Seme Customs sustains war against economic saboteurs, rakes in N1.5b

The Seme Area Command of Nigeria Customs Service (NSC), has reiterated its commitment to sustain the war against economic saboteurs, urging them to exploit the various Federal Government programmes on legitimate trade.

The Customs Area Controller, Comptroller Mohammed Uba Garba, who disclosed this while reviewing its operations in the last 11 months, said the Command recorded a total of 1,302 seizures with the duty paid value (DPV) of N1.5 billion.

These seizures, according to him, include the following; 28,180x50kg bags of foreign parboiled rice, equivalent to 47 trailers load with DPV plus levy of N777.7 million; Sugar 140x50kg with DPV of N588,000; 62 used vehicles and means of conveyance; 1100 bales of used clothing; and 101 sacks of used clothing.

Others are: 185 sacks of shoes, bags, belt, slippers both new and used; textile materials and wrappers; 5,489 cartons of frozen poultry products; vegetable oil; 2,109×25 litres of premium motor spirit (PMS) others known as petrol, among others.

Garba attributed the harvest of seizures recorded during the period under review to the strategic policy measures put in place to tackle the menace of smuggling, irregular migration, and other trans-border crimes.He reiterated his commitment to ensuring that smuggling business becomes unattractive through vigorous community and public enlightenment, sensitisation on the dangers of smuggling, and its impact on economy and national security.

The comptroller urged economic saboteurs to take advantage of various federal government programmes on agriculture such as the Anchored Borrowers’ Programme for rice farming, Growth Enhancement Support Scheme (GESS), Government Enterprises and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), and many others and key into them for legitimate earning.

Similarly, he said the Command collected the sum of N4.9 billion in revenue for the Federal Government from January till date, representing 76 per cent of its annual allotted target of N6.5 billion.

The amount is lower than the N5billion recorded same period of 2018, which he attributed to border drill exercise that was initiated by the federal government, which commenced on August 20th, placing temporary embargo on movement of goods through the land borders nationwide.

Speaking on inter-agency collaboration and synergy, Garba noted that a total of 1,992 parcels of hard drugs and narcotics were successfully handed over to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), during the period under review. Also, about 47 suspects were arrested in connection with different kinds of crimes, and were all handed over to sister agencies saddled with the responsibility of investigating and subsequent prosecution.