The House of Representatives last week gave go ahead for the probe of the Nigeria Customs Service in what was seen as the next phase of the ongoing attempts to beam searchlight on activities of strategic government agencies.
The lower chamber took the decision following the adoption of a motion that was moved by Honourable Muhammed Abdu and 18 others who hinged the group’s motion on the statement that was credited to the Comptroller General, Customs Alhaji Hamman Bello Ahmed.
The Customs boss had at a recent press briefing to mark his 100 days in office disclosed that the service could no longer perform it responsibilities within the country’s territorial waters following the collapse of its marine unit.
He had told journalists that the service cannot monitor activities of vessels that come in and leave the shores of Nigeria daily. Worse still, it cannot provide accurate figure of the volume of crude oil that leaves the country on daily basis, neither can it monitor illegal and shady transactions in the oil and gas sector.
“Today, our marine unit has collapsed. We cannot afford to buy vessels or boats. How do we tackle cases of bunkering? It’s our own responsibilities. We don’t even know today how many vessels come into this country.
“The law says any vessel that comes into this country must be reported and any vessel leaving this country must also submit a report a written application to the customs to get permission to sail out. And in submitting that application, you submit your manifest so that we know what you are carrying.
Read Also: INTERVIEW WITH ALHAJI TIJJANI RAMALLAN
“We are supposed to know the quality of crude that goes out of this country, but as I am talking now, only very few companies will come and call us to go and inspect the vessels, only few of them because we don’t have the facilities to do it ourselves. If we don’t have them, how do we know the quantity of crude that goes out of this country, he had lamented.
He attributed the failure of the marine unit to inadequate funding of the service by the government. He said that the seven per cent of its collection which is deducted from the Federation Account and given to the service monthly is grossly inadequate to meet its financial needs.
“They give us seven percent of revenue as our cost of collection, and then what do we get from that seven percent? Seven per cent of the duty in a month is about 1.5 billion. We have a staff strength of about 10,000 or more than 10,000. The money just barely pays our salaries, “he explained.
Sources hinted that the searchlight on Customs was informed by the outburst of the customs boss which insinuated that government was under funding the customs, hence adding smuggling and illegal bunkering.
Kindly like us on Facebook
Discussion about this post