Investigations have revealed that the closure of the nation’s land borders against importation of vehicles has impacted positively on the seaports as the number of vehicles coming through the ports has increased.
This is even as the Ports & Terminal Multipurpose Limited (PTML) Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said that it has raked-in N116, 524,304,684.00 as revenue from vehicle import between January and September 2019.
According to a statistics made available by the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the command, Yakubu Mohammed, the figure represents an increase of N 28, 915,886,401 billion in the revenue against the N 87, 608, 418,283 total revenue collected in the previous year, 2018.
Mohammed attributed the revenue increase to increase in vehicle importation through the terminal, as well as concerted effort of the Area Controller, Comptroller Florence Dixon, even as he added that the command’s monthly revenue target is N10.3Billion.
“Before the close of the borders, we get calls that people want to bring their cars through the seaport because they don’t want embarrassment”
“The throughput of cars coming into the seaport is quite increasing, I don’t know if it is because of the closure of the land borders, but I know that our revenue has shot up and the cargo throughput has improved”, he said
He added that since the coming onboard of the current PTML Area Controller, Comptroller Dixon Florence, she had sensitized all officers to make sure that all hands are on deck to surpass her monthly revenue target.
“Anytime, I enter into her office, she is always on the system where she looks out for infractions, under payments or anything, she would revert it back to the releasing officer for Demand Notice (DN) to show that there is lapses on the payment”
“And if the cargo has been released, she would send it to the gate to make sure that appropriate DN is raised, even if the cargo has exited, the importer has not gone free, we would send the information to the post clearance audit, where they would call the importer to make sure he pays correctly”
“The Comptroller has been doing this since she resumed here and this was why we made all these revenue. She is always on check, and she encourages all the senior officers to be on check, if you know that somebody is watching you somewhere, you will always do the right thing and this has increased our revenue” Muhammed concluded.
Meanwhile the Tin Can chapter chairman of the Association of Registered Freight Forwarders of Nigeria (AREFFN) Mr. Jude Ige, has lauded the terminal for improving in the area of vehicle handling.
He also said that the service has tried in the area of settling the differences in duty payments between Tin Can and PTML.
“Vehicle clearing in this terminal is seriously improving, the duty they give now is very considerable than before when the difference they will give you on the same car in Tin Can and PTML ports will be different. Now they are balancing the duty and people are gradually getting used to it now” he concluded.
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