Features

Shared Prosperity through institutional reforms in Kwara: The social contract perspective

 

The reform of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KW-IRS) which symbolically took place in 2015 through the signing of the Kwara State Revenue Administration Law on June 22, 2015, by the Executive Governor of the State was based on certain unique principles that are worth studying.
This is significant, taking into consideration the complementary introduction of the Infrastructure Development Fund, Kwara (IF-K) model under the Kwara Public Private Partnership (KP3) Bureau Law of the same year.
The State Government had propagated its agenda of Shared Prosperity for the people of the State and was bent on implementing this agenda even in the midst of dwindling resources from the traditional sources Federal Allocation and External Borrowing.
The Government thus realised that it has no choice but to embark on a sort of financial engineering that would translate into a high level of financial discipline and resource utilisation. On the basis of the above, the State Government resolved to remodeled the revenue mobilisation process by changing the people, the process and the technology with its PPT Model as the bedrock for the accomplishment of its Shared Prosperity Agenda.
This step was quickly complemented with the introduction of the Infrastructure Fund Kwara (IF-K) Model of infrastructure development to bring about a new process of revenue mobilisation for infrastructural development of Kwara State which thus informed the vision of the Kwara State Internal Revenue Service; “mobilising revenue for the strategic development of Kwara State”.
The social contract concept was relied upon heavily in arriving at this decision of government as it recognised the direct relationship between the concepts of taxation and governance, which are age old as they both date back to the ancient history of creation, prior to civilisation.
While governance is about the administration of common resources of a state or nation for the benefits of the citizens of that state or nation, taxation, on the other hand, is the process through which the residents of a state or nation contribute towards the administration of the state or nation. Both concepts are therefore complementary as one depends on the other.
The State, in the course of discharging the responsibilities of governance, realised that it has to depend on the citizens to perform their civic responsibility of paying their taxes which will form the major source of funding the responsibilities of governance on a sustainable level.
The government therefore realised that it is bounded by the social contract, in the sense that the people who are expected to pay their taxes are also full of expectations for social services through the good governance of the State.  This will call for more transparency and accountability on the part of the government and this administration resolved that this is the way to go for sustainable development.
The social contract theory is as old as man, and philosophy itself.  This is so because it is based on the concept that a person’s moral and political obligations are dependent on an agreement or contract among them to form the society in which they live.
Socrates was the first to be ascribed to the social contract theory when he referred to just man as one who is willing, among other things, to recognise his obligations to the state by obeying its laws.
He referred to the state as the morally and politically most fundamental entity, and as such deserves our highest allegiance and deepest respect. Thomas Hobbes however was of the opinion that for reasons ofself-interest, reasonability and rationality, human beings choose to submit to the authority of the sovereign state in order to be able to live in a civil society which is conducive to their own interests.
Hobbes justified this argument by imagining man in the natural state or state of nature. John Locke on his part states that when the government fails to secure their natural rights or satisfy the best interests of the society (called the general will’) the citizens can withdraw their obligations to obey or change the leadership, through elections.
The social contract theory is rightly associated with modern moral and political theory and is given its full exposition and defense by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau.
It is the most dominant theory within moral and political theory throughout the history of the modern West.
The Institutional reform embarked upon by the Government of Kwara State was, therefore, based on the social contract theory to accomplish its shared prosperity agenda as promised, and the result is the growth in the monthly Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from a monthly average of N600 million in 2015, to a monthly average of N1.45 billion in 2016, and a monthly average of N1.7billion at the end of the November 2017. This has formed the basis of, not only, the consistent payment of salaries of the State Civil Servants, but also, the funding of several on-going projects that were hitherto abandoned, and the introduction of several other new projects under the IF-K Model for a future Kwara.
Awodun, PhD is Executive Chairman KW-IRS

Show More

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Back to top button