For the first time in the more than 50 years of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) existence, the Service has recorded its highest revenue collection ever of over N1 trillion as against N770 billion target set for 2017.
Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah, who made the disclosure during a recent press conference in Abuja, averred “NCS has recorded the highest revenue collection ever of N1,012,259,006,779.74 with five more working days to the end of 2017”.
He revealed the reason behind the feat cannot be unconnected with the leadership intelligence and dedication of the men and officers of all the Commands across the federation who keyed into the resolve of the CG, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) in blocking all loopholes and sharp practices leading to loss of revenues in the past.
Attah added that “This spectacular performance in revenue collection shows N241,685,276,289.74 over the N770,573,730,490 target for the year and well above the N898,673,857,431.07 collected in 2016.
“(This is) Despite the economic recession experienced earlier in the year, with low volume of imports and restriction placed on 41 items from accessing Forex.
“The Comptroller-General of Customs (CGC), retired Col. Hameed Ali, undertook some strategic measures in terms of restructuring and repositioning the service for efficient service delivery which resulted in this historic revenue figure from the service this year,” Attah said.
According to him, the success story become possible based on some strategic innovations and disruptive inputs that checkmated failures of the past. Some of the measures that did the magic included redeployment of officers, new incentives and strategies in tracking smugglers and false declarations by either importers or clearing agents.
