The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has witnessed a huge drop in its first quarter revenue as it collected a mere N77.9 billion as against N400 billion it was expected to collect in the first three months of the year.
The amount collected represents 19.5 per cent of its projected revenue for the first quarter of the year. The amount is also less than half of the N191.3 billion collected by the Service in the first quarter of 2013.
A document of the revenue profile released by the NCS in Abuja yesterday indicated that N27.4 billion was collected in January, N23.8 billion in February and N26.7 billion in March.
It stated that out of the revenue collected during the period, N41.7 billion was remitted to the Federation Account and N36.2 billion remitted to the non-federation account.
The revenue, the document stated, was collected from duties, fees and levies.
It added that N7.2 billion was collected on port levy, N1.4 billion from levy on sugar, N7.2 billion from wheat grain levy and N1 million from flour levy.
It also stated that N41.7 billion of the revenue figure was realised from 5 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT) while N131.8 million was from National Export Supervision Scheme (NESS).
Other special levies which provided revenue during the period, according to the document, are Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme and ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme, which accounted for N10.5 billion and N6.3 billion, respectively.
A further breakdown of the revenue figure showed that N2.6 billion was generated from 100 per cent rice levy, N79.2 million from brown rice levy and N112.5 million from steel levy.
According to the document, textile levy accounted for N24.1 million, N4.8 million from wine, cement levy, N274.9 million and N135 million from cigarette levy.
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