Lagos Targets N1trn Yearly Budget In Two Years

The Lagos State government will reduce dependence on federal allocation and increase its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to N30bn monthly in 2017 and N50bn monthly in 2018, and hit a yearly budget of N1trn by 2018.
It also said it will scale up and run efficient revenue collection machinery through the convergence of operations of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and utilisation of cutting edge technologies.
This was disclosed at a four-day retreat for members of the State Executive Council, body of Permanent Secretaries and heads of government agencies and parastatals at the VIP Chalets in Badagry.
In a communiqué issued at the end of the retreat themed, Reflect, Reappraise, Restrategise: Raising the Bar of Governance, the government said participants intensively deliberated on the six pillars of Lagos State Development Plan (LSDP), which are infrastructural development, sustainable environment, finance, economic development, social development and security and governance.
Speaking on the budget goal, Lagos State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Akinyemi Ashade, said though the target is ambitious, measures were being adopted to achieve it.
He said: “It requires thinking and what we are going to do differently is ensure that we use technology to drive it, in terms of automation and collection. What we are also going to ensure is that the whole reform around consumption taxes is taken to another level.
“The land administration system, the Geographic Information System (GIS), will support this initiative. We believe that once we are through with the automation of the processes, reform in the consumption tax administration in the state, and blocking of all loopholes, we will have the right funding to finance all these plans. And we will not forget one critical fact, which is that all is about Public Private Partnership because we are also going to use that to drive implementation of our plan.”