By Haruna Salami
In a bid to curtail the declining revenue collection by the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff has summoned the Comptroller General of Customs to appear before it and explain why they (Customs) got to where they are today.
Speaking at the committee’s inaugural meeting, Thursday, the committee chairman, Sen. Francis Alimikhena said their mandate is to unearth shading practices going in customs if any and block leakages in customs revenue collection among other things.
“We are here to draw our work plans for the next four years; we are here to stop the leakages in Customs revenue collection.
“In order to achieve that we have resolved to summon the CG to appear before us,” he said.
The committee wondered “why Customs has become the number three revenue collector of Nigerian government behind FIRS and NNPC, despite the fact that they are the only agency that collects excise duties,” Sen. Alimikhena queried.
However, he noted that where Customs do well they are going to commend them and where the fail, the committee won’t hesitate to reprimand them.
It will be recalled that Customs over the years has being the number one agency with the highest revenue generation in the country, but suddenly has dropped to number three places behind the FIRS and the NNPC, a situation Sen. Alimikhena led 9th Assembly Senate committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff has found worrisome and it’s ready to unearth the brain behind that.
In 2017 the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff had a serious altercation with the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd), over his refusal to wear customs uniform before appearing to the committee.