TheHILL | VIEWPOINT | NOVEMBER 30.
By Substance Udo-Nature
In a rough year like 2021, a historic year the entire world is struggling to rise from the ruins of the intractable and ravaging COVID-19 pandemic, a year that practically everybody has found buckets of excuses to offer for poor performance, the news that Akwa Ibom State Board of Internal Revenue Service (AKIRS) has already generated, in a period of nine months covering January to September 2021, a whooping N24.1bn, could not have been more gladdening.
This figure represents 84.7% of the State’s projected Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for year 2021, which was 38billion. But that was not the only cheering news.
From figures posted in the 2022 fiscal estimates presented by Governor Udom Emmanuel to the House of Assembly, the agency’s target is to generate N43.8billion next year. How about that!
The Executive Chairman of AKIRS, the indefatigable and ever focused Mr. Okon Okon, is upbeat about the agency’s readiness to work hard to achieve 100% of its IGR target in 2022.
Giving his assurances a week ago during a public hearing on the 2022 Appropriation Bill at the instance of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Mr. Okon who described the State 2022 Budget presented by the Governor as “realistic”, “functional” and “accomplishable”, stated:
“We are going to raise a new standard in revenue generation next year. We have been able to generate up to 84% of our IGR target for 2021 within nine months. Next year, we are poised to raise 100% of our target within the same period”.
Judged by his demonstrative capacity in the past four years, it was apparent nobody doubted the possibility.
The Committee Members, headed by Hon. Charity Ido, Member representing Ukanafun State Constituency, were rather pleasantly surprised listening to and having in their midst a man who over the years have proven beyond words that he does not know how to offer excuses when it comes to results and target actualization.
While thanking taxpayers for their encouraging, progressive and patriotic compliance to their civic duties, Mr. Okon observed that the thrust of the 2022 budget revolves around job creation which in turn will ginger the economy with great propensity to create more and more avenues for revenue generation, with intrinsic ripple effects on productivity across all sectors.
Delightfully, he disclosed to the House the primary source of this inspiration in scaling every possible hurdles to reach the heights:
“The Governor has shown good example in demonstrating value for taxpayers’ money. We are encouraged by the futuristic infrastructural development and other value-added projects notably in aviation, health and education which the Governor is doing with taxpayers’ money. So, we will work hard to generate enough money to fund the budget”.
The ultimate outcome of his meeting was tha tthere were no holes to pick. The Legislators were not only pleased and satisfied with the former banker’s clinical, detailed, assuring and modest 2022 projections, but thanked him for what they attributed to capacity, professionalism and integrity; challenging him however to sustain the tempo as not only Akwa people but the entire world was watching.
A week earlier, delivering a Keynote Address during the 2021 International Accountants Day, held globally on November 13, 2021, at Watbridge Hotels and Suites, IBB Way, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, an event he won an Award of Excellence from ICAN, Mr. Okon Okon had poured encomiums on Governor Udom Emmanuel in the area of budget transparency and unparalleled developmental strides.
Relishing the ranking of Akwa Ibom State as one of the best performing states in Sub-National Budget Transparency by the Civil Resource Development and Documentation Centre (CIRDDOC) in 2020, the AKIRS boss emphasised that the State’s budget since assumption of office by the governor has been consistent in engendering “effective monitoring, tracking, assessment and evaluation”.
Also in 2020, his paper further revealed, Akwa Ibom was not only ranked among the top 5 States in the federation in the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), but was also adjudged qualified to benefit from the World Bank’s State Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme DLI 31, which has to do with meeting timeline for completion of the State 202o COVID-19 responsive budget processes.
Record confirms that from 2017 when he took over, Okon Okon has never failed to meet and even exceed targets; setting new paradigms and opening up new frontiers in the narratives of tax economics and administration in the State.
On assumption of office in April 2017, the highest the State ever recorded in IGR was N14billion (2016), which accordingly placed her at the 18th position in national ranking.
However, like an idea whose time has come, successive years’ growth patterns indicated the following: …..2017 N15.96billion (2017); 24.21billion (2018); and N32.3billion in 2019, recording a whooping increase of 33.3 percent.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the 2019 stellar performance saw the State occupying the 5th and 3rd positions in the entire South and South-South/South-East geopolitical zones of the country, respectively. Akwa Ibom came next only to Rivers and Delta States In the South-South/South East of the country.
As an icing on the cake, BudgIT, a civil advocacy organization that uses a variety of technological tools to scrutiny budgets and matters of public spending for citizens, in its “2020 State of States’ Report and Financial Viability of Nigerian States”, placed Akwa Ibom 5th position under the “Year-On-Year Most Improved States in IGR” in the country.
Therefore, generating N24b in lieu of four more months in the 2021 fiscal year is a dramatic improvement that exponentially pinpoints to the growth trend of geometrical proportion that has characterized the agency since 2017.
Putting this in a more historical and analytical perspective in his ICAN keynote paper, Okon said “the historic record of N32.2billion in 2019, represented over 2 times the highest annual IGR (about N15bn) in the first 30 years of the creation of the State”.
The corresponding consequence of this revolution has been the volume of revenue at government’s disposal for the composite growth and development of the State.
Yet, with reassuring optimism, the resourceful AKIRS chairman, the game-changer, raised a poser in his address which he provided an instant answer:
“Can we do better than this? Yes. We can. There are higher prospects to do more!. AKIRS is committed to working with you to take the State to higher dimension”.
