Customs Generates N3.5bn In 3 Months, Seizes Foreign Rice

The Kwara State Command of the Nigeria Customs Service has between January and March, 2023 generated the sum of N3,566,997,587.12.

The command also seized some prohibited items, including 451 bags of foreign rice during the period.

The new customs area controller for Kwara Command, Comptroller Kehinde Ilesanmi, disclosed this to newsmen during a briefing on the activities of the command in the first quarter of 2023 in Ilorin, the state capital, yesterday.

“A comparative analysis with the preceding year 2022 indicates that we have surpassed revenue collected in the same period last year 2022 with N779,992,680.64,” Ilesanmi disclosed.

The area controller said the command made 23 seizures of different items during the period under review.

The seizures made by the men of the command included 873 kegs of petroleum of 25 liters each which is about 21, 825 liters of PMS, six units of used vehicles, 451 bags of foreign parboiled rice (50kg each), 23 bales of secondhand clothing, one motorcycle used in conveying petroleum.

Ilesanmi added: “ The cumulative duty paid value (DPV) for all the above seizures is N34, 797, 020. This surpasses the duty paid value (DPV) of seizures made in the first quarter of 2022 with N25, 628, 520.”

He said in line with the extant laws and standard operational procedure (SOP), most of the inflammable products have been auctioned to the members of the public, adding that the amount generated as fees has been remitted into the government coffers.

The area controller warned smugglers and would-be smugglers to keep away from the length and breadth of Kwara Command or be ready to face the full wrath of the law.

He added that the leadership of Nigeria Customs Service under the comptroller-general of customs Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (rtd) remains unrelenting in the bid to continue to foil, frustrate and deplete the activities of economic saboteurs.

In line with this, Ilesanmi said the Kwara command through its renewed strategies has continued to achieve increased blockage of revenue leakages and preventing the smuggling of prohibited imported items.

“The command under my leadership will not negotiate the CGC’s zero tolerance to acts of economic sabotage. Smuggling in whatever form is an act of economic sabotage and the Command would ensure that it pursues smugglers to their trenches,” Ilesanmi warned.