How Nigeria Customs Service Generates N976.6bn Revenue Within 8 Months-Report

It has been revealed that the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has so far generated N976.6 billionaire revenue from January to August for the country.

According to the document obtained from the service through its Public Relations Office by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday, the sum was realized from import duties and excise duties, among others.

From the document, it is revealed that NCS generated its highest revenue from import duty followed by the one gotten from the service’s Value Added Tax (VAT).

The statistics showed that the NCS realized N471.7 billion from import duty while it generated N216.4 billion from the Customs’ VAT, a sum of N120.4 billion is generated from Non-Federation Accounts levies, and N84.3 billion is gotten from Federation Accounts levies.

It is also learned from the document that the sum of N76.9 billion was generated from excise duty and N6.6 billion was received from fees.

It will be recalled that the sum of N1.3 trillion was generated as revenue in 2019 by the NCS.

In this regard, Comptroller-General of NCS, retired Col. Hameed Ali had assured the country of generating substantial revenue in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking while commending his officers and men for their resilience and commitment to duty during the challenging period of Coronavirus, Ali said:

“Nigeria and indeed the world have been challenged with COVID-19, but we are still doing our best, there is no cause for alarm in terms of revenue generation.”

Meanwhile, mixed reactions have continually followed the development. While some economic experts saw it as a good development that will go a long way to boost the national economy, some saw it from another perspective. This latter school of thought believed that the nation has nothing to show for the revenue made.
Alex Ukaigwe of Midas Resources said: ” With this revenue generated by the Customs Service which is unprecedented in recent times, the country can not justify the foreign loan it perpetually runs after.”