How we grew Enugu’s IGR by 1,000% from N30bn to N500bn– Gov Mbah

Governor of Enugu State, Peter Mbah, says economic and financial inclusion is a veritable pathway to growing the nation’s economy.

He described it as the secret of the exponential growth in the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) growth from N30bn a year to about N500bn.

The governor spoke during the inauguration of the Presidential Committee on Economic and Financial Inclusion by the Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, and the sign-off ceremony for the investment commitment for the operationalisation of the Aso Accord at the Presidential Villa, Abuja recently.

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This was contained in a statement issued by the Enugu State Government quoting the governor as explaining that the nation’s desire for economic growth could only be possible through programmes and policies that target vulnerable Nigerians.

Mbah, who is a member of the committee, commended President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the initiative and thanked the vice president for nominating him for the national assignment, pledging to give his best.

He said, “Economic and finance inclusion are for me veritable pathways for growth and inclusive prosperity. After all, we are only largely as strong as the weakest among us. What economic inclusion means to us is that we cannot grow our economy at the expense of our common humanity, which means that we have to carry the weakest among us. We have to design programmes and policies that target those vulnerable among us.

“That is where I will be charging the private sector to come up with a product paper that will see huge improvement in the digital infrastructure and also the fintech footprint penetration. That way, we are able to essentially provide financial services to those low ones in our society. So, I commend President Bola Tinubu very much for this initiative.

“As a governor, I get to be asked often how we were able to increase our revenue exponentially by over 1,000 per cent from N30bn a year to now over N500bn. It is simple. I see economic and financial inclusion as a veritable platform to achieve our growth because one of the major things we have done to increase our revenue in Enugu State is essentially to ensure that everybody comes into the financial services industry. We have not increased our tax rate. We have only expanded the tax net.

“So, the growth we seek is not going to happen because we wish it to happen. We are going to have to design programmes and policies for that to happen.”