Lagos Generates N400 Billion Internally in June

The Lagos State government recently announced that the State's internally generated revenue (IGR) as of June was N400 billion. The state government has begun plans for the 2024 budget to get input, requests, and submissions from stakeholders.

The meeting seeking to address the issue of the 2024 budget is set to be held in five divisions of the state with the theme tagged 'Y2024 Budget Consultative Forum'. The second-day event was held on Tuesday in the Badagry division at the Makanjuola Auditorium in LASU.

However, the event began at the Ikeja division, and it will continue at the other divisions of the state, such as Lagos Island, Jubilee Chalet, Epe, Agip Recital Hall, MUSON Centre, and Epe.

At the Badagry division, the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mosopefoluwa George, said that the discussions and consultations would assist the government in beginning projects and programs that would meet the needs of the people and show them that the taxes they pay are utilized appropriately.

He said,

• One of the things we are doing and trying to do better is consult, to let the people know that this is what we are planning to do with their money, so to speak.

• The more we go out the more we hear from them, the more we understand what they want. Then we can give them that service and in that way, they feel a lot better to re­mit whatever taxes or levies they have to give.

• In consultation and dis­cussions as this, we hear from the people what they want, we take it back, look at it, mark it with what we have had, what we’ve budgeted, and see if we need to tweak it for the next year to know how we will concentrate our effort more on a specific area and be well equipped to do that.

He also explained how the funding will be sourced for the 2024 budget. Aside from that, he said that the state is working towards hitting a milestone of 1.1 trillion generated by IGR before the close of 2023. He is optimistic that the N400 billion achieved for taxes in June will foster the goals of meeting the expected results.

He added,

• We have to be very cre­ative with our funding and ensure that our funding is a mix of both the IGR and other funding mech­anisms. We are looking at PPP, a nice concession fund­ing at the right rate. We are going in the right direction, in that trajectory and hope­fully, we can continue to build on that and be able to attract the right investment and right set of funding to sort our budget and our projects.

• We have an IGR of over 1.1 trillion, which was pro­jected. As of June, I believe we have hit somewhat close to N400 billion. We are looking to ramp up and round that up and hopefully, before the end of the year have hit our target. As I said with the IGR, it’s the more we provide for our citizens and it’s sort of a multiplier effect for the economy to look better. Then we will be able to get more funding and will be able to get more into the economy to help us build.