CHAIRMAN of the Federal Inland  Revenue Service (FIRS), Mrs. Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru, has called on the newly elected and sworn-in governors to give more political will to issues of revenue generation in their various states.

Omoigui-Okauru who made this call in Lagos at a strategy session organised by the Kwara State government, said until governors as the executive officers of the state prioritiae issues relating to revenue generation and management, not much would be achieved especially in the area of raising Internally Generated Revenue, needed to fund electioneering promises.

According to her, much of the attention is always on expenditure and the meager allocations from the Federal Government with little effort made on raising and building viable revenue sources.

Advising the governors on sources to boosting their IGR, he said closer attention should be given to revenue spinners often neglected by most states and automate their processes by voting for electronic mode of payment and resisting the temptation of anticipatory spending.

Beyond this, he said key economic sectors of their individual atate that contributed the larger share to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) should be strengthened and invested in with measurable returns in form of taxes, levies and fees that would in the short or long run help boost the revenue base.

“States could grow IGR by focusing on priority sectors to attract investment: agriculture, tourism, sports, manufacturing and by low risk investment of Government funds in high yield areas of the economy – oil and gas, hospitality, telecommunications as well as the creative economy: arts, entertainment, etc.”, she noted.

Speaking further, she said states should also “tie expenditure to available funds and should not spend what they don’t have. Expenditure should be linked to revenue generation. And this should not be an end, but a means to an end.”

In suggesting that states could also consider taxation as an alternative means of generating revenue, Omoigui admonished state governors to live by example, with the “governors as heads of tax administration in the State, Ministry of Finance, State Executive Council, State, House of Assembly, Judiciary, tax payers etc all being an integral part of the tax system, by paying their taxes as and when due.

She also advised plugging of revenue leakages in their revenue generation admini-stration by strengthening tax administration at state and local government levels, through granting of autonomy to tax authorities, automation of tax systems and processes, increasing funding to tax authorities, professionalisation, training and provision of incentives for tax  officials.