By Muhammad Abdullahi, Anuja
Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) said it is set to compete with Lagos State’s revenue base which is the highest revenue-generating state in Nigeria with a figure of N267.2 billion, by ensuring a radical revenue drive in the territory.
The administration which is not happy that its revenue drive drastically falls below Lagos with an IGR of 69.1 billion, which is the second-highest in the country, said that there is the need for an aggressive revenue drive in the FCT to compete with Lagos state revenue base, not minding stigma the move would bring to the revenue officers.
The FCT minister, Mallam Muhammed Bello made this known on Wednesday at a workshop organised for FCTA Revenue Desk Officers with the theme, “Improving revenue generation for FCTA” in Abuja.
The minister who was represented by the FCTA Mandate Secretary in charge of Economic Planning, Revenue Generation, and Public-private partnership, Lukman Dabiri Agboola, said the exercise of revenue diversification is a new beginning for the FCT administration.
He said that the era of dependence on oil or budget is over, vowing to activate the principles of revenue diversification in such a way that could put the FCT ahead of other states in IGR.
‘This is a new beginning for us in FCTA, this secretariat has come to stay. Presently all over the world, the dependence on oil and budget is coming to an end.
“The only way out for us is to build on our revenue base, budget is about procrastination because it is the money you do not have at hand. But revenue is the sure money we can always plan for,” he said.
The minister further explained that the workshop was a capacity-building programme to position the revenue staff and officers on the approach to getting revenue from various units.
“By the grace of God, I am not going to leave this secretariat empty, I am going to build a good and solid foundation for the secretariat. The revenue staff is the future of the FCTA, the lifeline and nucleus body of the FCTA, without the revenue officers there will not be any FCT.
“The revenue officers need to go out aggressively to get the revenue for the FCTA for everybody to be comfortable. Many states now boast of money from their revenue. Today, Lagos state depends solely on revenue collection, not on a budget. We have NEPAD and other international institutions for support, but the only way we can get them to come to us is if they have the assurance that we will pay the money back to them.
“If there is no way that we will pay the money back to them, they will not be there to give us any support or soft landing. If Lagos state today needs N400bn support from any institution abroad they will get it within a week, because of their revenue base. I want the say thing for Abuja and FCTA,” he said.
He further said that in the course of collecting revenue for the FCTA, they will not be border by whatever challenges they will face, even if people try to avoid them like leprosy, because posterity will judge everybody.
“I am going to leave my name on a platter of gold at the end of the day. I am not worried at what anybody will say, what I am worried about is to position the revenue base of FCT in such a way that my generation coming behind me will be proud that their father contributed to the development of the FCT,” he said.