Border opening dims the more as Customs claims making more revenue now
Contrary to the speculations of many border based business operators and companies producing goods that are distributed across the ECOWAS region that the President may likely announce the opening of the closed land borders during his October 1st national broadcast, that did not happen.
As if that was not enough to send a lasting signal to the spines of Nigerians waiting for such announcement any time sooner, on Wednesday, the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Hameed Ali, told the National Assembly members that the agency had been raking in between N4.7bn and N5.8bn since the Federal Government closed the nation’s borders.
Ali stated this when he appeared before the Senate and House of Representatives joint committees on Finance and National Planning, working on the 2020 – 2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper.
Ali had while addressing the lawmakers averred that the land border closure was a blessing to the nation, an expression analysts say, would mean further stay of the border closure order.
According the Customs boss, “When we closed the border, my fear was that our revenue was going to drop. To be honest, our revenue kept increasing.
“There was a day in September that we collected N9.2bn in one day. It had never happened before.
“This was after the closure of the border and since then, we have maintained an average of about N4.7bn to N5.8bn on a daily basis which is far more than we used to collect,” the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs claimed before the Senate on Wednesday.
Addressing the media, shortly after the meeting, Ali averred that Nigerian land borders would remain closed pending when neighbouring countries comply to terms and conditions already given to them which including end to encouraging smuggling goods to Nigeria.
