The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has recorded its highest revenue collection ever with a total generated revenue of N1.01tn in the 2017 fiscal year.

Customs Public Relations Officer, Joseph Attah, said this during a media briefing held at the Customs headquarters in Abuja, Thursday.

He described the revenue performance as spectacular, noting that the N1.01tn was collected with about five working days to the end of the 2017 fiscal year.

Attah said the revenue collection for this year is N241.68bn higher than the target of N770.57bn set for the 2017 year

The actual revenue, according to him, is above the N898.67bn collected in 2016

He said the agency recorded the revenue collection despite the economic recession experienced earlier in the year with the low volume of imports which was caused by restrictions placed on 41 items from accessing the foreign exchange.

Attah said the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col Hameed Ali (Rtd), took some measures which included strategic redeployment of officers and men of the service, overhauling and retraining of operatives of the Customs intelligence unit and a regime of prompt reward for hard work and punishment for offenders
offenders to achieve the target.

He said through the anti-smuggling operations of the service, the agency recorded over 4,000 assorted seizures worth over N11bn in value.

The seizures, according to him, include 2,671 pump action rifles, dangerous drugs, rice and vehicles among others.

Report by Nnabuchi Nnabuchi