Customs To Deploy Scanners At Land Borders To Curb Arms Smuggling

The Controller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ali (retd.), says the service will be deploying scanners in the coming months at the opened land borders to prevent smuggling of arms and ammunition.

While responding to questions from members of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Customs and Excise during a budget defence session on Tuesday, he said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had also offered to provide four scanners which will be deployed at the four land borders that have been opened for business.

The CG added that the Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning had bought three mobile scanners based on emergency purchase, which are billed to arrive in May for subsequent deployment.

The Committee on Customs and Excise had proposed a revenue target of N1.56trillion for the Nigeria Customs Service in 2021, up from the original N1.4 trillion proposition.

The amount was set for the NCS in 2020 before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic that led to a downward review of the target to N1.3 trillion.

Ali, however, decried that the African Continental Free Trade Area and the World Trade Organisation agreements entered into by Nigeria were already affecting the country’s revenue negatively.

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The Customs also proposed a ban on importation of vehicles that had been used for more than seven years.

The Chairman of the committee, Leke Abejide, said the lawmakers would retain the targets on duties and Value Added Tax collection as the Customs was able to surpass the reduced target during the lockdowns while the COVID-19 pandemic was already over.

Abejide said, “The 2021 proposal that Customs brought to us; we compared notes of what was presented to us in the 2020 fiscal year and what was collected by the service. There was a proposal of N1.4tn.

“When we looked at your new proposal and the kind of noise it will generate when we get to the floor of the House, we don’t want to have problems on the floor trying to pass the budget.

“So, when we looked at what you collected in 2020, which was N1.56tn when you add the VAT, it will look somehow illogical for us.”