The Lagos Industrial Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has generated N747.5 million revenue in October against the N559 million it recorded in September.
The Area Controller, Mrs Winifred Okon, said in Lagos that the N188.5 million rise was as a result of three additional companies brought into its excise list.
“The command recorded N747.5 million revenue in October showing an increase of N188.5 million over the month of September when we generated N559 million,’’ she said.
Okon said that besides the 14 excise payers that were registered under the command, it also discovered new companies to be included on the excise-paying list.
“We were able to discover three companies in September, and another nine were discovered at the ongoing Trade Fair in Lagos on Nov. 1.’’
The controller, however, said that several products had been removed from the Excise List of the Customs by the Federal Government as part of strategies to encourage local manufacturing.
According to Okon, excise duty collected by the command covers only beer, stout, spirits and tobacco. “In Lagos, there is no tobacco company even when we were to get revenue from it, so we only have beer, stout and spirits produced by small-scale businesses,” she said.
The command, according to her, was still applying the trade facilitation strategy of the customs service to improve revenue generation.
“At forums we hold regularly with the indigenous entrepreneurs, we encourage them to register with appropriate government agencies to enable them operate freely and compete with others in the market,” Okon said.
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