The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Hameed Ali, has appealed to companies in the country to help the Service meet its revenue target and thus improve the nation’s economy.
Ali made the appeal during a visit to the British American Tobacco (BAT) Company in Ibadan on Thursday.
While addressing the management of BAT, Ali, who was accompanied by the Oyo/Osun Area Controller, Comptroller, Temitope Ogunkua, said the purpose of his visit to the company and was to remind industries of their responsibilities to remit their duties to the agency.
He called on companies across the nation to pay their excise duties as and when due in order to generate more revenue to government coffers.
He said, “I have come here as a stakeholder to ginger you up to your responsibility in revenue generation. What we are doing is to visit our industries and trade partners to ensure smooth operations and drive more revenue to improve the economy,”
Ali, who pledged the readiness of the Service to partner industries and companies across the country in an effort to source more revenue for the government, said NCS would provide the needed support for companies and other stakeholders across the country to thrive.
Explaining the need to create alternative sources of revenue, necessitated by the drop in the prices of crude oil globally and the country’s many years of overdependence on oil, Ali said the situation had put a lot of pressure on the NCS and the Federal Inland Revenue Service to be active drivers of the economy.
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