The Seme border command of the Nigeria Customs Service has assured that it will meet its revenue target for 2017, ban on importation of vehicles through the land borders and rice not withstanding.
The command’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. Selechang Taupyen who gave this assurance in an interview with Primetime Reporters in Lagos informed that a lot of measures had been taken by the Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the command to block every revenue leakages.
He said,”Revenue wise, there were lots of steps that were adopted to increase our revenue profile considering the fact that before this pronouncement, about 60% of our revenue was generated from fairly used vehicles coming through the land borders and because of that, you will discover that since the Customs Area Controller assumed duty here in the month of March, coincidentally, the influx of goods into the country drastically reduced. I mean to say that there was a gross downturn of economic activities within the land borders.
“That was occasioned by the reduction in the number of imports possibly as a result of the exchange rate and also the economic situation of the country as well”.
Taupyen recalled that when the CAC came to terms with these realities, he had to look inward to see the possible areas where there were revenue leakages and worked on sealing them.
According to him,”And so, that measure was adopted . You will discover that from the month of May, the figure was not good enough but there was improvement in the month of June, in the month of July, there was additional improvement. In the month of August, we even had over N700 million.
There was a monthly increase because the management of Seme Area Command is working daily on trying to see what we can do differently to improve on our revenue seeing that this aspect is no longer there. We cannot but depend on one aspect”.
He however expressed hope that as the year gradually comes to an end, there would be a boost in the economic activities within the area even as he said that they were yet to experience upsurge in the economic activities at the border.
On whether the command will meet it annual revenue target, he responded,”I believe so considering the revenue target that we are using. So far, looking at what we have on ground, one would say if the revenue target was based on what was to happen along this border, I think we would have exceeded our revenue target because we are working round the clock to make sure we even go to hit the One Billion Naira target especially when there was vehicle inclusive and even rice, we had a revenue target of N1.2 billion.
“Like, at least in August we were able to meet N700 million with the shortfall of N500 million or thereabout, you can imagine if at all we have those things. So, we are hopeful that with increase in the economic activities along this corridor, our revenue target will surely be met strictly based on that condition because we are not importers, we strictly depend on what comes in and revenue is generated”.
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