By Udeme Clement
The men of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), operating in Ondo/Ekiti Command have discovered eight new factories doing business in the States without appropriate duties to the government to enhance income flow in the region.

In the same vein, the Command also recorded seizures of imported chicken, furnitures, turkey and other items with the total Duty Paid Value (DPV) of over N100million within few months of operations.

Speaking exclusively with Vanguard, the Customs Area Controller (CAC) of the Command, Umar Yusuf, said that the seizures were recorded through various strategies set up by the command to curtail smuggling of contraband in the States.

He said, “For the past six years, only one factory called Moyola InvestSent was paying N15, 000 as duty to government every month. Within one month of operations, I set up a task force team, which is revenue driven and eight more factories were found within the same region. That remarkable achievement earned the unit a commendation letter from the current customs management acknowledging our efforts in the Command”.

He added, “aside from the number of factories discovered, 20 suspects were apprehended and the cases are in court right now. So far, no casualty was recorded, but the officers in the command are strategically positioned to ensure that contraband items in whatever form are not smuggled into the states, through any means. The smugglers are desperate to bring in contraband through whatever means, that prompted why we repositioned ourselves to meet up with the challenges in our daily operations in both States”.

Responding to the new housing project embarked upon by the Command, he enthused, “the project became necessary to provide accommodation for the officers working in the Command.

For instance, when I resumed in February, about 45 officers were sleeping in the office complex, which was also in a debilitating state. I applied to the Head Quarters and converted an old mechanic workshop into 10bedroom barracks for male officers and the project is 95 per cent completed now”.

On why Ondo/Ekiti Command has a history of low performance for many years, he explained, “I do not know, but in the last seven months we have improved tremendously in the revenue profile of the command, for instance, the discovery of new factories operating within the States would boost revenue generation capacity in the area, because these factories must be made to pay appropriate duties to the government.

The major thing is that we have really improved on revenue profile of the command, from only N445, 000, I met when I took over the command in February this year to N4million in a very short time, showing an increase of 878 per cent within seven months, being the first of its kind in the command.

This is also the highest revenue ever generated in the history of this command since 1980, about 30years now.  Also, the number of factories discovered so far, are the highest in the last six years of operations in both state.

Reacting to question on Ondo being a terrain where militants activity is also a problem, he asserted, “the terrain is not bad, only that we have some militants activities in the State, but the good thing is that the State Governor is tackling the problem by setting up some empowerment schemes for the militants to engage themselves in something productive .