Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Customs and Excise has mandated the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to ensure the agency meets its revenue target of N3.019 for the 2022 fiscal year.

The Committee chaired by Hon. Leke Abejide, made this known when the Comptroller General of Customs, Maj-Gen Hameed Ali, appeared before the lawmakers to defend the agency’s 2022 budget.

Abejide in his remarks, said recent circular from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation which raised the threshold service-wide for Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) on contract awards, it would be unforgivable for any agency not to perform better by the end of this year.

He, however, commended the NCS for exceeding the N1.678 trillion raised by the lawmakers as the 2021 revenue target for the agency, as against the sum of N1.465 trillion, the Customs presented during the 2021 budget defence.

He said though the figure was contested by the CGC and his team, saying it may be impossible, but at the end of 2021, the NCS collected the sum of N2.241 trillion.

He also said members of the Committee in the Senate and House of Representatives have concluded that reasonable amount to put back into use the 13 scanners be appropriated out of the N27 billion surplus from the 2021 collections.

The lawmaker tasked the agency to improve its corporate responsibility, adding that the information they needed and assistance to tackle smugglers would be provided by the people easily when they do so.

Another area we want your budget to capture is the corporate responsibility so that communities where Nigeria Customs and even people that work with Customs can have a belonging or take ownership of the agency.

The Nigeria Army does much more of corporate social responsibility for the general public and their hosts, and other revenue generating agencies as well, and that is the reason for less reported acrimony and attacks against them.

We want to change the budget cycle of the NCS to fall in line with national budget. On this note the NCS budget should be ready from mid- November, so that we shall work it and pass every December or before embarking on Christmas and New year break.

In his presentation, Ali explained that the revenue target for NCS in 2022 financial year was set at N3.019 trillion, consisting of N2.019 trillion for Federation; N253.23 billion for Non-Federation and N746.96 billion for Import VAT.

According to him, when compared with the 2021 revenue target, the 2022 revenue target was higher by N965.42 billion or 31.98 per cent.

On strategies to improve revenue generation in 2022, Ali said considering the federal government’s drive towards improved internally generated revenue, the Service was collaborating with relevant government authorities to ensure effective implementation of the Finance Act.

While disclosing that three functional mobile scanners had already been installed at different Customs locations, he said subsequent to the purchase and deployment of operational vehicles, two sea-going vessels and eighteen patrol boats across Customs’ formations, would enhance the suppression of smuggling activities across difficult terrains.

Justin Nwosu

Justin Nwosu is the founder and publisher of Flavision. His core interest is in writing unbiased news about Nigeria in particular and Africa in general. He’s a strong adherent of investigative journalism, with a bent on exposing corruption, abuse of power and societal ills.