The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), impounded 117,034 (50kg) bags of rice with duty paid value of N774,282,300 in the first three quarters of this year, the Comptroller-General, Hameed Ali, has said.
Speaking at a press conference jointly organized with the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in Abuja, Ali said Nigerians were duty bound to reawaken their national pride and collectively reject the insults of what importers are feeding Nigerians with.
He said with the support of patriotic Nigerians, the country will not only achieve national sufficiency in rice next year, but will be in a position to ban its importation in the years ahead.
Ali questioned the rationale of wasting scarce foreign exchange (forex) on items that could be produced locally especially at this time of recession.
He raised the question whether Nigeria should continue to tolerate its neighbors being used as staging post to sabotage her economy, insisting that the nation’s economic revival will revolve around ongoing efforts to support local production of rice to enhance food security.
The Customs chief said market intelligence indicated a fierce price war between imported and local rice, adding that available information suggests increasing preference for local rice over smuggled ones. He said at this harvesting period, the best Nigeria could do is to support the local farmers to make their products more competitive.
Ali said, “In the recent past, our collective intelligence was assaulted with dubious claims of rice sufficiency gaps. Arbitrary quotas were used, more for political patronage to dump imported rice on us without the payment of correct charges.
Meanwhile the Seme Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service said it has intercepted three bullet proof vehicles worth N58.7 million smuggled into the country at different entry locations.
The bullet proof cars include a black Jeep Escalade, Toyota Land Cruiser (VKR) and a black Mercedes Benz Bus with a foreign number plate.
Public Relations Officer of the command, Taupyen Selchang said in a statement made available to media that the Controller of the Command, Victor Dimka while inspecting the seized bullet proof vehicles said that the security of the nation remained a top priority to the border commands of the NCS.
He stated that the challenge of security is vital to the survival of the nation’s socio-economic and political system; hence the need to ensure that bullet proof vehicles undergo security procedure for approval from the office of the National Security Adviser before importation.
He added that apart from generating revenue, suppression of smuggling and facilitation of legitimate trade, the Service has a complementary role of protecting the territorial integrity of this nation.
Dimka said the seizures recorded by the command in recent times attest to the alertness and the security consciousness of the anti-smuggling unit adding that the command will not relent in its effort at combating smuggling and other cross border vices.
Meanwhile the command said it generated N1billion as revenue in the month of September, 2016. The amount generated surpassed the sum of N883million that was collected within the same period under review in 2015 with over N245million.
The increase in the revenue figure according to Dimka is said to be unprecedented in recent times.
He said that the previous challenge of revenue in the Command has been overcome pointing out that there will be a boost in revenue if the Memorandum of Understanding signed with Republic of Benin translates into handing over of all transit vehicles to Seme Command.
