Obaseki meets with MDA heads, reviews new areas to increase IGR

Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has directed State Executive Council members and heads of state Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) to intensify strategies to increase revenue generation and meet revenue targets.

During a two-day retreat at the John Odigie-Oyegun Public Service Academy in Benin City, Obaseki delivered the charge to EXCO members and MDA heads.

Examining and assessing the state government’s performance in the first half of 2022 is the goal of the retreat.

The governor restated the imperative of reducing waste and broadening the state’s revenue base in order to facilitate efficient government operations and fulfill the electoral commitments made to the Edo people.

According to him, “We are projecting the future of the state in this retreat. It should have been possible for each agency to create a scorecard and quantifiable key performance indicators. Our expenses have not decreased despite not earning the amount of money we had anticipated in the first half of 2022.

“We have to act quickly to avoid running out of money before the year ends. In addition to reducing waste, we must make sure that our income is sufficient to support the government. To have more resources available to provide services to the public, we should learn how to save money, reduce waste, and conserve resources. The people are what matter most, so we must act in their best interests.”

Obaseki went on: “They will use a metric to track our performance and present it to us when the time comes, regardless of what we do now. Therefore, we have no justification for failing to deliver.

We have got six months to make up for it. You have no right to carry on if you are unable to deliver. We cannot provide the public with justifications when we go on the campaign trail in February 2023.”

“Going forward, we are not going to be able to finance the state based on oil revenue from Abuja but will look for other sources of revenue to increase revenue for the state,” the governor stated when discussing how to increase revenue generation in other areas.

Our list of priorities includes tourism, which is one of them. We are developing a cultural district with an ecotourism focus and working on a tourism master plan. The foundation of our tourism strategy will be infrastructures.”

“We intend to create a tech park that can accommodate 5,000–10,000 individuals, and in the next five years, we hope to generate 4,000–8,000 software engineers,” he added.