Comptroller-General of Customs, Wale Adeniyi (right) welcoming the Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Kashim Shettima (left) and Governor of Lagos state, Babajide Sanwo-Olu to the opening ceremony of the CG Conference in Lagos on Thursday
BY GODWIN OBI
The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Wale Adeniyi has revealed strategies which the service intends to utilize in realising its humongous N5trillion revenue target for year 2024.
Adeniyi while speaking at the ongoing CG Conference in Lagos on Thursday clarified that the target set for the service is N5trillion and not N6Trillion as it is being erroneously reported.
According to him, the service would rely on its data in order to realise the needed revenue and block every leakages that could affect its revenue.
Speaking, he said “The target set for us, to put it in proper perspective is N5trillion Naira. What I told the National Assembly is that if we get a number of things right within the policy environment, within the monetary framework, it is not impossible for us to make more than N5trillion.
“But officially, the target set for us is N5trillion, and we are looking at a number of strategies, one of them is the policy environment, the other is what we have done now.
“We are going to utilize, maximize the potential of data that we have. As Customs, we have a lot of data, trading, import, exports, declarations made, all these advises us on a number of areas which we may not have paid attention to. So, this is one of the strategies.
“We are also going to look at our processes, our procedures, and we see how we can streamline them, to make a quick turnaround of business and then facilitate trade.
“We are also going to launch a number of initiatives along with our partners, the World Customs Organization, and then making use of the tools that the new customs Act enables us to, so that we can do better in customs operations” Adeniyi revealed
Speaking on 24hours port operations which the customs kick-started at the Lagos Port recently, the Customs CG said it is sustainable if all other operators key into the project.
According to him “24hours operation is a conversation that has started between us and all our partners, strategic partners, government agencies, non-government agencies, terminal operators.
“We believe it is possible for us to achieve 24 hours clearance, but we know that we cannot do it alone. Customs cannot do it alone, even with the best of technology and all of that, we will still have to rely on terminal operators to bring down containers, to position them.
“We will have to rely on scanners, we will have to rely on shipping machines. We have to rely on trucks to move containers that have been moved. We have to rely on the roads, if the roads are not good, access roads are not good, if all these other things happening around the ports and the borders are not addressed we might not be able to achieve it.
“So, this is why on this conference, we have designated a particular session where we are going to talk to all of the stakeholders that are involved and then we will deliberate on what we can do” he said
Adeniyi said the CG Conference is supposed to be held every year in order to “take stock of what we have done, evaluate where we did well, identify where we did not, and then try and see what we can do better in the next few years.
“Over the years, the mandate of customs has undergone a lot of transformation. The environment is very dynamic, things change all the time.
“Twelve years ago, data was not as important or as critical as it is today. So, technology keeps changing rapidly and this is why we felt that we needed to pick on a particular subject matter like data and see how we can maximize its potential for customs operations”
ADVERTISEMENTS
Pythrocin distributed by Pinnacle Health Pharmaceuticals Ltd
