Nigeria Customs appoints TAJBank as duty-collecting bank …

Seizes 48 bags of marijuana worth N244m

Chinazor Megbolu

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has appointed TAJBank as the receiving agent for the Federal Government agency.

TAJBank, an innovative non–Interest financial institution in a statement on Tuesday disclosed the recent appointment as a receiving agent by the NCS.

The statement hinted that with the appointment, TAJBank will be responsible to serve as the official agent for the NCS for the collection of all forms of revenues of the agency.

The bank stated that it is committed to deploying cutting edge information technology towards expanding the revenue collection platforms of the NCS.

“This will be achieved through provision of various e-based options to be made available to revenue payers. This model is expected to ease revenue collection and boost the Federal Government’s revenue drive,” the statement said.

The statement, however, buttressed that the bank will foster a mutually rewarding relationship with the NCS in the nearest future.

“The NCS was established as an independent customs service under the supervisory oversight of the Nigerian Ministry of Finance. The NCS is responsible for the collection of customs revenue and anti-smuggling efforts,”

the statement said.

Moreover, the statement also noted that the Bank has major plans for expanding across Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the NCS, Kwara State Command has announced a seizure of over 48 bags of Marijuana, also known as Indian Hemp worth duty paid value of over N244 million recently from smugglers in the border towns of the State.

The state Controller of the NCS, Mr. Hussain Bello Ahmed disclosed this in Ilorin on Tuesday while handing over the items to the state Commandant of the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Mr. Ambrose Umar, at Ilorin.

According to him; “when I assumed office, we have engaged traditional rulers, teeming youths and other critical stakeholders on the dangers of smuggling most especially dangerous drugs such as Marijuana, tramadol, and others.

“As part of our efforts to reduce the ugly trend of drug consumption in the state, we have made seizures of 48 sacks containing 3,593kg of Marijuana without any suspect as smugglers abandoned the drugs on sighting officers of the command with the duty paid value at N237,138,000.

“And another separate seizure of 129kg of Marijuana with a duty paid value of N7,740,000 were also recorded which brought the total paid value seized drugs to N244,878,000”.

He maintained that the consignments were at different times seized from smugglers along Bokoro in Baruten local government and along Ilorin/Jebba road in Moro local government areas of the State.

Ahmed, however, noted that the suspects on sighting the customs officers on patrol abandoned the sacks and fled.