The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Zone A, Lagos has reiterated its optimism that it will achieve the 75% of the entire revenue expected of it by the Service by the end of this year.
Speaking in recently in Lagos, the Zonal Coordinator of the zone, Assistant Comptroller-General Victor Gbemudu stated that going by the level of increased importation in the last four months of the year, that he was sure the commands under the zone would eventually met the revenue target.
Gbemudu observed that the policies of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Inde Abdullahi were usually read out during his monthly meeting with the Customs Area Controllers in the zone to prepare their minds towards achieving the revenue target.
According to him,” 75% of the entire revenue is expected from this zone. With that, we can’t afford to sleep. That is why every month, I meet with the Area Controllers to gear them up and reiterate some of the policies of the Comptroller-General for us”.
“Again, these are “Ember” months, from statistics; we see that there is more inflow of imported goods at this last quarter of the year. Goods are coming in for the Christmas and New Year. So, we expect increase in the cargo throughput into the country. With that, we will smile to the banks in terms of revenue collection. That is what I hope and I know we are going to achieve that”.
While adding that the zone has placed the officers on red alert, he however warned smugglers and saboteurs of the nation’s economy to stay away from the nation’s border posts insisting that the measures being put in place was to ensure that smugglers did not take advantage of the yuletide season to bring in smuggled goods as the level of importation was expected to increase.
On the measures being put in place to ensure that smugglers did not have a field day, the Customs boss disclosed that one of the measures adopted was to ensure that commands operating at the border areas and the Federal Operations Unit (FOU) were strengthened to improve on their anti-smuggling activities.
He said,” you can see the seizures of rice we have been recording at FOU, Oyo, Idiroko, Seme and Western Marine Commands. That is to tell you that we are very vigilant and we would be more on alert as we approach the Yuletide season. We have strengthened our anti-smuggling activities especially around the border areas”.
