The Tin Can Island Customs Command of the Nigeria Customs Service said it lost N10 billion in revenue in 2016 as a result of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy on foreign exchange.
Public Relations Officer, Uche Ejesieme said in a statement made available to newsmen in Lagos that the command generated the sum of N256.4billion during the year, which is N10 billion less than the N266.2 billion collected in 2015.
He said the CBN foreign exchange policy made importation very difficult as importers were denied official allocation of foreign exchange.
He however noted that the amount of revenue recorded was as a result of the innovative measures introduced by the Area Controller, Comptroller Yusuf Bashar.
He said the Controller adopted effective use of intelligence, synergy and very efficient revenue collection method which contributed to the feat recorded.
A breakdown of the revenue generated in the review period showed that N24.8billion was generated in January; N16.8 in February; N17.2 billion in March, N14.3 billion in April, N16.3 billion in May and N20.1billion in June.
The sum of N20.9 billion was realized in July; N26.2 billion in August; N25.6 billion in September; N25. 4 billion in October,; N25.6billion in November and N24 billion in the month of December.
“The Customs Command under Bashar has received a lot of commendations from the Comptroller General for doing a good job in anti-smuggling efforts which led to several seizures since he assumed office.
“The Command had seized 31 containers of 50 KG of parboiled rice which were declared as bread improvers, flavor yeast disodium on August 19, 2016, 27x 20 FT of container of vegetable oil in 25kg kegs at Emog Terminal on November 3, 2016.
“The Command had also intercepted 1,395 cartons of Nau Nau ready to eat food preparations imported from India, 8 bags of un- manifested substances in 1x 20 FT container.
The container and suspects were later handed over to Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) for falsification of SONCAP.”
“The Command had also established ICT Centre which is equipped with 30 work stations that are fully networked. The ICT centre is for training of officers and other interested freight forwarders,” he said.
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