Seme border is no longer safe for smugglers, especially those who hitherto used the very strategic border to illegally bring in fairly-used vehicles into Nigeria, so says the command’s controller; Comptroller Victor Dimka.
Apparently satisfied with what the transformation in the command since he assumed office, Comptroller Dimka told members of management of the command at a recent meeting at Seme, that “illegal importation of fairly-used vehicles through the command has been curtailed’’.
He added that seizures of illegally imported fairly used vehicles now account for more than 50% of the command’s total revenue.
According to him, Seme Command has collected N3, 265,335,939.89 between January and April,2016 ‘’despite the dwindling economic activities and challenge of high exchange rate on the importation of general goods into the country’’.
Between January and April, 2016, Seme Command recorded 221 seizures with a total Duty Paid Value of N180,847,967.60, while 17 suspects were arrested and are currently facing prosecution. Highlighting the importance of making seizure with suspects, the Comptroller said that ‘’we must continue to send the right signal to discourage other people from indulging in the act of smuggling.’’
He also seized the opportunity of the meeting to re-iterate his commitment to ‘’strict implementation of the government fiscal policies and the extant laws that govern the day to day operation of the service at the international border’’.
On the command’s performance in the area of revenue collection, Dimka acknowledged that there is a down turn, but disclosed that despite the down turn in the volume of importation that has affected the command’s revenue generation negatively, ‘’the clear records of our activities in effective trade facilitation, drastic suppression of smuggling and securing the international border of any trans -border crimes must be seen to be in total compliance to our books of instructions that guide the discharge of our statutory responsibilities.’’
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