Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko has directed Area Controllers to hold monthly media briefing from January 2013 and send transcripts to his office.
Dikko issued the directive in Katsina yesterday at the ongoing 2012 Comptroller-General's Conference, following complaints that some officers were not open to media inquiries on the activities of the service.
Also, the customs boss expressed concern that the nation was losing more revenue through fraudulent practice in the ports than the borders.
Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko has directed Area Controllers to hold monthly media briefing from January 2013 and send transcripts to his office.
Dikko issued the directive in Katsina yesterday at the ongoing 2012 Comptroller-General's Conference, following complaints that some officers were not open to media inquiries on the activities of the service.
Also, the customs boss expressed concern that the nation was losing more revenue through fraudulent practice in the ports than the borders.
He said: “From only one port, the nation lost N4 billion in six months from fraudulent practice such as concealment, falsification of documents and under-declaration of goods.’’
He challenged the area comptrollers to take advantage of a forum like the conference and media briefing to present their difficulties and share their experiences.
He noted that in bringing their activities to the public domain, they could get useful tips on how to improve service delivery.
Dikko stressed that area comptrollers would be helping the service to grow if they created more time to explain activities happening under their watch through the media
He said the customs had made history by tripling its revenue generation from N30 billion a month in 2009 to about N100 billion in 2012.
“What is it that we are doing wrong that we cannot tell the public?'' he asked.
The customs chief described himself as someone who had faced negative media reports, recalling the infamous certificate forgery saga that followed his appointment as customs head in 2009.
“That is now history,'' he said.
He added that as the chief accounting officer of the service, he had often assumed responsibility for other crimes and shortcomings committed by other officers.
He cited a case where a customs officer allegedly impregnated a woman and a magazine splashed his photograph on the story, even though the report was not about him.
“Please if you are not hiding anything, be open, tell the journalists exactly what you are doing. Even if it is a bad story they, know how to take your side and the other side.
“If we continue to ignore them and keep mute, the danger is that we are destroying the service because they can say or write anything that comes to their mind.’’
The comptroller-general also reminded the area comptrollers to be dutiful to their three main statutory responsibilities of revenue generation, trade facilitation and border security.
On trade facilitation, he said customs officers often dealt with people who had low level of morality, adding, “they want to maximise profit and they want to beat you.’’
According to him before 2009, the annual duty collected in Katsina command was N1 billion, but that the figure had quadrupled to N4.2 billion between January and October.
He said the increase would have been impossible if there was frequent smuggling though the land borders.
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