The Strike Force unit, Zone ‘A’ of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), says it has recovered over N1.104 billion for the Federal Government in the last six months of the year.
The sum, according to the unit, was recovered from Debit Notes (DN) raised from importers of cargo, who tried to short-change the government by paying fewer import duties to Customs commands at the nation’s seaports.
Abba Kakudi, coordinator of the Strike Force, who made this known in a statement sent to newsmen, said the unit recovered the revenue from seizures made between January 1 and June 11, 2020, despite the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected the movement of goods.
According to him, the Strike Force team has given a hard chase to smugglers who were desperate to unleash economic dislocation on the country, and this has enabled the team to make tremendous seizures in the period under consideration.
“Our seizures include; 1000 bags of 50kg foreign parboiled rice with the Duty Paid Value (DPV) of 13.252 million, 10 tokunbo vehicles with DPV of N31.184 million, and 30 bales of second-hand clothing with DPV of N2.160 million. It is important to say that in order to help the economy grow, there is no need to import what we can produce here in Nigeria or bringing in prohibited items,” Kakudi said while giving the details to the seizures.
He further stated that the Federal Government has encouraged a lot of rice farmers in the country, and local rice is now being produced in large quantities, which is even healthier than foreign rice. He however advised traders to avail themselves the opportunity to market indigenous products in such a way that it would help to grow the economy.
“In a bid to police the smugglers from bringing in these prohibited products, our officers face a lot of dangers as most of the smugglers are armed, sometimes not necessarily with rifles but matchets, charms, and other dangerous weapons, but we are not overwhelmed. This ugly situation is experienced more around the creeks where inhabitants mobilise some under-aged people against us, to the extent of calling our officers names as well as stoning them,” he said.
Kakudi, therefore, appealed to those who believed that smuggling is very lucrative to desist from it as Customs would always be a step ahead in all their plots and strategies. “A smuggler is an economic saboteur and such trade cannot be the best means of livelihood due to inherent dangers as well as losses to those behind it.”
He lamented that smuggling ruins the economy of any nation, adding that a lot of incentives have been provided by the Federal Government to revamp the nation’s economy.
While warning importers and agents against aiding and abetting smuggling business, he commended the Comptroller General of the Customs, Hameed Ali (Rtd) for providing all the required logistics for the unit to function well.
