21st December, 2019
The Nigerian Customs Service, Apapa Area Command has generated over N414 billion into the coffer of the Federal Government purse this year.
The revenue is far above its target for the year. This was made known by the controller in charge of the command, Mohammed Abba-Kura.
The controller said that the command’s success story was as a result of the its unusual approach to the process of ease of doing business directive by the Federal government .
Abba-Kura said the ongoing partial closure of borders in some parts of the country contributed to the command’s success in revenue collection.
According to him, import and export activities had increased in Apapa as more shippers now use the port in bringing in and taking out of cargoes.
He disclosed that the command generated N414 billion from January to December 18th 2019 as against N404 billion generated between January to December 2018, which translates into about 111 per cent of the 2019 annual revenue target.
However, he said the command had the highest revenue figure of N42, 726 billion in the month of October, which is the peak of the border closure.
This precedent, according to him, gives credence to positive impacts of the policy, which has reduced incidences of smuggling through the land border and increased legitimate imports through the seaports tremendously.
On anti-smuggling, he said within the period under review, the Command seized a total of 112 containers of various items that flouted import procedures.
He added that most notable among these items are pharmaceutical products, which include tramadol that were imported without necessary approval from regulatory agencies like National Agency for Food Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC).
“Other items include Tomato paste, vegetable oil, ladies and girls fashion wears, expired rice, armored glasses without End User Certificate (EUC) and drilling pipes labelled in foreign language etc. It is pertinent to emphasised here that virtually all these seized items are in gross violation of our extant laws and import guidelines. The Duty Paid Value (DPV) for these seizures stood at N12.8 billion,” Abba-Kura said.
In the area of export, he said the Command recorded high level of compliance on export declaration.
Within the period under review, Uba said the Command also recorded a total of volume 262, 095.09 metric tons of exported goods with Free on Board (FOB) value of $132.760 million.