By Abimbola Ogunnaike
The Apapa Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has disclosed that it generated at least N450 billion between January to July this year.
The Command also also that in the month of June, it raked in N119bn as revenue, the highest monthly collection it had recorded so far.
The Command, which made this disclosure through a statement issued by its Public Relations Officer, Abubakar Usman, on Wednesday, 2 August, 2023.
According to the statement, the outgoing Customs Area Comptroller of the command, Mohammed Auwal, in his farewell session with senior officers of the command, said that it had generated N540bn revenue between January and July.
Auwal was one of the senior customs officers decorated on Monday, 31 July, 2023 with the rank of an Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs by the acting Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi.
The acting Comptroller General of Customs, during the farewell session, said compliance is the bedrock of port efficiency.
He noted the command’s revenue collection improved due to leakage prevention, zero compromise for duty evasion and due diligence in the face of a reduced volume of trade.
While thanking the officers and stakeholders for their support, Auwal described the various interventions such as demand notices to recover identified shortfalls in revenue as helpful.
“Before now, N95b collected between January and August 2022 was the highest monthly collection. The job of preventing prohibited items such as arms, ammunition, illicit drugs, and others under the import and export prohibition lists from entering or exiting the country through Apapa port was treated as a collective duty under his watch,” the statement read.
According to Auwal, inter-agency synergy and intelligence sharing are the first bold step in defeating criminals, who seek to use ports for their unlawful activities.
“Compliance is one word that appeals to both government and private sector stakeholders because we are all governed by rules to which we owe a duty to obey.
“Apapa port holds the potential to handle the highest volume of trade in West and Central Africa with the possibility of being a trade hub for seamless cargo movement if importers, agents, and freight forwarders comply by making sincere declarations and avoiding smuggling,” ACG of customs concluded.
