ABUJA: The Comptroller General, Nigerian Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (retd.), has mandated the Murtala Muhammed Airport Command, Lagos to generate over N126bn as revenue this year.
Ali, who was represented by the Assistant Comptroller General/Zonal Coordinator, Nigerian Customs, Mr. Edike Charles, urged officers of the command to triple the N42, 746,642,881.76 generated last year.
Addressing officers at the airport command, Edike said that having surmounted the challenges encountered in the previous year, the service expected the command to triple last year’s revenue.
He said, “Every airway bill must be accounted for; whether half kg, one kg or one million kgs, they must be well accounted for. Every kobo is important and it must be remitted to the government.
“We must sacrifice our time and resources for Nigeria now. Oil revenue is dwindling day by day. How do we expect government to raise its revenue to run the country? For Customs, there is no excuse, which means we must stand to the challenge of not letting our country down. We must put self interest aside.”
On his part, the Customs Area Controller, Murtala Muhammed Area Command, Mr. Allanah Francis, disclosed that the command had observed that un-utilised airways bills posed huge challenge to its revenue drive. He said efforts were being made to bring the number down to a minimum, just as he declared that the command had done well in the area of revenue collection in spite of challenges.
“Last year, we collected a total of N42,746,642,881.76, which exceeded the 2015 target of N40,392,958,931 by N2,366,852,363.11. That was a 30 per cent increase over the target of 2014 at N32,764,138,639,44,” he said.
Francis assured the zonal coordinator that the command was up to the challenge as the year was already looking good. “It might interest you to note that for last month, (January 2016), the command collected N3,953,521,878.35. This figure is the highest ever collected in this Command when compared to corresponding months of January.”
