Revenue Generation: Oyebamiji Charges OIRS On Improvement

By Kingsley Omoyeni, Osogbo

The board of the Osun Internal Revenue Service(OIRS) have been charged to design a strategy that will help the state get an enhanced revenue as a means of further boosting the economy of the state.

Supervisor for Finance and Commerce, Mr Bola Oyebamiji gave the charge during the weekly meeting of the finance conglomerate held at the conference room of the ministry of finance.

Oyebamiji said it is time that government be taken as a commercial entity without attaching sentiments in a bid to get all what is due to government in terms of revenue.

The Supervisor directed that henceforth the OIRS should be fully in charge of everyone money that comes in as revenue for the state, stressing that they need to take over from every revenue generating agency of government in a bid to avoid leakages.

He said there is no reason why any government agency should still maintain any account for collection of revenue except it is reported and endorsed by the board of the Internal Revenue Service.

According to Oyebamiji, “I don’t want us to relent in the move to continue to block financial leakages and boost our revenue as a state. We are not there yet, we need to continue to work hard to boost our revenue, we are not where we want to be yet, there is still a lot of ground to cover.

“The way forward is to commercialize government activities, don’t get me wrong, it is different from privatising it, in my opinion this is the only way for us to move forward as a state. As individuals and as stake holders in the Osun Project, we need to take away sentiments from governance and begin to do things the right way.

“if we take away sentiments from governance we will get every revenue that is due to the state, the days of sitting back and do nothing is long gone, we must take over revenue generating activities from any ministry, department or agency that is still involved in it.

“The Osun Internal Revenue Service is the only body saddled under the law with the responsibility of collecting taxes and other levies on behalf of the state, I believe we can generate a lot more revenue than what we currently do, we just need to tie some loose ends.

“Mr Governor believes we have the capacity to do better than this and he wants us to improve”. He stressed.