BY UDEME CLEMENT
Top officials of the Nigeria Custom Service (NCS), led by the Comptroller General, Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi, are now in Brussels for the 19th Council Session of the World Customs Organisation (WCO). WCO meets once in a year to brainstorm on topical issues relating to customs operations in various countries. Udeme Clement examines Belgian conference and the benefits for the Nigerian economy.

Abdullahi Inde Dikko

New revenue generation strategy
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is the second highest revenue source after crude oil. Saddled with the responsibility of collecting customs and excise duties as well as other charges on international trade, NCS has continually mapped out new strategies to increase revenue generation for government to run the entire economy.

In that capacity, the international conference in Brussels is expected to bring positive changes and benefits to Nigeria ’s economy in terms of new methods of revenue generation for the government. For instance, through revenue drive, NCS raked in over N164billion in the first quarter of 2010 notwithstanding the challenges officers face in their daily operations.

The analysis of the entire figures showed that over N38.75bn was realised in January, N42.30bn in February, N46.56bn in March and N38.65bn in April.

Anti-smuggling campaign
The Comptroller General says his men are battle-ready for culprits as the war against smuggling in the country gathers momentum. He says the international gathering would give participants an ample opportunity to deliberate exhaustively on what steps to be taken in different circumstances to tackle smuggling.

“At present, men of NCS are strategically positioned to intercept goods at various illegal and unapproved routes being used by smugglers”, he said.  For instance, the Federal Operations Unit Zone “A” Ikeja, Command alone recorded a total of over 843 seizures of all kinds of prohibited goods with the total value of N453million, total duty of N88million and the total Duty Paid Value (DPV) of over N545million, between January and June 2010.

The initiative according to the Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the Unit, Kane Emmanuel Dede, was to enable them curb the menace of smuggling activities in the country. “Our aim is to reduce smuggling to the barest minimum to save the country from losses of revenue through the nefarious activities. Aside from seizures, we realised N127million from underpayments and fees, while a total of 57 suspects were arrested, most of whom had been released on bail. Three of those cases had been successfully prosecuted and won in court by the command”, he stressed.

Exclusion in oil and gas export processes
Nigeria though is world’s eighth biggest crude oil exporter, it is yet to include the services of Customs in its oil and gas export processes. This implies that the government has been losing so much in terms of income that would have been collected by Customs through oil and gas export processes.

In a recent report prepared by a team set up by management of NCS, the attention of the Customs high command was drawn to what was described as “on-goings in the crude oil and liquefied gas sector of the economy”.

The report further highlighted how NCS has been reduced to a ‘bystander’ in the oil and gas sector of the Nigerian economy, where it has a statutory role to play in the monitoring of crude oil and gas exports going out of the country.

This shows that, there is the need for Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the service providers and Customs to work together at ensuring economic growth and development in a larger scale, because Customs has a vital role to play in national development.

Recent interception of  toxic waste
The interception of a vessel carrying toxic waste into the country recently was made possible following an alarm raised by the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), that Maersk Line vessel, ‘MV Nashiville,’ came into the country with containers of toxic waste. It followed that the crew on board in the vessel and its agents were also arrested.

The vessel was operated by American President Lines, APL, a wholly owned subsidiary of a Singapore based Neptune Orient Lines, and had among other things, 70 storage (lead) batteries classified as Basel codeA1180 and broken televisions.

The ship’s agent, was detained at the intelligence unit of the Tin-Can Island Command.  Precisely, the vessel arrived the country on 9 April, 2010 and discharged some of its contents at the Federal Ocean Terminal at Onne in Rivers State, after which the it left Onne and arrived Lagos on 11 April , 2010, and at that point, the management of NPA allowed it to berth and it was intercepted by officials of Customs who immediately swung into action to ensure that the vessel was not allowed to discharge the waste.