CAPACITY BUILDING: CANADIAN UNIVERSITY TRAINS LAGOS INTERNAL AUDITORS

… Targets Increased Non-Tax Internally Generated Revenue

The Office of Internal Auditor has engaged the services of the University of Calgary, Canada, for a five-day training of selected Internal Auditors, tagged: “Revenue Systems Audit Champions”, held at lkeja.

Explaining the rationale behind the training during the opening ceremony on Monday, the Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Internal Audit, Dr. Oyeyemi Ayoola noted that the skill set and capacity training for selected Internal Auditors in service is to expose them to global standards and procedures of auditing electronic revenue collections and revenue management.

The Special Adviser maintained that to achieve the quality of life that Lagosians desire and to keep up with the THEMES Plus developmental agenda of the present administration, there is a need for the State Government to expand its non-tax internally generated revenue.

According to her, auditors in Lagos State Government employment will assist the government in blocking revenue leakages, reduce the risk inherent in revenue collections and ultimately collaborate with other stakeholders to improve non-tax IGR from 18% to 40%, which will make more funds available for the developmental projects in the education, health, security sectors of Lagos economy, thereby enhancing the overall quality of life for Lagos residents.

She informed that the curriculum of the training delves into advanced systems revenue auditing techniques, with a focus on the non-tax revenue collection cycle and provides the internal auditors with audit tools needed to navigate complex revenue management and financial structures.

Her words, “The collaboration between Lagos State and the University of Calgary serves as a testament to our dedication to fostering an international partnership that will contribute to the economic growth and sustainability of the same in Lagos. With this partnership, Lagos State has positioned itself at the forefront of innovative financial strategies, leveraging international expertise to maximise its revenue potential”.

She disclosed that the joint training initiative also opens avenues for knowledge exchange between internal auditors in Lagos and their counterparts in Canada, stressing that the cross-cultural sharing of expertise is expected to enrich the training programme by providing auditors with a global perspective on financial compliance and non-taxable revenue management.

While saying that Internal Auditors are expected to play both preventive and corrective roles in auditing, Dr. Ayoola informed that the training will accentuate strict compliance with applicable standards of revenue collections from revenue payers, while blocking identified loopholes in the revenue collection cycle system.

She told auditors, who are the compliant officers in the state, to shift focus from mainly expenditure auditing to revenue auditing as revenue generation births expenditure.

The Special Adviser to the State Governor on Taxation and Revenue, Mr. Abdukabir Ogungbo, while addressing participants at the training, stated that the objective of the training is to ensure that non-taxable revenue increases significantly, thereby increasing the financial capability of the State.

He described that partnership initiative with the University of Calgary, Canada, as a welcome development for the State Government in ensuring that the State is at the forefront of upgrading its internally generated revenue for developmental purposes.

On her part, the Permanent Secretary, Office of Internal Audit, Mrs. Kikelomo Dawodu, FCA, maintained that the State needs sufficient funds to keep moving forward in terms of infrastructural development, hence, there is a need to expand its non-tax internally generated revenue.

She said the auditing of the revenue system in Lagos State is geared towards bringing an end to leakages, adding the training will expose the participants to different ways of blocking identified loopholes through sophisticated technology that would make the auditor detect errors and rectify them immediately.