Customs Area Controller of the Apapa Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Comptroller Babatunde Olomu has announced the collection N17,903,312,598 for June 14, 2024 as the best anniversary gift to the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi.
At a media briefing in Lagos, Olomu said the feat was recorded despite low volume of cargo at the port
Promising more achievements,Olomu said the feat marks the beginning of many more revenue collection exploits, trade facilitation and anti smuggling exploits to be achieved in the course of discharging customs statutory responsibilities.
He said “this unprecedented revenue collection is a way of celebrating the one year in office of the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi whose inspiring and motivating leadership has contributed immensely to this achievement.
“I want to use this medium to urge all port users to always abide by the tenets and etiquettes of lawful operations such as obeying the extant import and export guidelines, prompt and accurate…of duty and promotion of regular engagement in the national interest .
“We are leveraging on stakeholders engagement, blocking of revenue leakages and facilitation of trade, engagement of stakeholders and building upon the CGC’s cardinal point of collaboration, consolidation and innovation.These three pillars have kept us in ensuring that the level of the revenue that supposed to go to Federal Government is solely protected.
“As regards the level of automation, I will rate it to be about 80 percent.I would say the Nigerian Customs Service is one of the agencies of government that have kept modernizing and ensuring that virtually all its processes are automated.
“The level of automation as we speak is about 80 percent and the CGC is still working on increasing it.There are two products that the CGC launched recently.The authorized economic operator(AEO)and the advanced ruling.
“The advanced ruling is derived from the WTO trade facilitation agreement, precisely article 3.All member states are mandated to provide advanced ruling to desirous stakeholders so that they can get details of tariff classification, duty payable and all before the arrival of the cargo.Once you do this, it will reduce the friction, delays at ports and the likes.Secondly , the EU which is an advanced form of the fast track also ensures that cargoes move directly to premises of the importers once it arrives the port.These are products which the CGC introduced recently and they are on the their pilot as we speak and it aims at further ensuring that trade is facilitated and our strife towards full automation.
We intercepted used clothings and Crusader Soap .As we speak, we fall under the import prohibition list and we are not expected to have such.This is why it was intercepted .
“Since I came on board, we were able to facilitate trade, sustain a tempo which my predecessor left behind and that’s Controller Jaiyeoba.We were also able to build upon the CGC’s three pillars and we were able to block revenue leakages and engage our stakeholders meaningfully.All these accumulated into what we witnessed last Friday when we had close to N18,000,000,000 daily collection” he said
