By Uzor Odigbo
Duty Paid Value (DPV) items worth N197,887,446.00 have been impounded by the Western Marine Command of the Nigeria Customs Service in its onslaught against smuggling activities within the creeks and land borders.
The Command’s Area Controller, Comptroller Boyiliya Binga who made the disclosure while briefing journalists on the achievement of the command , said the seized items were of various categories.
Giving breakdown of the items, Binga listed them as 219 kegs of vegetable oil worth N2,628,000.00; 500, bales of clothing with Duty Paid Value of N42,000,000.00; 42, sacks of shoes with DPV of N6,413,400.00, sacks of clothes.
He disclosed that the newly intercepted items are being warehoused at the Federal Government housing for office accommodation and conference, due to lack of space in the warehouse of the Command.
Adding that 806 wraps of cannabis with Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N21,157,500.was also seized under the period in review, the Controller said the goods were intercepted by August 2018 till date.
Aside this, Binga disclosed that over 5,646 bags of 50kg foreign parboiled rice worth N124, 776,600.00, already allocated to IDP camps by the Federal Government, are yet to be evacuated from the command’s warehouse.
Lamenting that the stock is causing serious accomodation, as there is no space left for newly seized goods, the WMC boss explained that the expired bags of rice were allocated between 2016 and 2017 to undisclosed Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), rotting away at the warehouse.
He therefore urged the State IDPs allocated with the various items by the Headquarters to ensure they are urgently evacuated to enable the Western Marine Command move in seized contraband goods.
According to him, the abandoned items include: vegetable oil, bags of shoes, used tyres, among other.
Binga, who noted that the Command is faced with inherent enormous challenges, attributed it to dearths of operational equipments such as vessels and patrol vehicles, adding that they had seriously impacted negatively on the efficiency of the command’s anti smuggling activities.
Since assumption of office in August 2018, the Controller said he has put in place three structures at the command, to accommodate officers without office apartment, as well as the repair of three sea going vessels, through the fatherly assistance of the Comptroller General of the Service, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali and his Management Team.
The Controller therefore gave an assurance of greater achievements, by introducing well established operational architecture in other to make smuggling unattractive to the economic saboteurs.
In order to boost the moral of the operatives Binga assured that he would ensure they are motivated through promotions, welfare packages, supply of enough tyres and patrol vehicles.
