19th August, 2011
The Apapa Area One Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), recorded N104.69 billion as revenue between January and June this year. The Area Controller of the Command, Comptroller Garko Adamu Yusuf, in a press release, disclosed that the amount generated revealed increases of 22 and 34 per cent respectively as against N86.15 and 78.15 billion it collected between the corresponding year 2010 and 2009.
He added that in February and May, the command recorded the highest revenue so far in a single month with N19.3 billion and N20.5 billion respectively.
In its anti-smuggling activities, the CAC said that the command made 48 seizures as against 32 it recorded last year.
The items seized include textile materials, furniture, vegetable oil, used cars, artificial flowers, electronics and glazed ceramic tiles etc., with a duty paid value (DPV) of N 333,107,082.87.
“This command will continue to fathom new ways to engage its stakeholders in a bid to improve on its service delivery, but in doing this, it will not hesitate to bring to book those whose intentions are fraudulent and who persist in trying to evade the payment of all proper duties,†he said.
In the period under review, 438,209.75 metric tonnes, 1,300 cartons and 3,386,579.96 kilogrammes of 13 different commodities were exported through the command.
These include cocoa beans, cocoa cake, cocoa butter, sesame seeds, aluminium ingots, ginger, rubber, palm kernel, hard wood charcoal, hibiscus flowers, cotton, cashew nuts and processed leather with a total value of N15,770,138,456.05.
He noted that as part of effort in making the export unit even more robust, the command is partnering with both the Nigeria Export Promotion Council (NEPC), National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA), in order to harmonise its export modalities and enforce regulations concerning illegal trade on endangered plant and animal species.