Customs Seizes 94 Containers …Losses Revenue Through Less Imports

The current trend of imports drought witnessed in the first quarter of 2013 has affected the revenue generation of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

This news was broken to Journalists recently by the custom Area Controller of the Tincan Island Port Command, Comptroller Tajudeen Olarewaju  during his first quarter briefing on the commands activities to newsmen in Lagos recently.

Comptroller Olarewaju said that the Command revenue has been on the downward trend due to what he described as low volume of imports and reform in the financial sector which makes it difficult for banks to grant credit facilities to importers.

He said between January to March 2013, a total of  N50,177,636,394 was generated  by the command as against  N52,858,275,000 generated last year within the same period.   The short fall amounts to N2,680,639,207.

The analysis  shows that in  January 2013, the command, collected N16,273,205,622, February, N16,273,205,622, and March , N17,560,472,142.

On anti-smuggling activities, the command seized a total of 94 containers which infringed on import procedures. The containers comprising of 61×40ft containers and 32 x 20ft containers  has various items like electrical cable, expired frozen fish, used tyres ,tissue papers , soft drinks , used clothes , generators , lace materials ,television , automotive batteries ,  falsely and under declared vehicles and parboiled rice etc.