1. The state of origin (citizenship) certificate is issued by the relevant LGA claimed by applicants.
2. Until now, different payments are to be made by two different sets of applicants for the certificate. There is N2500 (which comprises N2000 for the LGA issuing the certificate while the (Kwara State Internal Revenue Service) KW-IRS gets N462.50. The balance is for bank charges).
This N2500 is paid to the KW-IRS which then remits N2000 to the appropriate LGA. If you are a civil servant or you have evidence of Personal Income Tax (PIT), all you need to pay to get the certificate of state of origin (citizenship) is just the N2500. No more, no less. Any other charge is not known to the Kwara State Government. Two, there is extra N1500 Personal Income Tax which is collected at the point of collecting the certificate. But this N1500 applies ONLY to applicants whose parents (or themselves) are not civil servants or do not have evidence of payment of their Personal Income Tax.
3. What this (2) means is that there are two categories of applicants for the state of origin (citizenship). The first category pays *just* N2500. That’s because their parents (or they) are either civil servants (with evidence of PAYE) or have evidence of PIT payment. The second category pays N4000 (N2500+1500 PIT). This is because the applicants under this category have neither evidence of PAYE nor that of PIT. So the N1500 is for their PIT.
4. There is a new development, however. Until now, the PIT was being paid at the LGA. But this has changed as the KW-IRS has recently adjusted its website to allow applicants in Category II to pay for their PIT directly to the KW-IRS. This is because the PIT belongs to the KW-IRS under the Kwara State Law. Besides, this measure has been introduced to stop the alleged extortion of applicants who are made to pay extra charges that are not receipted. The state government feels this is unfair to the applicants. No applicant should pay any extra money for the purpose of collecting state of origin (citizenship) certificate in Kwara State.
5. Processing of the certificate still takes place at the LGAs because of the need to verify claims of applicants truly coming from the areas they claim to have come from.
6. The administration of AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq has NOT added any extra charges to the application fees for the state of origin (citizenship) certificate. All the fees mentioned above are as inherited from the past administration. The only thing that has changed is that the new leadership of KW-IRS is collecting the PIT directly from applicants, instead of the previous arrangement where the LGAs were collecting it. This, as said before, is to eliminate incidents of extra charges as well as ensure that the PIT gets to the KW-IRS as prescribed by the law.
7. Lastly, one other benefit is that everyone pays the same charge for the certificate across the state. Uniform charge of either N2500 or N4000.
