Customs Laments Drop In Revenue

The Zonal Coordinator in charge of Zone ‘A’ of the Nigeria Customs Service, Assistant Comptroller General, Charles Edike has voiced concern over the inability of commands in the Zone to realize their revenue target due to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Forex restriction placed on some 41 items.

During a meeting in Lagos recently, Edike said the zone contributes to the largest part of the overall customs revenue, but since the restriction of Forex placed on the 41 items, it has significantly affected customs revenue.

“The customs revenue for this year is not doing well as we would want to and that is because of certain policies that are in place like the 41 items removed from the foreign exchange transactions. Those items would have generated revenue from customs, but they have been removed from accessing forex and cannot participate in forex transactions. That is basically hampering our customs duty collection,” he said.

He said due to the negative impact the policy was having on Customs revenue, the Service has now shifted attention to more excisable goods such as cigarette and alcohol to generate its revenue. “We are now paying a lot more attention to other areas that before now we were not giving attention like items that are excusable like cigarette and alcohol, so this one’s pay excise duty. We are also giving a lot more attention to anti smuggling” he said.

He noted that the efforts of the customs’ anti-smuggling operations in the bush and creeks had recorded successes with the arrests of suspects and seizures of smuggled goods. Giving a breakdown, the customs boss said that seizures made in the zone from January to April, comprised over 28,018 cartons of frozen poultry products, 20,778 bags of rice, and 3,686 kegs of groundnut oil. Other seized items are 50 bales of used clothes and 68 bales of cannabis with a Duty Paid Value of N1.3 billion.

Credit: Shipsandports