The Ogun State Government has described the BudgIT Foundation’s report, which estimates its internally generated revenue at N78.17bn for 2021 as “inaccurate and misleading.”
The government said contrary to the agency’s report, the state’s IGR for 2021 stood at N100.9bn, which it said was provided by the state’s Audited Report from the Joint Tax Board and the state’s Audited Financial Statement.
The agency published a report on IGR across the 36 states of Nigeria titled, “State of States, 2022 Edition” concerning the state’s financial health status.
Reacting to the report, the state Commissioner for Finance, Dapo Okubadejo, in a letter to the foundation’s director, described the BudgIT Foundation’s ranking of Ogun State as having an IGR of N78.17bn for 2021 as inaccurate and misleading.
The statement from the government read partly, “The State’s Audited report from the Joint Tax Board and the state’s Audited Financial Statement, which put the state’s IGR for 2021 at N100.9 bn.”
The government, therefore, demanded a retraction of the said publication, which it said had caused the state reputational damage.
It also demanded the publication of the updated figures and the true ranking of the state on the BudgIT Foundation’s website.
Meanwhile , the government said the National Bureau of Statistics report on Tuesday has confirmed the efforts by the Dapo Abiodun-led administration to put the economy on a sound footing and make Ogun Nigeria’s top investment destination.
It added, “According to the report, Ogun, which grew its IGR from N50.6bn in 2020 to N100.7bn in 2021, performed excellently on the IGR index, being only out-performed by Lagos State, Nigeria’s economic capital (N753.3bn); the Federal Capital Territory (N131.9bn); and Rivers State, a top oil-producing state (N123.3bn).
