Nigeria Customs Service Collected N903bn Revenue For 2015 – Ali

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) collected a total of N903 billion in 2015 out of a target of N954 billion, comptroller-general of the Service Col. Hameed Ali Rtd, has said.

Ali who stated this while fielding questions from journalists after the decoration of newly promoted senior officers of the Service in Abuja, noted that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy on the importation of 41 items denied the Customs revenue collection to the tune of N240 billion in 2015.

The CGC yesterday decorated six newly promoted Deputy Comptrollers General and eight Assistant Comptrollers General.

He said, “If we had added that to what we have generated it would have surpassed what we have, so that is the down side of why we were not able to meet the target in 2015.”[/color]

Ali who expressed the hope that the Service will surpass its target for 2016 in view of the tools already put in place by the management, added, “I hope also that government will once again look at those policies and see how they can be fine-tuned.”

As part of efforts to meeting the 2016 target, the CGC said he has gone round the various Commands where he urged officers to work harder as well as help the agency clear the correct the bad impression the public has about it.

The newly decorated officers include DCGs Suleiman Ibrahim Idris, Grace Adeyemo, Dan Ugo, Paul Ukaigwe, Abubakar Umar and Austen Warikoru. The ACGs include Sanusi Umar, Aremu Olatunji, Chidi Augustine, Azarema Abdulkadir among others.

While congratulating the officers, he underscored the fact that their promotion did not come by way of lobby or compromise but based purely on merit from available records.

Charging the officers, Ali said, “I expect nothing less than the best. I expect from you henceforth hard work, commitment and drive for the best. My mission in the NCS is to make it the best of Service not only within Nigeria but across the nations.

“My mission is to make sure we clean ourselves of all the bad impression that we carry along, my mission is to ensure that we meet all the mandate set for us by the government and I believe that all of you will have no other mission than to fall in with that and make sure that 2016 is put on the record as one of the best years of the NCS.”