The Delta Commissioner for Finance, Chief David Edevbie, on Thursday said that the state government generated N51 billion as Internally Generated Revenue in 2017.
Edevbie disclosed this in Asaba at the state’s 2018 Ministerial Press Briefing organised by the State Ministry for Information for the various Ministries, Department and Agencies to present their reports.
He said that the monthly IGR of the state in the year under review had hovered between N3 billion and N4 billion.
The commissioner said the N51 billion represented about 73.2 per cent performance, compared to the budgeted revenue of N70 billion for the period.
He said: “The amount also represents an increase of 13 per cent when compared to the IGR of N45 billion received in 2016.”
He said that the state’s revenue board was putting a new and secured system in place to capture all taxable persons and to close up gaps to ensure that the state met its monthly revenue target of N7 billion.
Edevbie said: “The Delta Board of Internal Revenue is deploying new strategies and initiatives towards realising a monthly revenue target of about N7 billion.
“To expand the database of taxpayers, the board is also focusing on capturing more than 70 per cent of taxable persons in the informal sector in the state’s tax net.
“It has increased its tax agent database from 1,800 to 5, 800.”
He noted that the state statutory allocation, value added tax, 13 per cent revenue derivation from Jan. to Dec. 2017 was N179.5 billion, representing about 61 per cent performance, when compared to the state’s estimated revenue of N294.5 billion for the same period.
Edevbie also said that the state spent a total of N208.9 billion, compared to a budget of N294.5 billion.
He said: “Of this N208.9 billion, N145.6 billion, representing 92.2 per cent performance was spent on recurrent expenditure, compared to the provision of N158 billion.
“While the sum of N63.2 billion, representing a budget performance of 46.4 per cent, was spent on capital expenditure, compared to the budgeted N136.4 billion in the period under review.”
The commissioner said that the state’s debt stock currently stood at N228.3 billion, adding that a new loan was N9.5 billion and that the state debt service principal and interest was N21.9 billion and N3.4 billion, respectively.
He said that due to lower revenue receipts in the year under review, government released a total sum of N17.3 billion to the Delta State Oil Producing Area Development Commission instead of N28 billion in the budget.
He also said that his ministry, on behalf of the state government, had paid the N42.3 billion out of the principal component of the N50 billion bond floated in 2011.
He said: “The outstanding principal balance on the bond is N7.7 billion, as at Dec 2017.”
The commissioner said that N4 billion was approved for the ongoing Asaba International Airport resurfacing of the 3.7 kilometre runway, among other ancillary works.
He said that the state government had released a total sum of N2.5 billion to Setraco, the contracting firm handling the runway project.
He said: “The airport has temporarily closed for five weeks to enable the resurfacing of the 3.7 kilometer runway.’’
The commissioner added that when completed, bigger aircraft would land at the airport and other benefits would start rolling in.
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