Senate summons Customs CG over dwindling revenue

Worried by the declining in revenue collection by the Nigeria Customs Sevice, NCS, the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff on Thursday summoned the Comptroller General of Customs to appear before it.

Speaking at the committee’s inaugural meeting, Thursday, the committee chairman, Sen. Francis Alimikhena said their mandate was to unearth shoddy practices going-on in customs and block leakages in customs revenue collection, among other things.

“We are here to draw our work plans for the next four years; we are here to stop the leakages in Customs revenue collection.

“In order to achieve that, we have resolved to summon the CG to appear before us,” he said.

The committee wondered “why Customs has become the number three revenue collector of Nigerian government behind FIRS and NNPC, despite the fact that they are the only agency that collects excise duties.”

However, he noted that where Customs did well, Senate would commend them and where they failed, the committee won’t hesitate to reprimand them.

It will be recalled that Customs over the years has been the number one agency with the highest revenue generation in the country, but suddenly has dropped to number three behind the FIRS and the NNPC, a situation Sen. Alimikhena led 9th Assembly Senate committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff found worrisome.

In 2017, the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff had a serious altercation with the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd), over his refusal to wear customs uniform while appearing before the committee.

Ali was appointed Customs CG by President Muhammadu Buhari in his first tenure.