Former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sarah Alade has advised Kwara State to build its capacity for improved Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) profile, as a foil against continued reliance on allocations from the Federal Government.
Alade gave the advice yesterday in a lecture titled "Socio-Economic Development of Kwara State: An Agenda for the Future," which she delivered in Ilorin as part of activities marking the 50th anniversary of creation of Kwara State.
She said that the state could derive a lot of revenue through taxes, but should strive to empower the people to enable them to do so.
The former CBN chief, who noted that economic activities of Kwara State are dominated by operators of Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs), urged the state government to empower the people to boost their businesses, and to create job opportunities for the unemployed, to encourage greater results in the enforcement of tax law.
"Let's create wealth so that individuals will have capacity to pay tax. Let us look into how we can empower our people to raise IGR, and reduce dependence on the federal allocation. We can make the state attractive to the private sector and make the sector to be the engine room of the economy," she said.
Alade, who described Kwara as one of the states with high rate of poverty in the country, with a greater number of its youths either unemployed or poorly employed, called on the Government to provide an enabling environment conducive for economic development.
She advised the government to review its education, agricultural, health and infrastructural policies to facilitate economic development of the state.
The former CBN boss, who noted that infrastructural development is concentrated at urban areas and more prominently in Ilorin, the state capital, advised the government to spread the facilities to rural areas to discourage migration of youths to the urban centres, and thereby encouraging agricultural development in the rural areas.
She noted that in the current academic year, while school enrolment increases in the urban centres, the reverse is the case in the rural areas and advised government to address the situation.
The state governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed said in order to encourage growth of the SMEs, the government would consider tax holiday for new enterprises for the first five years of their existence.
The governor explained that the government has not created any burden on the people of the state by introducing another tax but only being efficient in ensuring due payment of the existing ones by the people.
