‘Customs Strike Force to Block Revenue Leakages’

• ‘Customs Strike Force to Block Revenue Leakages’

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) yesterday established a Customs Strike Force Team to block revenue leakages.

The new team came into existence following the dissolution of the Customs Compliance Team.

NCS Public Relations Officer, Joseph Attah, who announced the development yesterday at the Headquaters in Abuja, said the force is to further sanitise and strengthen the services’ anti-smuggling operation to key into the demands of the executive order on the ease of doing business.

He said: “The Customs Compliance Team has been dissolved by the Nigeria Customs and in its place, a new team to be code named (the Customs Strike Force Team has been put together.

The team, in his words, “will not erect checkpoints on Nigeria’s highways. The team is not expected to be roaming about on the highways unnecessarily, except on credible intelligence information from surveillance operatives.”

Attah said there are surveillance operatives that are to operate covertly upon suspicion of smuggling, and carry out their due diligence before informing the strike force in the Zonal Offices or in the Customs Training Colleges to act, saying the team would to return to its base as soon as it was done with every operation.

He said under the arrangement, the team is to ensure that their operation does hinder the free flow of goods on the highways.

Attah named Deputy Comptroller of Customs, U.A. Abubakar, as the the National Coordinator of the strike force, stating that the team is divided into four sub-teams based in the four Customs zones in Lagos, Kaduna, Bauchi, and Port Harcourt.

The zonal offices and the nearest training colleges are places they could chose to base in.

The spokesman, who said that the team has the power to check the Customs officers and their activities, stressing that the “strike force is empowered to enter into any Command system on suspicion of imminent fraudulent activities with the view of blocking all revenue leakages in the system.