IGR: 15 States May Go Bankrupt

FIFTEEN States may go bankrupt as their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in 2015 were far below 10 per cent of their Fed­eration Account Allocations (FAA) from June 2015 to May 2016.
The states that may not sur­vive without the Federation Account due to poor internal revenue include Yobe which generated meagre N2.2 bil­lion, compared to a total of N57.4 billion it received from the Federation Account Allo­cation (FAA) from June 2015 to May 2016, representing about 3.9 per cent. Others are Zamfara with IGR of N2.7 billion, compared to FAA of N56.6 billion represent­ing 4.8 per cent; Ekiti N3.2 billion compared to FAA of N50.460 billion representing 6.5 per cent; Borno with N3.5 billion compared to N78.7 billion of FAA representing 4.5 per cent and Kebbi with IGR of N3.5 billion compared to N64.8 billion of FAA rep­resenting 5.5 per cent within the period under review.
Other poor internal rev­enue earners are Taraba which generated N4.1billion compared to FAA of N56 billion, representing 6.4 per cent; Nassarawa N4.4 billion compared to FAA of N50.5 billion, representing 8.5 per cent; Adamawa N4.4 billion compared to FAA of N62.2 billion, representing 7.1 per cent; Gombe N4.7 billion compared to FAA of N49.8 billion, representing 9.6 per cent; Jigawa N5 billion, com­pared to FAA of N73 billion, representing 7 per cent; Bau­chi N5.3 billion compared to FAA of N72.6 billion, rep­resenting 7.4 per cent; Imo N5.4 billion, compared to FAA of N71.6 billion, repre­senting 7.6 per cent; Katsina N5.7 billion compared to FAA of N88.8 billion, represent­ing 6.5 per cent; Niger N5.9 billion compared to FAA of N74.8 billion representing 8 per cent and Sokoto N6.2 billion compared to FAA of N69.7 billion representing 8.9 per cent.
A report by Economic Confidential magazine fur­ther indicates that the IGR of Lagos State of N268 billion is higher than that of 32 states combined together exclud­ing Rivers, Delta and Ogun whose IGRs are very im­pressive. The 32 other states merely generated a total of N257 billion in 2015.
Also, the latest report on IGR reveals that only La­gos State generated more revenue than its allocation from the Federation Ac­count by 150 per cent and no other state has up to 100 per cent IGR to the federal largesse.
The IGR of the 36 states of the federation totalled N682.67 billion in 2015 as compared to N707.85 billion in 2014, a drop of N25.18 bil­lion or a minus 3.56 per cent.
According to the report, 15 states may go bankrupt and may not stay afloat outside the Federal Account Alloca­tion due to lack of foresight in revenue generation drive.
Meanwhile Lagos State re­tains its number one position in IGR with a total revenue generation of N268.22 bil­lion last year. It is followed by Rivers State N82.10 billion, Delta State N40.80 billion, Ogun State N34.59 billion and Edo state N19.11billion.
However, these five states look good to be on top of the current economic challenges. They are: Enugu, Oyo, Anam­bra, Akwa Ibom and Kano with N18.08 billion, N15.66 billion, N14.793 billion, N14.791billion, and N13.611 billion respectively.
The Economic Confiden­tial report further showed that the richest northern state is Kano which is the only state from the North to be among the 10 highest IGR earners while the rest are southern states.
The SUN