Customs generated N4trn in 4 years – Hameed Ali

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said it generated about four trillion naira revenue for the country in the last four years.

The Comptroller General of Customs, Col Hameed Ali (Rtd), disclosed this at a news conference to mark 2019 International Customs Day (ICD) in Abuja on Monday.

The World Customs Organisation (WCO) dedicates every 26th of January for the celebration and drawing attention of the global community to a particular aspect of customs’ functions.

The day is also set aside for Customs administrations to highlight its activities, challenges, achievements and potential for national consciousness as well as greater support.

Ali said that the service realised N904 billion in 2015, N898.8 billion in 2016, N1.037 trillion in 2017 and N1.2 trillion in 2018.

He said that the ongoing reform by NCS and growing attitudinal change among stakeholders and officers and men was the reason for continuous rising in revenue generation.

According to him, in the last three and half years, the service has carried out reform programmes that turned the agency into a high volume revenue source and stricter enforcer of anti-smuggling laws.

“Our experiences within these years have shown that with increased level of compliance from our stakeholders and integrity on the part of all operatives, the nation can earn more revenue needed to build the Nigeria of our dream,” he said.

The Custom’s boss said that smuggling remained a challenge that the service had been striving to combat.

He said that the three layers security strategy – Residents Officers of the Command, Federal Operation Unit and Headquarters Strike Force – had continued to make smuggling unattractive.

He said that within the year under review, 2,671 pump action riffles were seized in Lagos as well as 61 containers of Tramadol and other controlled drugs in Lagos and Port Harcourt.

Ali said that the deadly items seized by NCS clearly demonstrated the service contributions to national economy and security.