ABUJA: The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said it has generated N486.7 billion in the last six months, a figure higher by N101bn than the revenue it generated between January and June 2016. The Service also said the Comptroller General of Customs (CGC), Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd) has also directed the immediate dismantling of all illegal checkpoints nationwide. A statement issued by the Public Relations Officer, Mr Joseph Attah on Wednesday said its recent strategic steps to remove all obstacles to trade facilitation, block revenue leakages and redeployment of personnel have continued to boost its revenue generation. “The Service collected a total sum of N486.72bn between January and June 2017 as against N385.70bn collected in the same period of last year,” it said. In February this year, Col. Ali had in a statement charged the Customs Area Controllers (CAC) to ensure strict compliance with extant laws to enable the Service achieve its 2017 revenue target of N1.1 trillion. Customs said it targeted N1trn in 2016 but fell short due to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy restricting imports of 41 items.
In what seems to be a review, Customs said it targets the realisation of N772.88bn for year 2017, “despite the challenging economic environment with negative consequences on international trade.” It had targeted generating N937.3bn in 2017 but was only able to generate N898.6bn which was about N38.7bn less. The service had said but for the CBN restriction, it could have seen a revenue collection of N240bn, exceeding the target. The present N772.8bn target is about N164.5bn less than the N937.3bn it targeted last year, and N125.8bn lower than its actual N898.6bn revenue collection in 2016, the Daily Trust reports. More so, the statement the reinvigorated anti-smuggling operations have yielded 3,798 seizures with duty paid value (DPV) of N7.2bn in the period compared to the 3,106 seizures with DPV of N4.9bn for 2016. Daily Trust analysis shows that the total seizure for this year is 692 higher than in 2016, with a higher DPV of N2.3bn. Meanwhile, the Service said it has keyed into the Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) drive to ease ways of doing business in Nigeria. Col. Ali directed the immediate dismantling of all illegal check points. The CGC reminded all Commands that any checkpoint mounted outside 40 kilometres to the land border is illegal, while information patrols beyond the 40km limit should not last beyond 24 hours per time.
