Senate begins probe of Customs

The Senate Committee on Customs and Excise has commenced a probe into the activities of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) in order to block all revenue leakages.

It was learnt that the committee would look into ways of increasing revenue generation capacity. The Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Hope Uzodimma, said that service should generate enough revenue to fund the nation’s budget.

During its oversight visit to the NCS headquarters in Abuja, the chairman expressed displeasure at a report by the Federal Ministry of Finance, which indicated that the NCS had generated less than N400 billion so far in 2016.

Also, Uzodinma said that the Senate would remove all obstacles to enable it function effectively.

The committee had asked NCS till Friday, October 28, 2016 to submit the documents and answer all the queries posed.

It sought to know how the seven per cent Negotiable Duty Credit was managed and how the service handled seized cargoes and overtime cargoes.

Uzodinma was not happy over the inability of the service to collect duty from oil companies, promising that a legislation to review the law would be initiated.

The Comptroller general of the Service, Hameed Ali assured that the NCS would give full cooperation to the committee. He directed NCS officials to provide the committee with all the information and documents it required.