Damaturu -Yobe Government, on Tuesday said it would establish revenue courts to ensure proper collation of revenues and improve the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the state.
Gov. Ibrahim Gaidam, who announced this at a stakeholders meeting in Damaturu, said that taxes, fees, duties and levies would also be reviewed.
According to him, the decline in the national revenue has negative impact on the state economy with attendant consequences on development across the state.
He said government had suspended the payment of gratuity, reduced overhead expenditure by 50 per cent, as well as suspended non-essential recurrent expenditure among others.
Gaidam stated that with the drop in allocation, “five out of the 17 local governments have to borrow from others to make up for the short fall in their statutory allocations’’.
“The five local governments have to borrow over N141 million to meet their requirements for October salaries and other mandatory standing payments.’’
He warned that government would embark on staff bio-metric verification to capture genuine employees of the local governments as a measure to sanitise the councils.
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The governor also directed the councils to sanitise their systems by removing ghost workers, to come up with credible, realistic and affordable salary bill.
Gaidam threatened that there would be no further augmentation for the affected local governments and advised them “to look inward for more internal revenue generation’’.
The governor noted that plans were on to diversify the income generation of the state with a view to improving its economy.
To this end, he said that the government would establish 500 hectares of irrigation pilot scheme in Nguru, Bolaram, Mugaram and Jumbam, through private sector involvement.