The Benue State Government has announced an ambitious plan to boost its internally generated revenue (IGR) to N3 billion monthly by 2025, aiming to finance the new minimum wage and settle outstanding pension liabilities.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Makurdi, the Commissioner for Finance, Michael Oglegba, disclosed that under the leadership of Governor Hyacinth Alia, the state’s IGR had grown from N600–700 million to about N2 billion monthly within the past year.
Oglegba explained that the new revenue target is critical to ensuring consistent and timely payment of salaries and pensions without relying heavily on federal allocations.
“We have a very ambitious plan to raise revenue to over N3 billion each month,” Oglegba stated. “Achieving this will enable us to pay salaries and pensions comfortably from our own revenue, but it will require significant effort.”
He emphasized that the administration’s priority for the year is to use internally generated funds to pay the new minimum wage, ensuring that both civil servants and pensioners receive their entitlements promptly.
The commissioner attributed the remarkable growth in revenue to the government’s strategy of plugging leakages rather than introducing new taxes, thus shielding residents from additional financial burdens.
However, Oglegba noted that the government would intensify efforts to collect taxes from defaulters using all available legal avenues, to further bolster revenue without enacting new levies.
He added that achieving the N3 billion target would not only guarantee timely salary and pension payments but also strengthen the government’s capacity to meet other critical development needs across the state.
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