Amidst Introduction Of New Charges, Gov Oyebanji Seeks More Support, Signs 2023 Budget Into Law

By Ayodele Oni

The people of Ekiti state as they mark the new year with pomp, are set to be confronted with new taxes and rates regime, as government attempts to shore up its internal revenue base.

Before the expiration of the tenure of immediate past administration, various levies and taxes were introduced by Dr Kayode Fayemi, but could not implement the new rates before October 16, 2022, when the new administration crept in.

One of the new rates is land use charges. Under this, owners of landed properties in the state are mandated to pay specific charges to government coffers yearly, depending on vastness of properties.

Before the exit of the administration, enumeration had been carried out on houses with landlords notified about what to be paid yearly to state government coffers.

It was gathered that former Governor Fayemi delibrately put on hold the implementation of the new land charges because of the election.

Now, the state revenue service, which had been privatized is set to commence the implementation of the land rates. The revenue board, now under a consultant, has mounted campaigns to educate people of the state on the need to pay their charges, failure of which may lead to sealing of such properties.

Even with the law vesting on government ownership of landed properties, the people are still not satisfied or rather convinced that the state government, which never provide, accessible roads, electricity and portable water running 24 hours, has the moral right to demand for land charges from them.

Even the glorified Government Reserved Areas, (GRA) in the state are not better off. Roads there remain dilapidated, with no access to regular portable water. The GRAs under the control of the state housing corporation remain eyesore yet the people are being compelled to pay land charges.

This is going to be one of the initial test case for Governor Oyebanji’s  administration, who happened to have served as secretary to the former administration, which introduced the land charges.

Revenue from this source is among the fund government is banking on for the implementation of 2023 budget.

While signing the budget to law on Friday, Governor Oyebanji said it was a product of consultation with the people.

The budget, which is N113,600,000,000.00B, as passed by the State House of Assembly, christened “Budget of Strong Beginning”, as claimed by the governor will be the first major action document of his administration.

The governor noted that the budget was his first fiscal document in office, was carefully crafted after due consultation with all relevant stakeholders in the drive to lay a solid foundation for his administration and achieve the desired prosperity for the people.

The Governor, recalled that he presented the bill to the House on November 3rd, 2022 to afford the members sufficient time to scrutinize the document and engage all the relevant stakeholders in a bid to abide with the Fiscal Sustainability Plan that ample time should be allowed for legislative processing of annual appropriation bill.

He emphasized the focus and vision of the administration to make the state a land of prosperity, peace and progress where the people can reap the fruit of their labour in dignity, good health and safety.

He thanked the Nigeria Governor’s Forum (NGF) secretariat for providing technical support to the state in developing the latest NCOS template which will be used in the publication of the 2023 budget which is expected to be replicated in all the MDAs to further equip officers of the state for the implementation of the budget as well as ensure easy and seamless implementation of the fiscal document by the end users in view to meeting the disbursement link indicato…