How FG can help customs improve fight against smugglers, generate more impressive revenue
…as officials decry sorry state of operational vehicles, weapon
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is fast becoming the country’s major cash cow especially with its recent impressive annual turnovers.
In 2019 alone, the NCS is targeted to generate a total revenue of N937.28bn for the government in the fiscal period.
The figure is contained in the NCS 2019-2021 revenue projections which were submitted to the National Assembly.
The N937.28bn target for the 2019 fiscal period is an increase of N21.39bn over the N915.88bn approved for the service in the 2018 budget.
The service, however, surpassed the N915bn 2018 revenue target by N37.15bn as it generated the sum of N1.2trn.
The 2019 budget has an estimate of N8.83tn made up of N4.04tn for recurrent expenditure, N2.03tn for capital expenditure and N2.14tn for debt servicing, among others.
To finance the budget, the Federal Government is planning to generate a total revenue of N7.92tn within the year from various revenue sources.
Details of the revenue projections of the NCS showed that import duty is expected to contribute N603.86bn while excise duty and fees/penalties are expected to bring in N60.28bn and N6.7bn respectively.
The document stated that the sum of N52.51bn is expected to be earned from Common External Tariff Levy, while N65.44bn, N11.27m and N1.41bn are expected to come from wheat grain levy, rice levy and cigarette levy respectively.
In the same vein, the service proposed to generate N6.68bn from 35 per cent automotive levy; N691.17m from cement levy; N647.7m from steel levy and N8.05bn from sugar levy among others.
The service in the document explained that it would adopt new measures to improve revenue performance for the 2019 fiscal period.
However, beyond the cash drive, the federal government and management of the service need to pay adequate attention to the welfare of officers who risk their lives to fight smuggling to help improve revenue generation to the coffers of the national treasury.
Investigations by Newsclickng.com revealed that despite its recent impressive turn over, the NCS and its officials are usually at the mercy of the dreaded smugglers who have shown unrelenting determination to up their game in the smuggling business.
Almost on a daily basis, officials of the NCS engage in physical battle with the smugglers and end up getting live threatening injuries or even losing their lives out-rightly.
Obviously, the smugglers are more prepared for business than the service itself. An official of the NCS who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to Newsclickng.com that despite the impressive turnover by the service into the nation’s treasury, its officials are daily subjected to combat these heavily armed smugglers with poor operational vehicles and outdated armoury. Hence, the waste of lives of these patriotic officials.
“We generate so much for this country in terms of revenue but our lives are daily in danger as we combat smugglers who are bent on passing the back door in bringing their goods into the country. Our operational vehicles are all in sorry state. These dreaded smugglers have destroyed nearly all the vehicles and other combative facilities during our face-offs with them. Some of our officials have sustained various life threatening injuries and might never be themselves again and yet the revenue target from the federal government is increasing yearly. We need to be properly kitted, be in the right frame of mind to achieve some of these targets”, he said.
Customs loses 200 personnel yearly to anti-smuggling fight – Comptroller General
Corroborating the foregoing, Customs Comptroller-General, Retired Col Hameed Ali said the serviceloses no fewer than 200 personnel yearly to the fight against smuggling.
Ali disclosed this recently at a meeting organised by Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) with the service chiefs and heads of paramilitary organisations.
Ali said smuggling was the greatest challenge facing the service and all hands must be on deck to defeat it.
He said NCS was disturbed by the high level of smuggling in the country and it was working tirelessly to reduce it to the bearest minimum.
Alli urged the Federal Government to work to improve its fiscal and monetary policies to help check the level of smuggling, especially the textile materials.
“The government needs to get its fiscal and monetary policies right; the cost of business is high, there is need for the government to provide roads, security and power for our local industries to thrive.
“When these are made available and easier, their products will be cheap and able to compete with the foreign ones because this is one of the reasons why smuggling thrives.
“Frankly, to address smuggling, the local industries must set the right prices and quality to have desired patronage.
“The market is there, our local textile industries must be ready to compete and this is Nigerian project. We shall work with CBN and other relevant stakeholders in achieving it.
“Our core mandate is to suppress smuggling and we are committed to achieving that. Therefore all stakeholders must support us to reduce it,” he said.
Newsclickng.com gathered aside the increasing technological tactics of the smugglers, the host communities also sometimes pose a great hindrance to the smooth operation of the service. The hostilities measured out to officials of the service in the communities can go along way to discourage patriotism thus opening ways for smugglers to perpetrate their evil deeds unchecked.
