Date: 2015-07-31

The Kwara State Governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed has given an assurance that the issue of salary arrears of workers in certain tertiary institutions and government agencies in the state will be resolved within the next two months.

Speaking during a meeting with heads of tertiary institutions in the state at the Government House Ilorin on Tuesday, Governor Ahmed expressed optimism that the state and federal government efforts to end the hardship caused by salary arrears in the country will start bearing fruit by next month.

He therefore called on staff of the affected tertiary institutions and agencies in the state to exercise patience as the state government is doing everything possible to resolve the situation which he said was caused by the drop in allocation to all tiers of government for the past one year.

Governor Ahmed based his optimism on the expected bail out from the Federal Government which he said will restructure loans owed by the states and free up additional funds for the payment of salaries and other government obligations to the people. Speaking further, the state governor added that the government's renewed revenue drive will make revenue collection efficient and reduce government's reliance on federally allocated revenue.

Alhaji Ahmed said that the state government established the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KSIRS) with the mandate to make revenue collection efficient and increase monthly receipts from the current level of N600m to an initial N2.5 billion.

According to him, this will enable the state government to cover all its monthly obligations including payment of salaries and funding infrastructure projects. Alhaji Ahmed also told the heads of tertiary institutions that increasing the state's IGR will also result in a corresponding increase in federal allocation to the state.

Governor Ahmed therefore called on the heads of tertiary institutions to gear up for the new revenue collection strategy as government intends to plug all leakages and wastages which had hitherto hindered efforts to grow Internal Revenue to fund people-oriented policies and projects. Stressing that revenue collection and management can no longer be business as usual, Alhaji Ahmed advised all revenue generating agencies to change the way they accrue and appropriate funds.