Garnishee Order Forces Nasarawa to Rely on IGR

Garnishee Order Forces Nasarawa to Rely on IGR

Igbawase Ukumba in Lafia

The Governor of Nasarawa State, Mr. Abdullahi Sule, has been running the state with Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) since the state government account was garnished last month by an Abuja High Court.

The State Commissioner of Finance, Budget and Planning, Mr. Haruna Adamu Ogbole, stated this yesterday in his office when he addressed journalists on the financial status of the state.

Recently, a group of pensioners numbering over 600 in Nasarawa State out of 9000 had approached an Abuja High Court demanding that the state government account be garnished until their entitlements are paid.

The commissioner explained that since the court order took effect last month, the governor has been running the state with IGR pending the resolution of the matter in court.

“It is not that government is totally grounded, we have IGR in the state that we are leveraging on to run the government. But the basic thing the court garnish will affect is our salary accounts

“Nasarawa is a civil service state and once salaries are not paid, it affects the whole state and that is what we are facing,” he said.

Ogbole said that in February 2020, the state government raised N1.2 billion as IGR and expecting to raise over N2 billion before the outbreak of COVID-19, which affected the state’s IGR

He said: “The IGR is being driven by economic activities, so the more the economic activities of every month, the higher the IGR we get.

“In February, we raised up to N1.2 billion but subsequently when the pandemic set in, it dropped to N500 million and now it is not going to be more than N400 million because economic activities are grounded by the pandemic.

“We were targeting N2 billion monthly and it was achievable due to certain measures the governor put in place such as central billing system, blocking leakages and civil servants biometrics all aimed at cutting down the cost of governance,” he said

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