The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said it had recovered N2.5 billion from unpaid assessments and un-utilised Risk Assessment Reports (RAR).
The service said that the money was recovered by its Revenue Recovery Team, which was constituted about three weeks ago.
This is contained in a statement issued by the Public Relations Officer of the service, Wale Adeniyi, on Monday in Abuja.
Customs said the amount was recovered from importers and other shipping concerns, which were given “temporary importation concessions”.
It said that additional sum of N1.6 billion was still outstanding on the concession and had been established against three beneficiaries who contravened the regulations.
According to the statement, the defaulting beneficiaries applied for and enjoyed temporary importation concession while they had active Form M and RAR against their names.
“The recovery team has over 2,000 companies under its radar; transaction of RARs and unpaid assessment of these companies are undergoing a comprehensive audit to confirm evidence of RAR utilization and duty payments,” the statement said.
It disclosed that Customs would henceforth publish the list of beneficiaries of duty payment concessions who default in honouring their obligations.
It explained further that the decision to publish the list of defaulters of the duty payment concessions was taken by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Dikko Abdullahi.
The statement said that the measure was part of efforts to address it’s dwindling revenue collection. “Defaulters included importers who were given various forms of deferred payment concessions to avoid accumulation of demurrage.
“Others in this category had un-utilised RARs still hanging in the system long after the departure of the service providers who issued them during their dispensation.
“We have given them only one week to pay all outstanding customs duties, failure of which their names will be published in the national dailies.
“The Comptroller-General has also directed that the bank bonds secured to cover the defaulting transactions should be converted to duty payment.”
