Lagos Generates N25 Billion During Lockdown In April

The Lagos state government generated a sum of N25 billion through taxation in April despite the total lockdown imposed on the state.

This is according to head of The Lagos State Inland Revenue Service, LIRS’ Information and Communication (ICT) Department, Mr. Rasheed Olu-Ajayi.

Olu-Ajayi revealed that the service was able to achieve the feat by leveraging on technology, NAN reports.

He said that though the revenue invoked was not good enough, it was better than starting from ground zero taking into cognisance the total lockdown.

“What we did was to have a business continuity plan by documenting product, events with which we continue to work,” he said.

“So, we invoked technology tools, with lots of our staff, working from home but chasing taxpayers.

“We were able to invoke a good amount of money, not a case of ground zero,’’

“Nobody envisages that there would be a time that the whole globe would be lockdown and people would not be able to do anything.

“We were able to collect N25 billion in April when there was total lockdown,’’ he said.

According to him, this is a good achievement.

Olu-Ajayi said LIRS, as an agency of Lagos State Government, has the responsibility of collecting taxes and in some cases, business development taxes.

He said that tax collection is primarily the agency assignment.