The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Onne Area ll Command has reported that it generated N242 billion revenue in year 2022, up from the N188.7 billion it raked into Federation Accounts in the preceding year.
The Customs Area Controller, Auwal Mohammed, who gave these figures in a statement issued at the weekend, linked the improved performance of the Command to regular stakeholders engagement, increased compliance level of the port users and non-compromise on the part of his officers.
He said: “The command engaged its stakeholders regularly on the need to abide by extant laws guiding import and export.
“Periodic meetings with importers, exporters, terminal operators, licensed customs agents and freight forwarders afforded the command the opportunity of regularly enlightening them on the import and export prohibitions”, the Customs officer added.
According to him, unprocessed wood and charcoal which fall under export prohibition has been regularly brought to the knowledge of all concerned with emphasis that ignorance of the law would not serve as excuse for violation.
While lauding all stakeholders for their commendable compliance level, Mohammed urged them to sustain and improve on the compliance level in the interest of all.
He also hinted that the Command made some seizures in the year through rigorous physical examination of cargoes, adding that antics by smugglers to conceal prohibited items by hiding them at the end of containers with the hope that customs officers won’t get to the end during examination failed.
Mohammed explained that the seizures made comprise of machetes brought into the country without an end-user certificate, military wears, vegetable oil, whisky, soap, and used clothings.
Other seizures included used tyres, foreign parboiled rice, tomato paste, used vehicle parts, and other items either classified as prohibited or for which duty payments were being evaded,” he said.
He also reported that the Command recorded a surge in export worth N2.71 billion collected under the Nigeria Export Supervision Scheme (NESS), adding that the revenue was over 300 percent higher when compared with N881.01 million recorded in 2021.
According to him, the export items were majorly agricultural produce such as sesame seeds, ginger, hibiscus flower (zobo) and palm produce.
He further clarified: “The command’s export profile is being supported by the Domestic Export Warehouse terminal initiative put in place by the Federal Government to ease the processing of export cargoes on transit to shipment stage.
“For trade facilitation and ease of cargo examination, the command received a mobile scanner that is being fully installed and will be connected to the Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS II) for synchronizing”, Mohammed added.
