Maduako Igbokwe I Saturday, Oct.07, 2023
AWKA, Anambra – Bigly Oil & Gas Limited, an Internal Revenue Generating (IGR) firm in Anambra State says it has transformed and engaged over 300 touts popularly called Agberos into gainful employment in Anambra State.
Project Manager of the firm, Chukwuma Michael Nwabuikwu, stated this in Awka while briefing newsmen on activities of the company in the state.
According to him, the company went into partnership with Anambra State internal Revenue Services (AiRS) to collect statewide haulage tax on behalf of the State government in September 2023 and in less than one month has transformed touts and touting activities as regards revenue collection in the state.
He said 300 touts who had been known to constitute nuisance in the streets have been taken off the roads, trained, transformed and utilised to work for the state government in the business of revenue collection.
According to him, more touts are in line to be deployed thereby reducing the rate of touts and touting activities and bringing in professionalism in the practice of revenue collection in the state.
Speaking further, the Project Manager said the target of the firm has remained to completely eliminate touts from collecting revenue on Anambra roads and optimize haulage tax collection in the state.
” We are in partnership with Anambra State Internal Revenue Services to collect statewide haulage tasks on behalf of Anambra State government. Our operation is divided into the upstream tax collection and the downstream tax collection.
“The upstream is the tax we collect from trucks passing through the state, and the downstream is the one we collect at the market sites of the state.
“Our mandate is to optimise haulage tax collection through the use of technology in line with the governor’s policy to eliminate illegal collection through use of electronic collection systems.
“In line with our mandate we have set out to digitalize our process. Since we have been given this authority since September 1, 2023. We hit the ground running. We have been in partnership with the AiRS and have put together mechanisms to collect the revenue through the best civic way of branding and dishing out messages.
“The governor did not plan to throw the touts back into the streets, but what he wants to do is to bring back agbero population, and put them back into the working system by rehabilitating, reintegrating them as well as provide them with gainful employment.
“People that are called agbero are Anambra and Igbo youths, who are now gainfully employed by Anambra State government, kitted and mandated to collect revenue from Anambra State government.
“The recruitment process was very thorough. We collected their details, passports, NIN, and other details even to their (Umunna) kindred level and passed them on to the office of the special adviser to the governor on security matters. They were thoroughly vetted and screened before we sent them back to the streets.
Today, they are completely kitted and wearing their ID cards. Before our operation finally took off on the 6th of September, 2023, after we took about 3 weeks to prepare an induction workshop in collaboration with AiRS in Awka.
“After the induction, we have over 300 Anambra Youths employed in the haulage tax collection and they started operation on the 26th September, 2023.”
