By Kenneth Jukpor
African Association of Professional Freight Forwarders and Logistics of Nigeria (APFFLON) has commended thr House of Representatives for the reduction of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) revenue target from N4.1 trillion to N3trillion.
The National President of APFFLON, Otunba Frank Ogunojemite made this commendation during an exclusive chat with MMS Plus newspaper in Lagos, this week.
According to the veteran freight forwarder, the move to reduce the revenue target for Customs would ease the fiscal burden on the Service and better position them to prioritize trade facilitation rather than revenue collection.
Meanwhile, Ogunojemite argued that the federal government’s propensity to give Customs targets contravenes its economic policy thrust which is centred on growing local production and exports.
“With this reduction in Customs revenue target for 2022, we expect that Customs and other agencies of government will be keen to play their roles in supporting local production and exports. These are activities that would lessen the pressure on the dollar, create jobs for Nigerians and balance the nation’s trade,” Ogunojemite said.
He also specially thanked the House Committee Chairman on Customs and Excise, Hon. Leke Abejide for approving the reduction.
According to Ogunojemite, he had publicly accused the House of Representatives of encouraging Customs excesses in the past with exorbitant revenue targets, so the move to reduce the target should be commended.
On Monday, the House of Representatives set a N3.019 trillion revenue target for Customs for the 2022 fiscal year as the Chairman, House Committee on Customs and Excise, Hon. Leke Abejide, gave the approval during the 2022 budget defence attended by the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (Rtd).
While commending the Service for exceeding the N1.678 trillion revenue projection set by the National Assembly as against the sum of N1.465 trillion initiated by Agency during the 2021 budget defence, the lawmaker expressed delight over the N2.241 trillion realised as at the end of the 2021 financial year.
Hon Abejide further observed that from the recent circular from the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF) which raised the threshold Service-Wide for Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs) on contract awards, harped on the need to ensure that all the MDAs improve on revenue generation.
He also disclosed that the joint Senate and House Committee on Customs and Excise have unanimously resolved to earmark reasonable amount to rehabilitate the 13 scanners out of the N27 billion surplus real.
“Another area we want your budget to capture is the corporate responsibility so that communities where Nigeria Customs and even people that work with Customs can have a belonging or take ownership of the agency.”
“The information you need and assistance to tackle smugglers shall be provided by the people easily but as it is now that is not the case with the NCS. The Nigeria army does much more of Corporate Social for the general public and their hosts, and other revenue Generating Agencies, and that is the reason for less reported acrimony and attacks against them,” he said.
