BY GODFREY BIVBERE

TIN-CANIsland Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has impounded contraband goods with Duty Paid Value (DPV) of about N43.8 million between January and now.

Disclosing this in Lagos, the Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the Command, Mohammed Isah Nuhu, said that that the Command seized one container in January, two in February and seven containers in March.

Nuhu said that some of the items in the seized containers includes; furniture, new fridges and new electronics with under paid duties, new ladies bags, shoes, and vehicles falsely declared.

Apart from seizure, the command has about 10 40 feet and two 20 feet containers including 14 vehicles of imports that were in its detention pending further investigation.

He said that the seizures were possible because the Command worked hard to block all sources of revenue leakages to ensure that they meet up with the revenue target set for them by the Customs’ management.

“People believe that customs restrict itself to collection of revenue alone but the work of customs goes beyond that to include protection of the border as regard security consideration, part of which is what we have achieved with this seizure.

“Because, if these camouflage uniforms are brought in by wrong hands, you can image the security threat and havoc it can cause on the nation. In most cases when we hear certain atrocities being committed by uniformed government agencies, we will not know that these uniforms were obtained illegally”, he explained.

The Customs boss pointed out that with the new revenue target for the Service, the Command is now expected to collect about N22 billion monthly. He noted that he and the officers of the Command are working hard at meeting the target set for them.

To this end he continued, the Command collect over N14.5 billion in January, N19.2 billion in February and has already gotten over N15 billion before the end of March. He said that they would work hard to meet the N22 billion mark by the end of this month.

The Customs boss pointed out that they have worked out strategies to block all revenue leakages to ensure that no revenue accruable to government is lost.