Why Strike Force was launched, compliance team disbanded – Customs

The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Col. Hameed Al (rtd) has said that the Service launched a new taskforce codenamed, “Strike Force” to intensify the crackdown on smugglers across the country.

The Public Relations Officer of the Service, Mr Joseph Attah, told Daily Trust on Sunday that the previous team tagged the “CG Compliance Team” was disbanded to sanitise operation while keying into the presidential order on the ease-ofdoing-business.

Attah said the strike force is headed by the National Coordinator, Deputy Comptroller, Abubakar A.U., along with four Assistant Comptrollers of Customs who will oversee its The Managing-Director, Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman has insisted that the recent spat with oil and gas logistics giant Intel Nigeria Limited partly owned by former VicePresident Atiku Abubakar is not political.

Introducing political angle to the story is “a complete distraction,” Usman said, noting that the issue between NPA and Intel over compliance with the Treasury Single Account (TSA) predated the current administration.

While featuring on a television programme monitored by our correspondent, Usman insisted there was nothing political about asking Intel to comply with the TSA, the platform automating all government financial transactions.

NPA had terminated the Pilotage Agency Agreement with Intel which seeks to break the monopoly of the firm in the handling of oil and gas cargoes at the port. operations at the four zones comprising Lagos, Kaduna, Bauchi and Port Harcourt.

To promote the ease-of-doing-business, the new team which will be at the zones and training colleges will not erect checkpoints on the highways and will only be seen patrolling when they have credible information of smugglers’ activities as furnished by the surveillance operatives who do covert operations.

The spokesman said Col Ali initiated the method to ensure that there are no impediments to the free flow of doing business.

Part of the mandate of the team is to assess Customs officers and their activities.

He said: “It is empowered to enter into any command facility once there is suspicion of fraud with a view to blocking revenue leakages.”