Senate to probe Customs over unremitted operating surpluses
The Senate on Wednesday said it would investigate the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) over unremitted 80% operational su revenue surpluses into the Consolidated Revenue Fund within the last five years.
This was disclosed at the public hearing organised by the Senate Joint Committees on Finance; National Planning; Foreign and Local Debts; Banking, Insurance and other Financial Institutions; and Petroleum Resources with revenue generation and management agencies of the federal government.
Making the allegations, the Chairman, Committee on Finance, Solomon Adeola Olamilekan ( APC Lagos West ) accused the NCD of not remitting its operational surpluses within the last five years.
“We are going to look at the revenue and expenditure estimate within the last
five years. If you spent 100% of your budgetary allocations, nobody will ask for anything, but if not, we will do our calculations”, Olamilekan stated.
The committee therefore, ruled that NCS should be investigated on revenue surplus from 2016 to 2020.
Sen. Olamilekan also directed NCS to make available audited account of the Service for the last five years, the revenue profile and expenditure profile for the last five years.
He also directed Accountant General and Fisscal Responsibility Commission to be part of the investigation to ensure that the Senate gets to the root of the matter.
Earlier, in a bid to address the problem of smuggling and other related challenges, the NCS disclosed plan to deploy scanners at various ports and borders across the country.
The Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd), while speaking at a public hearing on the 2022-2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF and Fiscal Strategy Paper, FSP, attributed the challenges in revenue generation by the NCS to issues of smuggling, especially at borders.
Hameed this challenge has become a way of life for some people, adding that the NCS was on the verge of deploying three scanners at the various ports in the country, for proper and speedy examination of containers coming into the country.
This, he said would ensure 100 percent and speedy examination of containers and reduce incidence of under payment of duties and false declaration of goods.
He also disclosed that NCS was also due to deploy 135 scanners around the various land borders to further enhance effectiveness of its operations.
“The NCS had put in place structures to curtail the menace of smuggling by employing improved manpower and leveraging on technology via its Electronic Customs structures.
“Non provision of infrastructure for border communities was also aiding smuggling at the boarders, nothing that smuggling was a way of life to some of the citizens.
“The border communities do not want to cooperate in fighting smuggling because of absence of government in their communities, some times they cooperate with the smugglers because of the support they receive from the smugglers,” Hameed said.
Hameed further revealed that the NCS generated N1.5trillion in 2020 while N1.02trillion has been generated so far in last six months of 2021.
The Comptroller General urged the National Assembly to adopt measures to mitigate smuggling activities in the nation’s borders.
He called for introduction of excise duties for companies involved in the production of carbonated drinks in the country to improve revenue generation of the nation.
“Payment of excise for revenue generation should not be based alone on imports, but also on domestic production of goods, adding that the only excise NCS was authorised to collect was excise from tobacco and alcoholic beverages”, he stated.
Earlier, the chairman of the Joint Committee stressed the need to block all revenue leakages and improve revenue for social services and infrastructure development
He argued that the public hearing was designed to get the true situation of revenue of the country as presented in the 2022- 20224 MTEF and FSP document before presentation of budget estimates by President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly.
