Governor Idris Wada of Kogi state has announced the donation of 20,000 hectares of land to Dangote Group to grow sugar cane and establish a sugar refinery.
The governor made the donation at the weekend in Lokoja during an extraordinary state executive meeting held to honour Alhaji Aliko Dangote, president of the Dangote Group.
According to Idris, the gesture is to encourage the businessman invest in agriculture in the state, saying that the state would continue to partner with Dangote in its transformation agenda.
Speaking, Aliko Dangote charged state governments across the country to improve their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) for infrastructure development to strive.
He said no state can function effectively and provide the needed infrastructure without robust internally generate revenue. He said Kogi State has to pay attention to taxes because there is no government that can survive without taxation, adding that the federal allocation to the state on monthly basis should be taken as excess amount of money one needed to run his government.
At the event, Dangote presented cheques to 22,000 women across the 21 local government areas as well as the Obajana Women group.
“I am a believer of people paying their taxes and as a businessman or entrepreneur, I will not go against paying taxes, but you have to reduce tax and widen the scope of people who will pay taxes,” he said
He said running of government should actually come from IGR, adding that Kogi State may not really find any issue difficult in terms of having people pay their taxes as has been established in states like Edo and Lagos among others.
“For instance when Adams Oshomhole took over, his total IGR was N300 million but within one year it moved up to N2.1 billion. They were no new businesses set up in the state but the net was expanded to drag everybody to come and pay,” he said.
He however called on the governor to contain wastages by being very prudent and raise money for infrastructure development in the state because without raising money, it is still going to the same old order.
