Gombe can generate N2bn revenue monthly — Official

The Chairman Gombe State Fiscal Responsibility Commission, Abubakar Tata, has said that the state can earn N2 billion from revenue monthly.

Tata said the N1 billion revenue generated by the state government is below its capacity.

Tata made this disclosure in an address on Friday during a two-day quarterly Public Financial Management roundtable organised by the USAID State2State in collaboration with State Fiscal Responsibility Commission.

Recall that S2S supports states in planning and budgeting, raising revenues, increasing Civil Society participation, and overseeing service delivery in the Health, Education, and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene sectors by building relevant capacities.

Our correspondent reports that presently the state generates about a billion monthly, based on the 2022 declaration by the state Internal Revenue Service about N13b was generated.

He said, “Gombe has the capacity to generate at least N2 billion monthly. This will happen after four things; autonomy of the service, improved workforce, those currently there are aged and they are lacking the needed energy, creativity, the service needs independent Information Communication Technology platform and strong political will.”

Tata who was a former Chairman of the Internal Revenue Service before his redeployment to FRC harped on the sustenance of reforms entrenched by USAID State2State.

He said, “Most of the reforms you see going around wouldn’t have been possible without S2S support, encouragement, and their resilience because most of these things are challenging. The Gombe State Fiscal Responsibility Commission is happy that all participants participated fully. We hope to collaborate and hope that other agencies can key in because S2S will leave and we don’t want the process to die after their exit.”

Also speaking, Public Financial Management Specialist S2S, Gombe, Oluwatosin Oke, said the state has the needed capacity to generate more revenues monthly to boost development.

He said, “From the contributions you can see that the state generates revenue below their capacity and stakeholders have agreed. The state generated 2022 about N13 b which is approximately N1b per month. Although that doesn’t collate to N1b every month because there are months that they generated as much as N4b there are other months it generated less than N1b but aggregately the state generated over the N13b in 2022.

“The Internal Revenue Service is working with a target of about N1b per month but from analyses and conversations we have had in this roundtable it is obvious the state has the potential to generate much more than N1b per month that requires some reforms to be instituted.”

On his part, State Team Lead Mohammed Bello-Abubakar said the essence of the intervention was to have a quarterly Public Financial Management roundtable where “we review the reform efforts of Gombe State Government in the last three months.

“For government to sustain the success of the reforms made they need to continue to be in the driver’s seat and ensure all the things required are done. It should be filled so that they don’t give room for things that could circumvent the good efforts of the state government,” he added.