ABUJA: Less than two months after it reversed the policy which restricted the importation of polished and brown rice to the seaports alone, the Nigeria Customs Service says it has recorded a total of 17.6 million metric tonnes of the commodity between October and November, 2015. It also generated import duty revenue of N1.2billion on the imported product through the land borders.
National Public Relations Officer of the service, who made the disclosure, also said that these figures were disclosed at a strategy session convened by the Comptroller-General of the service, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd). It was gathered that the strategic session was specifically designed to review the service’s revenue performance for the year.
A breakdown of the rice imports shows that Idiroko Border Command of the service located in Ogun State accounted for the largest volume of 8.276 metric tonnes, with a collection of N555.2 million duty.
Similarly, the Katsina Border Command comes next in terms of quantity, having accounted for 3,636 metric tonnes of the commodity imported within the period with total revenue of N242.9 million collected. Others include a total of 2.156 metric tonnes imported through the land borders of Oyo/Osun Command, generating total revenue of N144.3m.
The Seme Border Command accounted for 2,140 metric tonnes with a total of N143.4m revenue collections while the Sokoto Command accounted for 602 metric tonnes of the commodity with an import duty collection of N40.2m.
Meanwhile, the Kano/Jigawa Command accounted for 470 metric tones with a revenue of N31.6m, the Adamawa/Taraba Command accounted for the importation of 248 metric tonnes with N16.6 million even as the Niger/Kwara/Kogi accounted for 68 metric tonnes with N4.7 million import duty collection bringing to a total of 17.6 million metric tonnes with a total revenue of N1.2bn.
The Comptroller-General, who reacted to the new revenue profile, expressed satisfaction that the new policy is yielding fruitful results.
He said: “The huge collection in just two months has vindicated our position. If we had stuck to our previous directive, this much quantum of rice would still have been smuggled into the country and we would have lost more than N1billion revenue.”
The CG, who also observed that this is critical period in the nation’s economic history, insisted that the service would ensure that all import and export revenue due to the government were collected.
The Comptroller-General of the Service, who assumed duty in September, had approved the removal of the restriction placed on importation of rice through the land borders one month after his resumption.
The removal, according to the service was predicated on the large scale rice smuggling through the land borders, resulting to huge revenue loss and distortions in the price of the item in the local markets in the country.
