Impressive Performance: Apapa Customs Collects N790.6 billion
By Silas Onuoha
The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Apapa Command has collected an impressive revenue of N790,630,406,980.96.
Addressing the press on the activities of the Command at Apapa, Lagos, Comptroller Malanta informed.
“In the period under review, the command has collected revenue to the tune of Seven hundred and ninety billion, Six hundred and thirty million, Four hundred and six thousand, Nine hundred and eighty naira, Ninety-six kobo N790,630,406,980.96. This shows an exponential improvement of N181.5 billion as against N609 billion naira collected in the corresponding months of the year 2021, representing 29.8% increment.”
According to the CAC Malanta Yusuf,” this remarkable achievement was
made possible because of our officers’ tireless commitment to ensure that all
revenue leakages are being mitigated, as well as sustaining the level of compliance by the importers/stakeholders in the clearance value chain.
Going further on anti-smuggling, Compt. Malanta said, “anti-smuggling activities has been one of the command’s focal points, especially with the activities of some unrepentant traders who are always looking for avenues to undermine our system. The command has fortified its forensic manifest management to monitor and detect fraudulent transaction through audit trial to ensure that illicit trade are being tracked before the declarations are lodged.
“Furthermore, the enforcement unit has been reinforced through improved collaboration and sharing of credible intelligence with relevant government agencies to suppress smuggling activities to its barest minimum. For the period under review, the command recorded one hundred and forty-five 145 seizures of various items with a duty paid value (DPV) of Twelve billion, four hundred and ninety-six million, six hundred and seventy-two thousand, one hundred and twenty-two naira N12,496,672,122.00.
“These seized items include unregistered medicaments such as tramadol and codeine, processed/unprocessed wood, used clothing, ladies men’s footwear, foreign parboiled rice, tomato paste, vegetable oil and other sundry items that falls under import/export prohibition list.
“These importations are in clear breach of sections 46 and 47 of Customs and Excise Management Act, CEMA CAP C45 LFN 2004.”
The CAC reemphasize that Apapa Command is continuously ready to assist in facilitating legitimate trade and ensuring that all forms of smuggling activities through false declaration on import/export done in defiance to extant trade guidelines will be detected through layers of control mechanism.
“I want to crave the indulgence of our esteemed stakeholders to join hands with the command and ensure that items that are on the import/export prohibition list are strictly adhered to, and urge them to embrace the emerging realities of customs examination through non-intrusive inspection (NII) regime. The non-intrusive inspection regime is geared towards increasing volume of cargo inspection, protection of national security, saving cost/clearing time, storing reliable data and images for reference purposes, and reducing human contact in the
examination of containerized cargo,”he said.
