FG Approved Purchase of Scanners for Nigerian Ports

Zion Olalekan |

The Customs Area Controller in Charge of Apapa Port Command, Bashir Abubakar, has revealed that the federal government has approved the purchase of new scanners for examination of cargoes in major customs ports, an official said.

Abubakar stated this while honouring some officers of the Command for diligence in the discharge of duties.

Mr Abubakar said efforts put towards securing the scanners have started yielding results.

“I want (you) to understand one thing; operations in the ports are multidimensional. The issue of security of the nation cannot be toyed with. We are talking to different government functionaries to get us scanners.

“Right now, the service is doing it best. I am happy the government has approved the purchase of new scanners to major customs commands,” he said.

While reviewing the command’s last year performance, Mr Abubakar said they generated N404 billion as revenue in 2018, an increase of N53 billion from the 2017 figure.

He also said he introduced a 24-hour dispute resolution team, one spot examination at all unit and agencies, and strategies such as advanced system and monitoring, collaboration between internal and external units of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), and other government agencies.

He said the implementation of these strategies had helped to block most revenue leakages and enhance trade facilitation and security.

In the area of anti-smuggling, Mr Abubakar said, “In the year under review, the command also seized and condemned 41 of 40ft containers or controlled pharmaceutical drugs including tramadol in excess of the allowable milligrams with Duty Paid Value (DPV) N8.812 billion.

“Furthermore, the command also intercepted and seized one export-bound used helicopter with registration number 5BN valued at N210.6 million, in addition, another import bound Aircraft “Cessna 182A” in CKD with serial no. 3400 valued at N486.9 million was also seized in accordance with the provision of the extant laws and guidelines.

“All these times were seized owning to various infractions such as false declaration, concealment and complete disregard to import and export guidelines,”

He said the command recorded high level of compliance on export declaration while 2,500 containers were blocked for non-compliance.

Mr Abubakar said his command recorded 1,26649.67 metric tons of exported good in 2018 valued $239,467,926.23 which was equivalent to N73.157 billion.

He noted that the command’s achievement in 2018 earned them the World Customs Organisation (WCO) award during the WCO day in January 2019.