The Katsina Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has put out a general announcement that about the generation of over ₦104.7 million from its export and import duties which were conducted at the recently reopened Jibia Border.
Katsina Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service had also made a disclosure that ₦38.5 million was actually realised from some of the seized and impounded items between the 1st of May 2022 to date, which is ranks below the command’s previous anti-smuggling records according to the recent statistics.
However, it has been noted that the command attributed the sharp decline in the number of seizures to the reopening of the Jibia border, which in other words actually paved way for legitimate conduct of import and export transactions.
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Other factors said to be responsible for the recorded success include the re-strategizing of the command’s operation procedure and cooperation, collaboration and synergy with security, government agencies at the border and other stakeholders.
Among the items seized are 715 bags of 50kg rice worth over N18.7 million, 7 vehicles and 8 motorcycles worth about N8 million, cartons of foreign spaghetti worth N2.4 million, cartons of foreign milk worth N1.2 million, cola nuts worth N1.1 million among other several items.
The Katsina Command Comptroller, Dalha Wada-Chedi, disclosed this on Thursday at the command’s headquarters. He, however, noted that the achievement was from the period the Jibia border was reopened to date.
According to him, since the reopening of the Jibia border
the Command has been discharging all of its statutory obligations which include the control of imports and export and has been adhering to Customs procedures in the collection of revenue and other regulations.
To this end, Wada said: “the total sum of ₦104.7 million (104,735,574.00) was collected and paid into the Federal Account within the period under review.”
He also gave the volume and sum of export through Jibia Border within the period as, 4,000 metric tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) worth ₦998,205,392.04 and 1,000 metric tonnes of cement worth ₦32,292,830.00 respectively. Wada also gave the fees paid to the Nigeria Export Supervision Scheme (NESS) for two exported items, LPG and Cement as ₦5,027,592.44 and ₦183,942.77 respectively, summing up to ₦5,211,535.21
The Katsina Command Comptroller, in another report has sent a note of warning to unrepentant smugglers that officers and men of the Command are fully ready in their quest to suppress smuggling and enhance revenue collection.