The House of Representatives wants President Muhammadu Buhari to issue an executive order for the use of part of the revenue generated by the Nigeria Customs Service to carry out repairs on the access roads leading to the nation’s port to enhance revenue generation of the service.
Chairman of the House Technical Committee on Customs and Excise, Hon Leke Abejide who made the call when he led members of the committee on an oversight visit to Customs formations in Lagos said the nation was losing a lot of revenue to the lack of access roads to the ports.
He said if the roads to the port are constructed, the nation will have no reason to take foreign loan to finance its annual budget as the money required would be generated by from the ports.
Abejide who represents Yagba Federal Constituency of Kogi state expressed displeasure over the state of affairs in n Customs formation within the Lagos area, pointing out that the nation does not need the bureaucracy associated with budgeting to address the infrastructural needs of the Customs service as a revenue agency of Government.
He decried the lack of facilities by the various Customs formations in Lagos, adding that if properly equipped the service can generate most of the money needed to fund the annual budget.
He said the committee was in Lagos on a visit to the command to see how to assist the service to improve revenue generation so that the nation can begin to look inward in terms of Revenue generation, pointing out that even though the various command, especially those located at the ports have improved their revenue generation, a lot is still being lost to congestion.
He said there was no need keeping the Presidential Task force put in place to decongest the roads leading to the ports, saying the task force has failed to achieve the purpose for which it was put in place.
He said with the various command in the area generating about N100 billion monthly, it will not be out of place to issue an executive order to use one month revenue of the Customs to repair the roads saying “how much will these roads cost to construct. I am not sure the roads will cost more than N100 million to construct.
“Even if the amount is more than, we can dedicate three months revenue to construct these roads once and for all since doing that will enhance our Revenue generation.”
Addressing the members of the committee when they visited the headquarters of Zone A of the Customs Service, the Assistant Comptroller General of Customs in charge of the Zone, Kathleen Ekekezie said officers and men of the Service were ready to work for the interest of the country and generate more revenue, but lack of facilities and lack of an encouraging working environment was hindering their performances.
She complained about the activities of terminal operators and shipping companies whom she said are milking Nigerians dry and making the to pay for delayed clearance of containers in the port.
While appealing to government to revisit the issue of concessioning of terminals and government warehouses at the port, the Assistant Comptroller General of Customs said “when the terminals were concessioned, we were not consulted.
She also said that ships bringing in goods to the country are now in the habit of abandoning their containers at the port against the usual practice of leaving the country with the empty containers after discharging their content.
She also complained of access roads for officers of the service work in the port to access their offices, saying some Customs Officers have died in an attempt to get to the office.
At the Federal Operations Unit, the Acting Controller, Usman Yahaya told the Committee that lack of willful compliance by Importers is one of the major problems facing the service.
He said smugglers have resorted to new tactics and have constantly threatened the lives of customers as a result of their refusal to do the right thing.
He said in the last two months, the Command seized 15 containers of fake drugs, saying “we want to make sure that the lives of our people is not destroyed by these people through fake and expired drugs and other banned products”.
