ABUJA: Nigeria Customs Service has said it will stop at nothing in its efforts to recover the N23.6 billion owed the Federal Government by some multinational rice importers, including Olam Nigeria Limited and Stallion Group arising from unpaid duty from rice imports.
The service had in July this year, sealed the business premises of Stallion Group, Popular Foods, Masco Agro and Olam as well as Milan Nigeria Limited (Conti-Agro) and Ebony Agro, in a move to recover the money.
New Comptroller General of the service, Col. Hameed Ali, who addressed journalists in Lagos at the weekend, insisted that nothing would make the service renege on its earlier promise to recover the money owed the government.
According to him, the change in the leadership of the service, which led to his takeover of the headship of the agency delayed measures being put in place to ensure that the debt was recovered to the last kobo.
“We will collect our money, no going back on that. The money is for Nigeria and so there is no reason why we should leave any kobo in the hands of the debtors and so we must collect all
“The service would apply every lawful and legitimate means in ensuring that all the monies were collected, we would go step by step in achieving this and we will follow due process in going about collecting what belongs to Nigeria. This is not negotiable”, Ali added.
The CG, who reacted to the recent summons by the Senate over alleged lifting of ban on the importation of rice, said that the function of the service was to enforce fiscal policies of the government and not to make such policies.
He therefore disclosed that the service did not lift ban on importation of rice, what it did was to remove the restriction on the importation of the product through the land borders as part of measures to check the increasing cases of smuggling the product.
According to him, the service in 2011 administratively restricted the importation of the product through the land borders to ease enforcement of the tariff on the product, arguing that if importers were allowed to bring in the commodity freely through the land borders, the tendency to smuggle would reduce.
Under the new policy, importation of parboiled rice would be through both the seaports and land border, both of which will attract 10 per cent import duty and 60 per cent levy, bring to a total of 70 per cent tariff.
Similarly, in the new tariff regime, rice millers will enjoy preferential levy with valid quota allocation, which would however attract a duty rate of 10 per cent with a 20 per cent levy on rice importation, bringing to a total of 30 per cent tariff.
It was gathered that the service imposed the restriction because the borders were believed to be a difficult terrain in terms of effectively monitoring and controlling the importation of the commodity a development that has proved to be counterproductive, as it has fuelled massive smuggling of the commodity over time
A statement by the service announcing the new policy reads in part: “Over the years, importation has been restricted to the seaports because the border authorities found it difficult to effectively monitor and control importation of rice”.
“The decision to ban rice importation through the land borders has not proved to be an effective measure because smuggling of the product thrives with people using different means of conveyance including small trucks, bicycles and even animals; putting the smuggled products on donkeys and some actually carry it on their heads”, the statement also said.
