Date: 2017-03-19

Kwara State has had its own share of economic recession as it battled every time to meet its financial obligations.

This is understandable because Kwara is a civil service state for which it depends largely on the monthly allocations from the Federation Account. Meanwhile, it is among the least paid on the ladder of the allocations, a development that makes its financial situation more precarious.

For this reason, the state has had to augment its income with Internally Generated Revenue(IGR)which even then was poor because the civil servants in charge were ripping the state off. This was the situation before Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed realised that he could turn the fortune of the state around by proper re-engineering of the Internally Generated Revenue Service.

The re-engineering blocked the loop holes through which revenue is stolen while setting up an independent agency complete with its own efficient staff and management, centralising IGR payments into state coffers,and coordinating same for the sixteen local governments in the state among other mandates.

The importance of who to head the revenue body was also strategic, so a financial expert who was then lecturing in the state owned Kwara State University, Malete, Dr Muritala Awodun, was withdrawn from the lecture room to take the position of the Executive Chairman of Kwara State Internal Generated Revenue (KWiRS). KwiRS, established by law, took off in January 2015. Today, the story of IGR in Kwara has changed following the giant strides of the KWIRS.

The state government did not only reform its revenue service , it also introduced the Kwara Infrastructural Development Fund(IF-K) as its own way of ensuring that the revenue mobilised are judiciously utilised for infrastructural development of Kwara. The state government has consequently set aside N500m monthly for IF-K from the revenue raked in by KWIRS , a development that caused Governor Ahmed during the launch of IF-K, in September 2016, to pronounce that the days of abandoned projects were over in Kwara with the inauguration of IF-K. Today, across the the state, there is the evidence that KWIRS is on course.

At various roads construction where rehabilitation is ongoing are conspicuously placed sign boards of KWiRs on duty with the inscription,'Play your part and pay your tax'. KWIRS also at various times has interacted with corporate organisations in the state,heads of ministries and parastatals and the media among others to know areas of improvement in order to raise IGR.