Tin Can Island Customs Make N1bn Daily

• Tin Can Island Customs Make N1bn Daily

The Nigeria Customs Service, Tin Can Island Command has said that it has been generating a daily revenue of N1bn since the beginning of March this year.

The Public Relations Officer of the command, Mr. Uche Ejesieme, disclosed this to our correspondent on Tuesday.

“The command has been trying to meet its monthly target of N25.4bn and yearly target of N303bn. So far, since the beginning of March, we have been generating N1bn daily,” he said.

He attributed the feat to the efforts of the Area Controller, Yusuf Bashar, who he described as a certified trade facilitator that had brought a lot of changes and innovation to the entire system.

He also urged everybody to be on their toes, insisting on zero tolerance for corruption and stressed that any officer found wanting would have themselves to blame.

Bashar was also reported to have been holding meetings with officers and stakeholders and everybody in the value chain to ensure effective operations and success of the command and specifically make the Tin Can Island Port a user friendly seaport.

“He also wants to ensure that this place remains a benchmark command to sustain the four awards of excellence that were given to the command under three months in 2016,” Ejesieme said.

The PRO, who said security agents all over the world worked with information, urged Nigerians to assist the Customs by volunteering regular information that could lead to interception of offensive items and things prohibited from being imported into the country.

In a related development, the Federal Operations Unit, Zone ‘A’ Ikeja, Lagos of the NCS said that it generated N1.3bn in the months of January and February 2017.

The Public Relations Officer of the command, Mr. Jerome Attah, said this in a statement made available to our correspondent on Tuesday.

He said the command had intensified its anti-smuggling operations, which led to the interception of various contrabands and other goods whose Customs duty was valued at N713m.

He said, “The unit through its interventions recovered N615.3m from duty payments and demand notices on general goods that tried to beat the system from seaports, airports and border stations in the guise of false declaration, transfer of value, and to short-change in duty payments that are meant for the Federal Government of Nigeria, making a total of N1.3bn.”

The statement quoted the Controller of the FOU, Mr. Haruna Mamudu, as saying that the unit had lived up to its statutory responsibilities of suppressing smuggling, blocking all revenue leakages and enhancing trade facilitation.

Mamudu was said to have thanked the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Retd.), for his effort in recognising hard work and diligence to duty without any compromise.

It read in part, “In the months under review, 197 different seizures were recorded, comprising foreign parboiled rice, frozen poultry products, vegetable oil, smuggled vehicles, Indian hemp, arms, fake pharmaceutical/medicaments and various general merchandise.”