Border Closure Leads to Harvests of Revenue for Lagos Customs Commands
*As House approves 2020 budget of N238.2bn for Customs
The border closure by the federal government has indeed proved to be one of celebration for Lagos ports.
This is considering the N413.7bn revenue collected by the Apapa Command of Customs between January and December declared last week Friday.
The figure is N41billion over its target of N372billion for the year.
Indications are that the Tin Can Island Command will also surpass its revenue target for the year as it plans to release figures in the next one week.
The Apapa Customs Comptroller, Mohammed Abba-Kura had while announcing the figure however attributed the figure to the complementary roles of the Customs Intelligence Unit (CIU) and Valuation unit.
The Controller also identified the closure of the borders as part of the reason for the increased revenue, adding the measure increased traffic at the ports.
“The Command generated N414billion from January to December 19th 2019 as against N404billion generated between January to December 2018, which translates into about 111 per cent of the 2019 annual revenue target” .
He disclosed that the highest sum of N42, 726 billion was recorded in the month of October.
During the same period, the Command had recorded some seizures of pharmaceutical products that are prohibited.
THE Command seized 112 containers over violation of imports by the importers.
Among the items seized were tramadol tomato paste, vegetable oil, ladies and girls fashion wears, expired rice, armored glasses without End User Certificate (EUC) and drilling pipes labelled in foreign language.
He said, “ It is pertinent to emphasized here that virtually all these seized items are in gross violation of our extant laws and import guidelines. The Duty Paid Value (DPV) for these seizures stood at N12.8 billion”
The Controller said a total 262, 095.09 metric tons of exported goods with Free on Board (FOB) value of $132.760 million went through the port.
But he complained that some of the items were returned for failing to meet the required standard.
Meanwhile, the Customs is to spend the sum of N238.2 billion for 2020 as approved by the House Committee on Customs.
Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Abdullahi Garba gave the breakdown as N98.6 billion for personnel cost, N16 billion for overhead cost, and N123.6 billion for capital projects.
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