health care.
The governor disclosed that the state’s Internally Generated
Revenue (IGR) rose to N50.9 billion in 2020.
According to him, the state remains focused on further
improving tax collection to reflect its vision.
“In our last budget, 60 per cent of our budget came from
federal accounts and 40 per cent from IGR.
“But the way we are going, with very hard-working internal
revenue service team, in the next four to five years we will get to a point
where we will only go to federation account only out of courtesy not because we
need the money.
“We are focused on running the government and doing
development projects entirely from tax collection, we don’t want to depend on
the federation account, That’s our goal.”
El-Rufai explained that his administration is committed to
showing the people that the payment of tax is not a burden, but a contribution
to the development
“And when you contribute, you will see the development, you
will see the result.
“This result you will see through free education, 12 years
of free education not nine years like other states.
“In Kaduna, it is not just basic education, but free
education for junior secondary school and senior secondary and primary which is
all financed from taxes.
“We provide primary health care free to children under the
age of five and to all pregnant women.
”All senior citizens above the age of 70 get free health
care, all from taxation.”
According to him, the government is also expanding
infrastructure, including the expansion of water supply and investment in
electrification, all from tax collection.
“Our motto is Tax for Service; we want you to pay tax and
ask us what we do with the tax money and we can show you what we have done.”
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