Rivers internal revenue increases by 100 per cent in one year

The oil-rich Rivers State has recorded a more than 100 per cent jump in Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), Governor Siminalayi Fubara has said.

Governor Fubara said this on Friday at a meeting with members of the House of Representatives Committee on Public Account in Port Harcourt,” Boniface Onyedi, senior special assistant to Mr Fubara, told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mr Fubara, a former accountant general of the state who became governor in May 2023, said his administration has raised the monthly IGR of the state from N12 billion that he met on assumption of office to N27 billion, which amounts to an increase of over 100 per cent.

“So, we have to think outside the box, and rejig our internally generated revenue and I can tell you today that all the projects we are doing, we are not borrowing.

“We are very transparent, we are not hiding anything. That is why I can boldly say it. The least we get this period is between 26 billion and N27 billion. The highest they were doing before was between N12 Billion and N13billion.”

Governor Fubara further told the federal lawmakers that he inherited the challenges of non-promotion of civil servants for 11 years, suggesting that the immediate-past governor of the state, Nyesom Wike, did not conduct promotion exercise for workers in the state throughout his eight years in office.

The wage bill for about 52, 000 workers of the state, Mr Fubara said, has increased from N5.3 billion to N8 billion after he assumed office and promoted civil servants in the state.

Rivers IGR before Fubara

In terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Rivers State has the largest economy in south-south Nigeria and second nationally after Lagos State.

Before Mr Fubara became governor in May 2023, the yearly IGR of Rivers State in 2022 was N172.8 billion in 2022, indicating an average monthly IGR of N14.4 billion according to Nigeria’s data bank, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

In 2021 Rivers State IGR stood at N123.3 giving an average of N10.3 billion and in 2020, the state IGR was N117.2 billion while that of 2019 was N169.6 billion.

But Mr Fubara’s disclosure that the state’s monthly IGR has jumped to N27 billion indicates that the state would generate an annual IGR of N324 billion if it is sustained.

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The governor during the meeting told the lawmakers that his administration was deploying the resources for the well-being of the people to reduce societal ills, emphasising that he was prioritising education, healthcare and agriculture.

Monumental impacts – University don

In an interview with PREMIUM TIMES on Saturday, Anthony Egobueze, a political science lecturer in the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, said the impact of the improved IGR of the state has been monumental, particularly in the area of the promotion of public and civil servants in the state, a development he said may have doubled the wage bill of the state government.

“You have civil servants that were stagnated without promotion for over eight years. In this case, he (Mr Fubara) has lifted the stagnation. He has also compelled council chairmen to promote local government workers – which the exercise is ongoing. That is great and monumental as far as I am concerned.

“He has also awarded a contract for the dualisation of Elele-Egbeda-Omoku Road, a dual carriageway and is going to impact on the economy of the people of the area because that is the core oil producing area in Rivers Stat,” he said.

The people around the Elele-Egbeda-Omoku Road, Mr Egobueze said, would feel the impact of oil production and extraction in their zone and reduce the stress of conveying agricultural produce from the area to the city.

He said a lot of people will be employed in the state, a development he said, will take away poverty.