The new Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the Tincan Island command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Comptroller Musa Baba Abdullahi has said that trade facilitation, revenue collection, national security and capacity building are top on his priority as the command’s helmsman.
Musa who disclosed this at a maiden breakfast media briefing at the command’s headquarters in Lagos Wednesday said that the command was committed to contributing to the economic growth and competiveness through trade facilitation and Ease of Doing Business initiative of the Federal Government by making Customs processes and procedures more efficient to enable lower transaction cost for business as well as achieve competiveness in economic productivity, growth and improving the standard of living in the country.
He stated that aware of the 48 hour Cargo Clearance time, the command had deployed the ‘Time Release Studies as performance indicator to guide its performance adding that other issues to contribute to this would include transport efficiency and efficient infrastructure which according to him was beyond custom.
“We are deploying software to handle the remaining part of the export procedures. It will enable records of non-oil export, agriculture and others”, he said.
The Tincan command boss recalled that the Dispute Resolution Committee of the command prior to this time was meeting twice a week to deliberate on conflicts arising from valuation, classification, Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR) among others.
“However on assumption and as a pointer to our renewed enthusiasm for trade facilitation, I have directed that all issues arising from disputes must be attended to with dispatch. In view of this, the DRC have been directed to sit on daily basis for quick resolution of issues. We have re-engineered our help desk and made it more responsive and domiciled at the PRO’s office”, he added.
Comptroller Musa reiterated the command’s resolve to block all revenue leakages so as enable it to collect appropriate duties and to meet her revenue target of N354 billion even as he revealed that the command had so far collected N62 billion.
He also informed that stakeholders and officers alike were undergoing training for ease of implementation and migration from NICIS I to NICIS II which he said had more efficient and functional capabilities to enable quick cargo clearances thereby reducing transaction cost.
He continued, “To serve you better, we shall continue to build capacity in all core customs areas of classification, valuation, risk management, data management etc. We shall collaborate with other stakeholders in some other areas. As we go about achieving these, our doors are open for your contribution and collaboration”.
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