•To recruit 3,200 cadets
The House of Representatives, on Tuesday, approved N1.679 trillion revenue for Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for the year 2021.
Chairman, House Committee on Customs and Excise, Hon Leke Abejide, disclosed this, after the 2020 budget defence/2021 budget proposal of N1.4 trillion which the lawmakers rejected.
According to the document submitted to the Committee, the sum of N99.72 billion on personnel cost for the 15,439 personnel and 3,200 cadets to be recruited this year, as well as N5 billion for staff loans and advances, N4.17 billion for miscellaneous expenses such as medical, welfare incentives, recruitment and appointments, under the overhead cost.
While responding to the issue of the increase of the 2021 budget from N1.4 trillion to N1.6 trillion, the NCS Comptroller-General, Hamid Alli explained that the N1.4 trillion target set by the Federal Government was based on some parameters and not based on actual computation.
He also tasked the lawmakers to put into consideration the effect of the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement which took effect from January 1st, 2021 that geared towards zero duty for all imports coming from member countries within Africa and import coming from African countries is of a significant percentage of the duty collection.
“Second, if you recall when Mrs Ngozi Okonjo Iweala came here, she mentioned the WTO agreement which has also come into effect and we are a signatory to that treaty. What it is also gearing towards is zero duty on import from member countries. We must take this into consideration.”
While responding to question on the spate of smuggling activities, the NCS chief underscored the need to encourage the importation of vehicles through the ports, rather than land borders.
“Even if you open the land borders, not up to one per cent of the vehicles that will come through the land border will come through the approved routes. The reason why they take these cars to Cotonou is to evade paying duties. If you say they should bring the cars through the land borders, they will not do that.
“They will still follow those unapproved routes. We are working with the Customs administration in the Benin Republic to see how we can ensure adherence to ETRS protocols.
“Once we agree with them and they are ready to enforce it, there is no goods meant for Nigeria that will land at their ports that will find its way out of there. They will escort and hand it over to our own Customs. That is what is supposed to be done because that is what the law says. It is the failure of this that is causing the smuggling.”
He disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Finance has bought three mobile scanners based on the emergency purchase that will be delivered by May 2021, while the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is also expected to provide additional four scanners that would be deployed to four land borders that have been opened for business.
He assured that under the e-Customs no fewer than 135 scanners will be deployed to all our ports/border posts including air, land and sea borders over the next two years.
Col. Alli also expressed optimism that the “influx of arms that comes through approved routes will be completely eliminated because we will have instruments to detect these things in the containers or whatever packages they are concealed in.”
He also unveiled Customs’ policy towards reducing importation of rickety vehicles into the country which have been rejected in their country of origin as part of efforts to ensure that Nigeria does not become a dumping ground and protect homegrown industries.
On the issue of the collapse of security, he argued that: “in Katsina, smugglers went and connive with bandits and drove our men from the Customs post. The Governors said so that, the same bandits are not hunting the people. Have we spoken to our people?”
In the bid to checkmate the influx of arms and ammunition, Col. Alli pledged Customs resolve to do all within our powers to “ensure that we block all the arms coming into this country.
“Before now, we don’t publicise prosecution of smugglers and we were being accused. Now we have decided to always go on air to say how many of them are being prosecuted and we will continue to showcase that.”
In his remarks, Hon Abejide who opposed the N1.4 trillion budget proposal said: “When we looked at what you collected in 2020 which was N1.562 trillion when you add the VAT, it will look somehow illogical for us.
“Before COVID-19 came, the sum of N1.6 trillion was given to the service as a target. Despite the COVID-19, you were able to generate N1.2 trillion and collected about N350 billion VAT.”
He expressed optimism that Customs will generate more revenue with the opening of more borders, approval to make carbonated drinks excisable, and reduction of levy on new vehicles from 35 per cent to 5 per cent.
(Source: Tribune)
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