By Eguono Odjegba and Oko Ebuka

TIN-CAN Island Island Port, TCIP, and Kirikiri Lighter Terminal, KLT, commands of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, generated over N185billion in import duty in the first half of 2019.

An aerial photography taken and released by the Dutch department of Defense on September 6, 2017 shows the damage of Hurricane Irma in Philipsburg, on the Dutch Caribbean island of Sint Maarten.
Hurricane Irma sowed a trail of deadly devastation through the Caribbean on Wednesday, reducing to rubble the tropical islands of Barbuda and St Martin. / AFP PHOTO

While TCIP generated N179.3 billion, KLT recorded a total of N6 billion.

The TCIP Public Relations Officer, Uche Ejesieme, attributed the achievement to the Standard Operational Procedures, SOP, for renewed operational efficiency put in place by the area controller, Comptroller M.B.A Musa.

This is even as the PRO of KLT, Kayode Wey, said the figure generated by his command represents 59.2 percent of its target for the year; which he also attributed to the Command’s effective strategies at upping its revenue generation and the resilience of the Customs area controller, Comptroller Morenike Oladunni, at ensuring full compliance, through the deployment of the Service’s latest Customs ICT application, NICIS2.

A breakdown of the collection showed that the command collected N869 million in January, N722.6 million February, while N1.15 billion was collected in March and N1.12 billion in April. The Command made N1.13 billion in May and N995.2 million in June.

In a statement signed by Wey, Comptroller Oladunni, said that the command at a point had to engage importers where she laid bare the rules and regulations in processing the clearance of their cargoes warning that the full weight of the law will be visited on violators.

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She said: “My job is to ensure you play by the rules as you have always done, desist from any form of trade malpractice and continue to make truthful declarations to enjoy seamless clearance of your cargoes.

“We will continue to be innovative with a high level of professionalism while performing our duties in accordance with the law and directives from our Controller General.”

According to Ejesieme, the TCIP Command under Musa has continued to strengthen all the valves of legitimate trade facilitation with the creation of various platforms for expeditious resolution of all disputes associated with imports.

While affirming that this approach has led to the speedy resolution of disputes arising from Valuation, Classification, PAAR, at least to the barest minimum, the Command, he added, is also working out actionable modalities for the use of Barges in transferring  Cargo from the Mother Port to off-dock Terminals.

He quoted Musa as saying, “This is with a view to reducing congestion and speed up cargo delivery considering the fact that Cargo throughput is increasing, and road infrastructure are overstretched.”

Vanguard