Cargo scanners increased Customs revenue at Onne Port - Customs Boss

Abiola Seun

The Onne Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), yesterday said the deployment of cargo scanners at the port has increased duty collected on cargoes imported to the port.

Speaking to newsmen, the Customs Area Comptroller of the Command, Compt. Auwal Mohammed also disclosed that the command collected a total of N128billion as revenue from January to September 2021.

The Area Controller expressed optimism that more revenue collection, increased trade facilitation and time saving advantages will be achieved in the command with the introduction of recently procured mobile scanner.

He said, “before the arrival of the scanner, examinations of cargoes were usually done manually and physically, whereby containers were positioned by the terminal operators.

” Then, gang of labourers will discharge the goods before Customs and other agencies will carry out the examination. Customs must also cut off the seal manually. This takes time because of the unpacking of the goods in the container,” he explained.

He stated further that virtually everything in the container must be moved out of the container and then taken back into the container before examination is concluded, which makes the process cumbersome and time consuming.

“With the coming of the scanner, which is a non-intrusive apparatus, cargo examination will now be conducted with the use of x-ray.

“We can now double our daily containers examination which saves time, increases revenue, detects infractions easily and facilitate trade,” Mohammed said.

The command also said it collected a total of N128billion as revenue from January to September 2021.

According to the Customs boss, the revenue collected this year is higher than amount collected in Q3, 2020 by N46billion.

A comparative breakdown of the third quarter collections between 2020 and 2021 indicated steady increases which contributed in the cumulative 55.4 percent difference.

For July, August and September 2020, the Command collected N10.9billion, N12.2billion and N13.1billion respectively which were overtaken by 2021 figures of N14billion, N17.8billion and N18.2billion respectively.

Mohammed attributed the steady monthly increases to volume of trade, strict adherence to extant customs procedure, blocking of possible areas of revenue leakages and zero tolerance for infractions capable of undermining national economy and security.

Compt. Mohammed’s improved interface with stakeholders in an enhanced Customs community relations system has also paid off with remarkable degrees of compliance by the port users in Onne.

On anti-smuggling activities, the Command made 29 seizures totalling N9.8billion within the period under review.

The breakdown of the seized items is as follows: 3,057 bags of 50 kg rice; 89 bales and 3,200 pieces of textile fabrics; 37 cartons and 4,824 pieces of wine/alcoholic beverages; 1,650 cartons of tomato paste; 7,560 pieces of raw hides/unprocessed leather; 2,230 cartons of beers/spirits; 1,387 cartons of Tramadol; and 124 cartons of tapentadol.

Other seizures made include: 2 units of used Mitsubishi buses; 210 bales of second hand clothing; 4,029 pcs of used tyres; 16 units of used engine gear box and auto spare parts ;310 pallets of laser ketchup; 956 Jerrycans of 25litres of vegetable oil; 750 cartons of supergold candle; 2,970 cartons of foreign soap; and 500 cartons of medicaments.