The Internally Generated Revenue of Plateau State for the first quarter of 2017 stands at N2.5 billion and has been tagged improvement over the previous years.

The chairman, Plateau State Internal Revenue Service (PSIRS), Mr Dashe Arlat who disclosed this in an interview with newsmen on Thursday in Jos said the bulk of the revenue came from PAYE with the remaining from the MDAs and the PSIRS during the period under review.

Arlat, who said the collection was encouraging compared to the previous year’s commended the staff of the establishment for their hardworking adding that the reforms introduced by the PSIRS also helped in achieving the feat.

“Even though we are not there yet, we have introduced various strategies including ‘Smart Collection,’ a technology that fast track issuances of Tax Identification Numbers (TIN) to tax payers and quick mode of payment.

“We also employed about 500 Ad-hoc staff, whom we have sent out into the street to capture tax payers especially those within the informal sector,” the Chairman explained.

The Chairman said the new technology has helped at checkmating wastages, said that the Service hoped to increase the number of the Ad-hoc staff in the near future.

According to him, the breakdown of the IGR for the first quarters depicted that the Month of January has the highest collection of N877, 828 million followed by March; N825, 859 million while February was the least with N781, 756 million.

He said the collection in the first quarter was about N485 million higher than the N2. 06 billion realised in the corresponding period in 2016 and N643 million higher than the N1.84 billion in 2015 respectively.

The PSIRS boss commended the staff of the service for their resilliance at ensuring that the state government was not disappointed with them in contributing their quota to the development of the State.

Arlat disclosed that the PSIRS has put all machinery in motion toward the numbering of all houses within and outside the Bukuru-Jos Metropolis for the collection of Ground Rents.

“We believe that by the time we conclude numbering all the houses in Plateau and begin collection of ground rents along what comes in from the informal sector, our revenue will tremendously improve.

“Our target is to hit above One Billion Naira as our monthly Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) toward strengthening and improving government’s social responsibility to the citizens of the State,” he further disclosed.

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Plateau records significant increase in internally generated revenue – N2.5 billion in Q1 2017