The Tin Can Island Command of the Nigeria Customs Service has lamented a continuous drop in its revenue profile occasioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) foreign exchange policy.
Speaking in a chat with SHIPS & PORT DAILY in his office, Public Relations Officer of the command, Chris Osunkwo said the forex restriction placed on the 41 items has impacted negatively on the command’s revenue generation.
According to him, all the 41 items that government restricted access to foreign exchange are trade goods noting that 60 percent of its revenue is derived from tiles which are also among the 41 items.
He said the command generated N24. 8billion in January, N16.8billion in February but expressed doubt if the command will generate as much as it did in previous months in March.
“The January revenue collection was made from the spill over last year. Then, there was serious speculation about the economic direction the government was going and as traders; they rush to import and stock up their warehouse with goods. That was how we generated the revenue for January,”
“But immediately after that, there has been significant drop in import because importers no longer imports as often as they did then because they can’t access forex. From my projection, I don’t know if we are going to generate more than N15billion in March,” he said.
Copyright Ships & Ports Ltd. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit given to www.shipsandports.com.ng as the source.
