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Sanwo-Olu: I haven’t bought new vehicles from state’s purse

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State yesterday said that he is yet to use state resources to purchase any vehicle for himself or any of his personal staff or family members from the government purse since he assumed office as governor on May 29, 2019, saying it is unnecessarily fanciful that governors must buy brand new vehicles when there is no need for them.

Sanwo-Olu, who also insisted that it was needless and unreasonably to acquire a new fleets of vehicles as a new governor, explained that those vehicles in his convoy were those he was using during his electioneering campaigns.

The governor, however, didn’t disclose if the new GAC Sport Utility Vehicles and cars recently distributed to all the members of the State Executive Council, aides and other appointees were donated or acquired from the state government’s resources. Speaking at the 22nd Annual Tax Conference of the Chartered Institute of Taxa tion of Nigeria (CITN) held at Eko Hotel, Victoria Island in Lagos, Sanwo-Olu, charged governors to look into their expenditure profile and do away with unnecessary spending to increase state revenue for government to have more resources to meet the basic needs of the people. According to him, there is need for better utilisation of tax payers’ money by public office holders to build the trust of the citizens, adding that state executives must work toward having a better reform process.

Sanwo-Olu said: “We need to look at our expenditure profile as Chief Executive of our state and ask ourselves, where can I cut the red tape; what can I do away with so as to increase the revenue of my state or even make available more money for my state.

“What I have done till date is that I have not purchased any single official vehicle for myself, for any of my personal staff or any of my family members from the government purse. If you see me have a convoy of 10 vehicles, these are all vehicles I was using during my campaigns. “Governor Nasir el-Rufai joined me in one of my cars this morning and I can tell you that vehicle was one of the vehicles I used for my campaign; it is not brand new.”

“So, I said to my people that, it is not a fanciful thing that every governor must begin to buy brand new vehicles when you do not need to. So,all of those millions have gone back into the treasury of the state and we are using it to develop the state very well.”

Sanwo-Olu, who stressed the need to increase revenue generation without totally dependent on revenue from oil, charged tax practitioners, especially members of CITN, to take leadership position and put themselves in rightful position in Nigeria to increase government revenue and change the narrative in the country. Speaking at the event, Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, said that Nigeria is not collecting more revenue as it should collect, said Kaduna State has learned a lot from Lagos State in terms of economic development and internal revenue generation (IGR), which has helped his state to reform its tax generation

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