OSGOF targets N1 billion from IGR, partners states, others
Office of the Surveyor – General of the Federation, OSGOF, has pledged to rake into the government coffers over N1 billion from its Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, this fiscal year as parts of efforts to pull the country out of recession.
The Surveyor-General, Ebisintie Awudu, who made the pledge while speaking at the end of a two-day retreat organised for the top staff of the Office in Abuja recently, said the OSGOF has resolved to look inward and generate revenue for the federal government.
Awudu stressed further that his office was capable of generating revenue for the country if seed money could be provided to enable his office meet the standards, pointing out that “But as it stands now, OSGOF has to look inward to generate revenue within the region of about N1billion year 2017 as directed by the House of Representatives when it met with the budget defend team from OSGOF. He said the office would close ranks with state surveys across the country in its quest to become a revenue spinner and avoid over dependence on government for funding its operations.
In his speech titled, “Strategies for Improving the Revenue Generating Capabilities of OSGOF”, the nation’s number one surveyor said it was high time OSGOF began to look inward in line with the federal government’s directive to improve on internally generated revenue for self-sustenance, stressing the urgent need to collaborate with the state offices to achieve the goal.
“OSGOF should key in and come into some co-operative arrangement where regular state cadastral/legal practice can also be financially beneficial by entering into some financial synergy with state Surveyor-Generals.
“State governments should be encouraged into this mode of practice by the provision of political support from OSGOF to the state Surveyor-Generals as they stir the ship in their respective states,” he said. Another avenue to be explored according to him, is effective regulation of “previously unexplored or not fully explored areas of scientific applications of surveying by OSGOF.” These include regulation of oil exploration activities by national and multinational companies through the Department of Petroleum Resources DPR, serving as the government regulatory agency in routing geometrical design of roads, provision of geo-reference data for Nigerian cities among others.
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