By Uzor Odigbo

The Nigeria Customs Service has said that the introduction of the Nigeria Customs Integrated System (NICIS 2) would lead to unprecedented revenue generation in 2018.

The service said that the amount would surprise the nation.
The Controller of Tin Can 2 (Lillypond) command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Comptroller Lami Wushishi said this in a chat with the executives of the Association of Maritime Journalists of Nigeria (AMJON) in her office during a courtesy vist recently.
Wushishi said the new platform would block all forms of  revenue leakages as well a curbing infractions by importers and their agents.
According to her, NICIS 2 has helped in revenue generation so much that Nigerians would be surprised at the end of the year what the service would come up with as total revenue generated for the year.
She however lamented the dearth of general cargo in the command saying the command under her watch has  commenced dialogue  with relevant stakeholders to make sure that containers are stemmed to the terminal.
“Where we have issues is the general cargoes. We have been meeting with terminal operators and they promised to do something but up till now, nothing has been done.
Speaking on  the annual target, the controller said the command has already surpassed the target for the year but stated that a paltry N13 million was made from general cargoes.
“We have already met our target. We have N18 billion already and our annual target is N17 billion. We have one billion above our target already but I want the terminal operators to do something about it,” she solicited.
Continuing, she said 91 percent of the command’s revenue comes from the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) which she maintained was not good enough as the command can achieve more from general cargoes.
She however promised to inform the Assistant Comptroller General (ACG) in charge of Zone A to help facilitate movement of containers to the command