By; NIYI OGUNGBOLA, Abeokuta.
The OgunState Governor, Ibikunle Amosun has appealed to the federal government to give his state, a special status in the revenue sharing formula in the country.
The governor made this call in his address at the on-going 4-Day meeting of the 8th National Council on Industry, Trade and Investment (NCITI) holding in Abeokuta, the state capital.
He said that ogun state requested for a special status in the federal revenue allocation because the state has been officially acknowledged as the industrial hub of the country with each of them adequately remitting their Excise Duties to the coffers of the federal government.
The governor, who threw his weight behind the same call from his Lagos state counterpart, also explained that Ogun state is next to Lagos state in terms of non-oil revenue generation such as VAT among others, for the federal government.
According to him, about 423 companies with a minimum of over 2 billion investment capital base are currently operating from Ogun.
He said that over 100 out of those 423 companies have opened shops amd commenced business operations in his state with 14 new ones in the process of being commissioned.
Amosun further stated that in view of those new business investors trooping to Ogun state, his administration has continued to complement their investments by maintaining and expanding on the existing infrastructures with the little revenue allocation to the state, while new ones are also being constructed.
“We have continued to reap the benefits of our prudent financial management and re-engineered our Internal Revenue Generation drive. We have increased our IGR from the modest sum of N700 million monthly which we inherited at the beginning of our Administration in 2011, to over N6Billion per month in 2014, though, currently reduced to an average of N4.8 billion monthly due to the current economic recession in the country.
“According to the 2014 Ease of Doing Business Sub-national rankings, our state recorded the most improvement of all the 36 states in Nigeria. This was compared to the states very poor ranking of 34th at the inception of our administration in 2011.
“We also introduced the concept of a “One Stop Shop” to assist Investors in their interactions with government particularly during their early stage. I am happy to report that about 423 major companies/industries are presently operating in the State, while over 100 new significant companies have opened shop since the advent of our Administration.
