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The Lagos Inland Revenue Service (LIRS) noted that it generated N25 billion from taxes in April during the total lockdown. This feat was attributed to technology. Head of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) of LIRS, Mr. Rasheed Olu-Ajayi, made the announcement to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in a Zoom conference held on Saturday.

The process of doing business had been automated, and while it was not good enough, it was commendable particularly given the total lockdown of the state.

“What we did was to have a business continuity plan by documenting product, events with which we continue to work. So, we invoked technology tools, with lots of our staff, working from home but chasing taxpayers,” he noted.

The LIRS is charged with the responsibility of collecting taxes and these taxes cut across business development taxes. Without efficient tax collection, the ongoing and planned development projects in education, road and easing of traffic congestion among others being executed by the state government would not have been possible.

On the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, he noted that “Nobody envisaged that there would be a time that the whole world would be lockdown and people would not be able to do anything. This is why the LIRS thought outside the box by exploring ICT to achieve this revenue generation during the total lockdown.”