Customs Strike Force recovers N1.1bn revenue in six month amid Covid-19

The Strike Force unit, Zone ‘A’ of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), says it has recovered for the Federal Government over N1.104 billion in the last six months of this year.

The sum, according to the unit, was recovered from Debit Notes (DN) raised from importers of cargo, who tried to short change the government by paying less import duties to Customs commands at the nation’s seaports.

Abba Kakudi, coordinator of the Strike Force, who made this known in a statement sent to newsmen, said the unit recovered the revenue from seizures made between January 1 and June 11, 2020, despite the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic that affected movement of goods.

According to Kakudi, the Strike Force team has given a hard chase to smugglers who were desperate to unleash economic dislocation on the country, and this has enabled the team to make tremendous seizures in the period under consideration.

“Our seizures include; 1000 bags of 50kg foreign parboiled rice with the Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N13.252 million, 10 Tokunbo vehicles with DPV of N31.184 million and 30 bales of second hand clothing with DPV of N2.160 million. It is important to say that in order to help the economy grow, there is no need to import what we can produce here in Nigeria or bringing in prohibited items,” Kakudi said, while giving details of the seizures.

He further stated that the Federal Government had encouraged a lot of rice farmers in the country, and local rice was now being produced in large quantity. He however advised traders to avail themselves of the opportunity to market indigenous products in such a way that it would help to grow the economy.

“In a bid to police the smugglers from bringing in these prohibited products, our officers face a lot of dangers as most of the smugglers are armed, sometimes not necessarily with rifles but matches, charms and other dangerous weapons, but we are not overwhelmed. This ugly situation is experienced more around the creeks where inhabitants mobilise some under-aged people against us, to the extent of calling our officers names as well as stoning them,” he said.