The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) says it impounded 177 units of vehicles smuggled in through the Lagos border.
Others items said to have been impounded include unused tyres and food items.
Comptroller, Federal Operations Unit Zone ‘A’, Ikeja, Lagos, Mohammed Garba, made this known when members of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff visited the zone on oversight functions on Tuesday.
The visit was led by the Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Hope Uzodinma.
Garba said, “After the goods are seized from smugglers, they go through the process of condemnation through the court.
“The Customs and Excise Act provides that if officers of the service seized goods, they are going to be forfeited to the Federal Government.
“What we do is to urge the court to grant an order forfeiting the good to the Federal Government for the purpose of auctioning.”
He added that customs had also seized and condemned 59 vehicles including trucks.
“We also condemned 33,408 unused tyres; 18,920 bags of foreign rice and 793 bale of second-hand clothes,” he said.
The FOU boss added that 339 bags of new textile materials and 1,475 kegs of vegetable oil of 25 litres were also condemned.
He noted that the Federal Operation Unit was an anti-smuggling unit and not a revenue generating unit.
“We make sure that goods that are not allowed to come in are not allowed and goods whose appropriate duty have not been paid, we ensure that it is paid,’’ Garba said.
On his part, Uzodinma frowned at a large number of goods and services seized which were yet to be destroyed.
He lamented that over N600 billion had been lost in the last three years as a result of importing cold rail.
“Companies that use these rails have folded up. We will call on the government to abrogate some of these policies if we want to grow this economy,” Uzodinma said.
He assured the service of continuous support in line with the committee’s oversight responsibilities toward achieving improved service delivery.