…to Watch Debt Profiles, Pay Pensioners, Other Salaries
She also urged them to find ways to increase internally generated revenue (IGR), saying that this should go hand in hand with their share of the federal allocation, which she described as significant, more transparently, efficiently, and effectively.
Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, the Director General of the World Trade Organisation and former Nigerian Minister of Finance, has urged the country’s state governors to be mindful of their respective state’s massive debt profile while ensuring teachers, healthcare workers, and pensioners receive their entitlements.
She also urged them to find ways to increase internally generated revenue (IGR), saying that this should go hand in hand with their share of the federal allocation, which she described as significant, more transparently, efficiently, and effectively.
She made the call at the start of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) 2023 induction for re-elected and elected governors with the theme: “Governing for Impact (Building Sub-national Governance).”
She said: “We used to publish this information during my time as finance minister under President (Olusegun) Obasanjo and (Goodluck) Jonathan’s administrations; you must resume this practice so your citizens can have information to your account.
“Your excellencies, please watch your debt profiles and keep careful control of expenditure. Even as we invest in infrastructure, education and basic healthcare, please endeavour to pay teachers, healthcare workers.”
Okonjo-Iweala emphasised that states bore a significant amount of responsibility, noting that only a few states generated significant amounts of revenue internally.
See WTO Director-General, Okonjo-Iweala’s Advice To Nigerian Governors.
She stated that aggregated IGR from states increased from N1.2 trillion in 2020 to N1.6 trillion in 2021.
However, this has been dwarfed by the federal government’s allocations to states of N2.23 trillion in 2020 and 3.16 trillion in 2020.
(Sahara Reporters)