The Anambra State House of Assembly Committee on Internally Generated Revenue has observed that those it described as revenue lords are building hotels, houses and buying other personal properties with the state internally generated revenues to the detriment of government.

The committee made the observation during budget bilateral discussions with officials from the Anambra State Internal Revenue Service (AIRS) at the legislative complex in Awka.

Deputy chairman of the committee and member representing Nnewi-North State constituency, Hon. Nonso Smart Okafor berated the manner in which revenues were being collected in the state.

Ok for, who presided over the budget discussions with officials of the state revenue agency, noted that revenue scavengers were everywhere across Anambra state.

He alleged that they molest and extort money from citizens on grounds of being authorised by government to unleash terror and mayhem on the people.

The lawmaker maintained that the irony of the whole situation was that the huge sums of revenue collected through exercises do not get into government coffers instead they ended up in private accounts while the state is grossly shortchanged.

He said, “There are a lot of cases where revenue scavengers chased motorists in the name of collecting revenue from the driver and the driver in a bid to avoid them kills someone.”

The IGR assembly committee, however, assured the revenue agency of enacting legislations that will put revenue lords in jail, adding that revenue collection in the state should be done in a more decent manner and not some atavistic manner.

The IGR assembly committee was equally of the opinion that people should able to get corresponding services when they pay revenues, adding that the legislature will also assist to ensure the agency got more releases in the coming year to enable it perform with greater efficiency.

The committee also pointed out that markets have been saturated with all manner of tickets and that some people claim to have authority letters from government to collect revenues whereas they did so for their personal accounts while pittances were remitted to government.

(Daily Independent: Text excluding headline)

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