Revenue dropped to N898 billion in 2016, says Customs

The revenue generated by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) from imports, excise duties and Value Added Tax (VAT) dropped in 2016 as against the previous year.
The Assistant Comptroller, Joseph Atta, who disclosed this yesterday said the figure dropped to N898.673 billion as against the N903 billion recorded in 2015.

He explained that customs duty accounted for N720.743 billion, while the VAT collected on behalf of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) was N177.930 billion.

Atta added that the net customs’ duty collection of N937.331 was 76.90 per cent of the target that the Federal Government had set for it.According to him, a total of N600.350 billion was remitted to the federation account and shared by the three tiers of government, while the non-federation account remittances stood at N120.392 billion.

The spokesman further explained that the NCS’s collected N903 billion in 2015 out of N954 billion.He said the revenue was in line with the directive by the Comptroller-General, Col. Hameed Ali, who last year, directed the personnel to work harder to correct the bad image of the service.

Atta said the NCS was able to realise the revenue, despite the difficulties encountered by importers in accessing foreign exchange and the 41 items, which the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) prohibited from imports.

He stressed that the strict application of the extant laws championed by the comptroller-general greatly impacted on the overall performance of the organisation.He said he was hopeful that the NCS would increase its revenue generation in 2017, with the recent re-organisation in which several top management officials were redeployed, to strengthen its operations.

A document detailing the monthly collections showed that the highest revenue of N95.766billion was realised in August, while the closest figure of N90.211billion was earned in September.