Customs generates N3 trillion

 THE Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, collected N3,048,314,862,310.03 between January 2011 and August 2014. The organisation’s spokesman, Mr. Wale Adeniyi, gave the figure at the I-Nigerian Initiative hosted briefing of the Forum of Spokespersons of Security and Response Agencies, FOSSRA, in Abuja.He said that in 2011, the Service collected N741.8 billion; in 2012, N850.8 billion; in 2013, N833 billion; while N622.2 billion was raked in between January and August this year.Adeniyi said that the service made more than 3,961 seizures, consisting of rice, textile materials, poultry, wine and alcoholic beverages and vehicles since the beginning of the year. Continue...

 He noted that to improve efficiency, the NCS has concluded the training of 3,000 of its men with their counterparts from the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, and Nigeria Police while the Service donated patrol vehicles for a joint patrol with the two other agencies.While noting that relevant agencies of government were now working together and linking their e-platforms for smooth clearance of goods being imported into the country, he explained that since the Service took over the management of destination inspection in December last year, an average of 22,500 clearances had been issued, monthly, as against the combined figure of 15,000 by the three former agents.The Customs image maker, however, expressed regrets that, activities had slowed down “because a lot of machines and equipment inherited from the agents had broken down while some others were not even installed at all during the seven year contract period”. He explained further, “when we took over Destination Inspection Services in December 2013, one of the things we told government was that we needed an independent audit to let us establish the state of the health of these machines, not just scanners but everything that was done by Destination Inspection Service Providers because the project was on build, own, use and transfer basis.“They were to build all the infrastructure that were needed over the period of seven years (that was the last contract) maintain it, train Customs Officers on how to operate and use these equipment and then transfer it at the expiration of the contract. And so, scanners are just one infinitesimal part of the process”.Mr. Adeniyi disclosed that the NCS now has a new scanner policy awaiting government approval, adding, “that will set the roadmap for how many scanners we need, what we need to maintain them, what we need to train officers who will man these machines and ensure that we get value for money.”He warned Nigerians to be wary of internet fraudsters who use different fake platforms to dupe innocent job seekers and also advertise to sell customs seized vehicles at ridiculous prices.The Customs Spokesman equally advised Nigerians against purchasing smuggled cars as men of the service have the backing of law to confiscate such vehicles even after they are licensed and in use for up to two years.“Once you did not import a car yourself, and paid the duty yourself, we advice that if you are going to buy a car, the wise thing to do is to cross check if the paper being given to you is indeed genuine. This advice presupposes that there are people who go somewhere behind to clone some of these documents and present them as being genuine Customs duty certificates. We believe that if you exercise that caution, if you are patient enough to contact the nearest Customs formation, you are not likely to buy a car with a fake document.“The law actually allows us to storm anywhere we reasonably suspect smuggling activities is taking place even on the road. We are only looking at the convenience of Nigerians by not putting obstacles to trade or create situations that will lead to break down of law and order,” he disclosed.He cited a recent instance in Lagos where customs officers raised a car shop in Lagos and confiscated over 30 exotic cars including Bentley 2014, Infinity, Lexus, Rolls Royce and other such names of 2014 and 2015 models including bullet proof ones.”Speaking on the reforms introduced by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Alh. Abdullahi Inde Dikko, he said that the service has embarked on ICT penetration to improve efficiency and minimise corruption.“As part of the reforms that Comptroller General of Customs is putting in place is that e-customs is one major achievement of the transformation agenda of the present CGC. When he came in 2009, he discovered that a number of our activities were still manual from one process to the other we started to automate all of them.”