By HENRY UMORU, JOSEPH ERUNKE & Levinus Nwabughiogu
THE Comptroller General of Customs,  Abdullahi Dikko, yesterday, disclosed that   46 officers of the Nigerian Custom Service were killed by smugglers last year.
He also revealed that the agency seized rice valued at N1.35 billion from smugglers.

According to him, smuggling activities have gone up to an unprecedented level due to what he termed, high level of desperation on the part of  Nigerians to bring in the heavily taxed imported rice and making profit from the product.

Dikko disclosed these at Nicon Luxury Hotel, Abuja when he appeared before the Senator Adamu Aliero-led Committee on Public Finance and Revenue.
He said with more than 200,000 trailer loads of rice valued at N1.35 billion seized by the service last year, Nigeria was losing huge revenue.

Deputy Comptroller of Custom in-charge of Tariffs and Trade, G.T. Aliu, who represented Dikko said waiver and tax exemptions given to some companies and  importers is not good, lamenting that the policy was rather killing the economy because it is not well implemented.

He said: “There is need to make our taxes on rice more reasonable so that there would be no need to smuggle. When taxes are high, people would want to evade it, but when they are reasonable, compliance level would be high and the income would increase.”

Dikko  noted that  the porous nature of the country’s borders was a major headache for the agency as that contributes to the challenge of controlling the influx of these goods and tracking the smugglers to collect the necessary tariffs required by the government.