The Comptroller General of Customs, retired Col. Hameed Ali, says the service generated N4.042 trillion in four years. He also said it is seeking a cut in vehicle import duty to 45 per cent for brand new vehicles.
Marking the January 26 International Customs Day in Abuja, yesterday, Col. Ali said the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) combined various strategies, including upgrade of the Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS) I to NICIS II, to attain the feat. “Revenue generation by NCS from 2015 continues to be on the increase with N904 billion in 2015, N898bn in 2016, N1.037trn in 2017 and N1.202trn in 2018,” Col. Ali said.
He said the service, this year, 2019, hopes to surpass the N1.2trn it generated in 2018. “NCS is expected as a target to put into government coffers N887bn but customs has its target way ahead of that but we don’t say it. We hope to go way more than the generation for last year,” he stated. Addressing newsmen on import duty, he said brand new vehicles take 75 per cent duty (35 per cent levy for the National Automotive Council policy and 35 per cent Customs Duty) which has driven importers to other ports and increased smuggling of vehicles to Nigeria.
“The Federal Government should reduce the levy to 10 per cent. That will be 45 per cent along with import duty, and it will reduce smuggling and the lives of our people will be safe,” he noted. He also said smuggling has become unattractive due high level measures that resulted in 21,335 seizures with N92.384bn duty paid value (DPV) in four years. In 2018, there were 5,219 seizures with N62.134bn DPV including 2,671 pump action riffles in Lagos, 61 containers of Tramadol, ammunitions and two containers of military wears.
DAILYTRUST
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