Already pressurised customs are up for more stress following Federal Government’s high revenue target of N4.1trn for Customs
By Uzor Odigbo
The President of the Association of Nigeria Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Hon. Tony Nwabunike, has said that the N4.1tr 2022 target set for the Nigeria Customs Service by the Federal Government of Nigeria will place the Service under pressure.
Speaking at a press conference at the ANLCA secretariat on Friday, January 21, the President said that this high target will lead to the pressure of high revenue collection and undermine the trade facilitation role that the Service ought to render. This will, in turn, undermine the productivity of the overall economy, ANLCA says.
“Pursuing bugger revenue while failing to strengthen trade results in greater losses to the country, as investments are either threatened, reduced or made non-existent,” he said.
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“Totality of Customs efforts deployed into revenue pursuit reduces the service’s productivity in many ways.”
Nwabunike also spoke against the $3.1b Customs modernization project, pointing out that Nigeria is already in serious debts and the NCS, being a strategic non-oil revenue earner for the government, should not be tied to another long-term repayment.
“We want to also advise the Federal Government to be careful before signing into the $3.1b Customs modernization project which, we heard, will run for 20 years,” he said. “We urge President Muhammadu Buhari and the Finance Minister to avoid assenting to the deal, and we call on the National Assembly to take a closer look at the details and ensure that the Federal Ministry of Finance, Nigeria Customs Service and all parties involved observe due diligence that won’t entrap the country into another long debt repayment for 20 years and maybe for lesser value”
But the Customs Area Controller of the Apapa Customs Command, Yusuf Malanta Ibrahim, said they are already bracing up for the new target.
Said he: “The revenue target of the NCS has been increased to N4.1 trillion. For us in Apapa Area Command, we have already boarded and fastened our seats towards the realization of this revenue target. We hope that the service will surely leverage the deployment of digital transformation of Customs business processes which will further take care of many control mechanisms through its risk management system.
“In spite of the enormous challenges faced in the trade supply chain; occasioned by Covid-19 pandemic still ravaging economies around the world, high cost of freight, incessant traffic gridlock, rail construction through the port, as well as ensuring an increase in compliance level from stakeholders, the Command between the months of January to December 2021 was able to collect a revenue of N870 billion and remitted to the federation and non-federation accounts of the Federal Government, respectively.
“This clearly shows that the revenue profile of the command has significantly increased by about 68% when compared with the collection of N518.4 billion in the year 2020.”
