The Kano State government has recruited 765 tax officers as part of its reform agenda towards ensuring effective and efficient revenue generation for the overall socio-economic development of the state.
The state governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, who stated this during the official presentation of letters of appointment to the recruited staff of the Kano State Internal Revenue Service, KIRS, at the Government House in Kano said the move is part of efforts to make the state self reliant.
“These and many more other measures became absolutely necessary, in order to fill-in the shortfall from the Federation Account occasioned by the Global recession. We believe that this approach will enable us as a Government discharge our responsibilities in the areas of education, critical infrastructure, Health, Agriculture, Women and Youth Empowerment, Integrated Rural Development and many others”, he stated
Dr. Ganduje added that a number of reform initiatives are being pursued and implemented in the newly overhauled KIRS, which are in tandem with his administration’s desire to ensure that the Service continues to uphold the virtues of transparency and accountability for effective service delivery to the citizens.
The governor further observed that “the future of the State lies with sustained effort of achieving tax based economy taking cognizance of the dwindling allocation from the Federation Account”.
While emphasizing that the engagement of the new staff by KIRS was predicated on the need to expand the existing tax net and collect as much as possible for the benefit of the entire citizenry, he appealed to the Tax payers to co-operate with the Service by paying your taxes promptly.
In his remarks, the state Commissioner of Finance, Prof. Kabir Isa Dandago said the KIRS had targeted N5 billion monthly revenues by the end of 2017, charging the newly recruited tax officers to brace up for the huge challenge of realizing the money the amount monthly.
The executive chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mr. Babatunde Fowler, represented by Mr. M.L. Abubakar, disclosed that in the Joint Tax Board ranking of various states Internal Revenue Service in taxpayer registration in 2016, Kano state came first with a total of 944, 000 registered individual tax payers, noting with delight that the state’s monthly revenue collection moved from N1.3 billion in 2015 to N2.5 billion in recent months.
