By Giwa SHILE
The Director-General, Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Mr Asishana Okauru, says strong human resource management strategy is key to effective tax administration.
A statement issued by the forum on Friday in Abuja quoted Okauru stating this at a two-day Human Resource Management and Tax Audit Training for States’ Internal Revenue Services (IRS) in the North-Central region, held in Abuja.
He said that for states’ IRS to be at the forefront of domestic revenue mobilisation, they needed the right people, the right vision and a good execution plan
“We are convinced that implementing a strong human resource management strategy is key to effective tax administration.
“We believe that for your Service to be at the forefront of domestic revenue mobilisation, it needs the right people, the right vision and a good execution plan.
“Your staff must also be professional motivated and imbued by a performance-driven work culture.’’
Okauru urged the trainees to maximize the opportunity offered by the training, adding that it was carefully put together based on a compendium of best practices in human resource management and NGF experience working with States.
“Our facilitators will be taking you through relevant areas of human resource management, including workforce planning, workflow management, recruitment, assigning roles and responsibilities and creating a performance-driven environment.
“We intend take this further and engage with your principals- the governors, to give you their full support as you follow through with implementation of the offerings of this training.”
It quoted the Executive Secretary, Joint Tax Board, Mr Oseni Elamah, as commending the NGF on the role it was playing toward ensuring enhanced revenue generation in the country.
Elamah said this was commendable given the need for states to explore alternative sources of funding under the reality of dwindling federal allocations.
“It is my pleasure to announce that the expectations of the JTB have been vindicated as the NGF has been involved in organising programmes that have had positive influence on the Nigerian tax environment,” Elamah said.
He added that under the leadership of the Chairman of the JTB, Mr Tunde Fowler, the Board was reinventing itself to evolve its services to adequately and comprehensively re-position the respective Revenue Authorities in the country.
This, according to Elamah, was to fully key into the positive trends and internal best practice in the administration of tax so that revenue generation did not become unpredictable.
“It is heartening to note that the NGF has been reinforcing the role of the JTB in this regard via the implementation of the States Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) Reform Initiative.
“This is an initiative that has as its primary objective, the constructive engagement of the State Chief Executives of selected states currently constrained in optimising their revenue generation and administration capacity is just one of such collaborations.
“The Peer Review Learning Event is another initiative that is piloted by the NGF in partnership with the JTB.
“The initiative has the primary objective of engaging Chairmen of respective Revenue Authorities via technical sessions to exchange ideas and map out strategies for increasing IGR in the respective levels of governance.”
The states that participated in the two-day training according to the statement, include: Nasarawa, Kwara, Kogi, Benue, Niger, Plateau and the FCT.
