Friday, November 22

Nigeria Customs Rake in N476bn in 7 Months

The Nigeria Customs Service generated N476.33 billion revenue to the federation and non-federation account from January to July, this year, according to a document obtained from the NCS headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday.

The document, made available shows that the total revenue collected by the service from January to July, comprised N272.84 billion for the federation account and N194.49 billion for non-federation account.

During the period under review, N91.36 billion generated for the month of June was the highest, compared with N69.48 billion in May and N68.5 billon in March.

A summary of the monthly revenue figures showed that in January, the service generated N51.79 billion into the federation and
non-federation account, compared with N64.83 billion in the month of February.

In April, the service collected N59.29 billion for the nation’s treasury and N62.06 billion in the month of July.

The document also indicated an avearge increase in import duty collected by the Customs in the months under review.

A breakdown of the figures shows that total revenue collected from import duty was N238.57 billion, while excise duty accounted for N23.81 billion.

Also, Common External Tariff levies contributed N9.77billion for the months under review.

Comptroller-General, Alhaji Mohammed Dikko, in April, told reporters that the Customs would exceed its targeted internal revenue for this year from N800 billion to one trillion naira.

The NCS Spokesman, Mr Wale Adeniyi, said that the target was still achievable, following the revenue generated in seven months.

Adeniyi, who is a Deputy Comptroller of customs, hinged his optimism on the tradition that the tempo of importation usually increased from the second half of the year.

He said: “we are expecting the usual ember month rush from this month (September) and we expect that those who are going to sell things for the festive period will come in so we expect a  higher volume.

“We expect that the volume will increase and  when the volume increases the net  volume increases and it will translate into more revenue.”

The spokesman observed that there had been a remarkable improvement in revenue from the Apapa Command, due to increased duty rates on rice.

“If you look at the sectors you will also notice that in July there was a remarkable improvement in the revenue from Apapa  and the reason is because of  bulk importation of rice which has witnessed an increase in the duty rates.

“So, when you have increase in the duty rate of bulk cargo like that it translates into higher volume of duty.”

Adeniyi said that “human element and the sweeping reforms’’ being implemented by the current Customs administration had contributed to improved revenue earnings for the country.

“We have seen over the past three years that once the comptroller-general is committed to a cause it is done so the emphasis has been that comptrollers are put on their toes.

“He has done some restructuring around to ensure that the performing comptrollers who can really get the desired results are given more and more responsibilities while those who are not really doing so well are redeployed to some other assignments.”

The total revenue collected by the service in 2011 was N741.83billion, comprising N430.68 billion for the federation account and N311.14 billion for non-federation account.

 

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