The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has disclosed that it is currently developing special intelligence with the support of the World Customs Organisation (WCO) to increase the deployment of more hi-tech into its operations nationwide.
The acting Comptroller General of Customs (CGC), Mr. Adewale Adeniyi, who made this disclosure at a media briefing at the Federal Operations Unit, Zone A, in Lagos, said that the Service had secured the assurances of the WCO and other partners in its drive to fully automate its monitoring, examination and revenue collection operations for national benefits.
Speaking on the$3.2 billion modernization project to end manual administration inaugurated early this year by the immediate past Comptroller-General of the NCS, retired Col. Hameed Ali, the acting Comptroller-General explained that the e-modernization project’s implementation was having some challenges.
On capacity building for the Service’s personnel on the digitalization of its operations, he said: “We are getting very firm assurance from the World Customs Organisation and other partners to assist us with technology adoption.
“We are building the capacity of our officers locally, through training institutions and exposing them to this kind of training program and taking them to conferences. This is so that they can learn expertise on how they can integrate these elements of technology into our operations”, he added.
On his current familiarization tours of the various Commands of the Service, particularly those involved in border control, the acting Comptroller-General said his experiences during the tours had been rewarding as they availed him the opportunity to interact closely with the officers and understand the way they operate and that his interactions with the border communities gave him insight into their challenges that requires the need to fine-tune the Service’s policies and strategies to keep the nation’s borders safe.
He said: “Smuggling is bad for our economy and the future generations of Nigeria. Customs can work successfully to contain this menace. We have sought partnership with the communities, and they gave very strong assurance that they will cooperate with us.
“I was at Shaki yesterday and they were very generous by telling us that they will support us and provide land for us to put up our facilities for anti-smuggling. And it has been the same everywhere that we have been in the last two weeks.”
“We are going to be working very closely with them and take a notch further by taking out social responsibility plans and see what we can do to improve their lot in these border communities”, Adeniyi assured.
