The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Tincan Island Port Command has said that it collected a total of one hundred and eighty- three billion naira (N183, 000, 000, 000) between January and August, 2017.
The command’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. Uche Ejesieme who disclosed this in a statement in Lagos attributed the feat to the coordinated activities and innovative spirit of the Customs Area Controller and the entire officers and men of the command.
It would be recalled that the command has had a sustained high revenue profile since the beginning of the year, a feat the Controller, Comptroller Yusuf Bashar attributed to deliberate creative policies and stimulus plans aimed at blocking all possible areas of revenue loss.
Speaking on the revenue, the Controller stated that the revenue for August alone stood at over twenty-eight billion naira (N28, 000, 000, 000) which according to him was the highest in the annals of the command especially in comparison with the corresponding periods over the past years.
The one hundred and eighty-three billion naira (N183, 000, 000, 000) collected by the command between January and August , 2017, Bashar said was an improvement on the sum of one hundred and fifty-six billion naira (N156, 000, 000, 000) collected by the command during the same period in the preceding year 2016, despite economic recession in the country.
“It therefore implies that but for the exclusion of forty-one (41) items from Forex window, the Command could have doubled its revenue profile”, he said.
A further analysis showed that the command is becoming more thorough in its revenue drive, to the extent that all high yielding revenue consignments are closely monitored to avoid circumvention of procedure.
The Controller stated that the customs high command expected so much from the command and as such the command would continue to develop adequate operational template and modalities that would be capable of entrenching integrity in the acumen of its operations.
He pointed out that all officers and men of the command have a compelling need to discharge their functions in line with the change mantra of the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd).
He extolled the virtues of the Customs Management and vowed to sustain and surpass the revenue target of the command in line with the expectations of the Nigeria Customs Service Management.
He however, appreciated the compliance level of stakeholders at the port to fiscal policies of the Federal Government in terms of trade while advising few recalcitrant ones to toe the path of sanity through honest declaration in their documentations noting that integrity, due diligence, honest declarations and transparency were key elements in 21st Century customs operations.
Speaking further, the controller harped on the importance of leadership skills as being critical to success and advised Officers in Charge (O/C) Terminals and other senior officers to exhibit a high moral and ethical standard that would showcase quality leadership for the actualization of set goals and objectives.
On his plans for the ember months, Comptroller Bashar pointed out that high cargo traffic was usually expected at this period of the year and advised importers to desist from importing uncustomed goods in view of its implication.
“All Importers ought to be conversant with the external tariff, especially schedules 3 & 4 (prohibition other than trade and absolute prohibition)”, Bashar added.
He therefore called on patriotic Nigerians, to oblige the command with credible information about illicit transactions or documentation, promising that the identity of such informant would be jealously guarded.
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