The Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali Rtd, has cleared the air about the misrepresentation of the true status of the Trade Modernization Project aimed at providing end-to-end automation of the processes and procedures of the Nigeria Customs Service.
He disclosed that the $3.62 billion project which had kicked-off is a public-private partnership project.
While addressing newsmen during his recent visit to the Customs Training College in Lagos, he disclosed that project has already started and that is a straightforward exercise that will enhance the operational efficiency of NCS leading to more revenue collection, trade facilitation and technology-based suppression of smuggling.
He said Customs laid the foundation in 2015, because of the need to bring its operation to be at par with international best practices.
In his words: “This is a public-private partnership project and these guys are going to earn their money from what we collect”.
“It is not that the government is going to take anything out of the project, it is going to come from customs collection, and we are going to finance this, while they give us the service to get more revenue, we also have to give them and pay,” he explained.
“They are going to deploy their money, and they have to recoup their money. As of today, they have put over $300 million on the ground to be able to get to where we are,” he emphasized.
The CGC maintained that the Nigeria Customs Service has done the sensitization to carry everyone along and all Officers are in tune with the concept.
“I know that we have done the sensitization to carry everybody along and I can assure you that all Officers that are serving today are in tune with this concept and they have imbibed it,” he stated.
Meanwhile, the trade modernization project management office with state of the art facility was earlier commissioned in Abuja by the Comptroller General of Customs on the 1st of June 2023.
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