Hyacinth Chinweuba
The Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Tincan Island Port Command, said its revenue generation has hit N183billion in eight months.
The Command recorded the highest revenue yield in the month of August with N28billion.
In a press statement, the Public Relations Officer of the Command, Mr Uche Ejesieme said the impressive revenue yield was made possible as a result of coordinated activities and innovative spirit of the Comptroller, Mr Bashar Yusuf, officers and men of the Command.
According to the statement, the Command has had a sustained high revenue profile since the beginning of the year, a feat that was attributed to the Controller.
Yusuf was said to have introduced stern measures that blocked all possible areas of revenue loss in the command.
The N28bn realized in August was described as the highest in the history of the Command, particularly in the corresponding periods over the past years.
With the N183 billion revenue realized between January and August 2017, the sum of N156 billion was realized during the same period in 2016, despite global economic recession
.
The Comptroller was quoted saying, “It therefore implies that but for the exclusion of forty-one (41) items from Forex window, the Command could have doubled it’s revenue profile”.
According to the statement, “A further analysis shows that the Command is becoming more thorough in its Revenue drive, to the extent that all high yielding revenue consignments are closely monitored to avoid circumvention of procedure”.
The Controller said the Customs high Command expects so much from the Command, adding that with this, the Command “will continue to develop adequate operational template and modalities that will be capable of entrenching integrity in the acumen of our operations”.
He said that all officers and men of the Command have a compelling need to discharge their functions in line with the change mantra of the Comptroller-General of Customs Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd).
The Controller extolled the virtues of the Customs management and vowed to sustain and surpass the revenue target of the Command in line with the expectations of the Nigeria Customs Service management.
The Controller appreciated the compliance level of stakeholders in the port to fiscal policies of the federal government in terms of trade.
He however advised few recalcitrant ones to follow the path of sanity through honest declaration in their documentations, adding that “integrity, due diligence, honest declarations and transparency are key elements in 21st Century Customs Operations”.
The controller who spoke about the importance of leadership skills as critical to success advised officers incharge of Terminals and other Senior officers to exhibit a high moral and ethical standard that would showcase quality leadership for the actualization of set goals and objectives.
On his plans for the ember months, the Controller pointed out that high cargo traffic is usually expected at this period of the year and advised importers to desist from importing uncustomed goods in view of it’s implication.
He said, “All Importers ought to be conversant with the external tariff, especially schedules 3 & 4 (prohibition other than trade and absolute prohibition)”.
He also called on patriotic Nigerians, to oblige the Command with credible information about illicit transactions or documentation, promising that the identity of such informant would be jealously guarded.