Date: 2018-08-16

The Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS) on Wednesday said that the service has contributed about N13.5 billion to the state's infrastructure development fund (IF-K) since the fund was inaugurated in September 2016.

IFK was established the Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed to fund all infrastructural projects across the state.

Chairman of KWIRS Dr Muritala Awodun briefed reporters in Ilorin, the state capital on the service's performance for the second quarter of 2018.

Dr Awodun said the evolution of IF-K had significantly assisted the state in executing capital projects across the state. He said the service now remits the sum of N530 million to the fund on monthly basis, as opposed to the initial N500 monthly remittance.

He said: "In 2015, there were over 60 projects abandoned across the state and there was no money but with the coming on board of the fund all the projects were completed and by 2016 given the available scenario government would not have been able to start any new project.

However with the IF-K government was able to start several new projects and most of them are still ongoing across the state. "

On the service's performance in the second quarter of this year, Awodun said "the service collected the sum of N1.3 billion in April, N1.2 billion in May and N1.3 billion in June to make a total of N3.8 billion. When added to the N6. 44 billion collected in the first quarter, he said the agency had collected a total of N10. 32 billion into the state's coffers in the first halt of this year."

He conceded that the influence of political environment had impacted negatively on the service's performance.

Awodun said his team has put in place strategies to ensure the continued success of the service in coming years.

He said: "In the second quarter we started a process of engaging to be taken through the process of international certification; the ISO in two major areas; quality management system and business continuity management and we are going to be the first revenue agency in Nigeria to do this and we expect that by the end of this quarter we would have been certified.

"The essence of this is that whoever comes into the system would have a seamless process that does not depend on an individual to succeed."

He also revealed that the service has so far expended N52 million on various community impact projects out of the N100 million budgeted for such projects this year.