Senate Decries ‘Corruption’ In Customs, Probes N4trn ‘Revenue Leakage’

The Nigerian Senate has commenced probe into alleged N4 trillion revenue leakage in the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

According to its committee on customs, excise and tariff, the investigation seeks to uncover money allegedly lost due to abuse and non-implementation of form M (Foreign Exchange forms) between 2006 and 2016.

Chairman of the committee, Hope Uzodinma, made this known on Sunday in an interview with journalists in Abuja.

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“The senate committee on customs has condemned the inability of the technical committee on the implementation of comprehensive import supervision scheme to ensure that provisions of import control management Act are followed to the latter,” Uzodinma said.

“The committee frowns at the quantum of revenue losses and it will stop at nothing in ensuring that those involved in this ugly act return all recoverable monies with them.

“The committee also frowns at the level of collusion and corruption within the customs service.

“At the end of our current investigation, all these will become a thing of the past and customs revenue will be enhanced while non-oil revenue will be improved upon.

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“What we are investigating is not money spent, it is the leakages.

“For instance, I am supposed to pay XYZ amount of duty, I will abandon the documentation, go get fake documents, collude with customs, pay maybe a fraction of it and carry my goods. With that, the true import circle is not closed.

“Another instance is that assessment is abandoned or I fill the form M for example with a pro forma invoice, apply for foreign exchange in Central Bank, XYZ amount of money is allocated to me, money moves in but no goods shipped.

“I will then go get fake documents, collude with customs and then retire the allocation.”

“We will not mention the companies involved because we are also very careful of the integrity and public perception of some of these companies, because some of them are in the stock market,” he said.

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“We will be diplomatic in carrying out this investigation.

“This is to the extent that little or no damage will be done to the integrity and image of such companies provided that government revenues in their hands will be recovered.”

“I am sure that the executive arm of government will be willing and interested to ensure that the monies that are littered here and there are recovered,” he said.

Uzodinma further described the new customs policy that seeks payment of duties on old vehicles as “anti-people” policy.

He noted that the Customs had overstepped its boundaries by introducing the policy.

The lawmaker added that the power to make policies for the customs service rests solely with the ministry of finance.

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“Having gone through the legislation and books available to my office as it has to do with the administration of the customs service, it only implements policies made by the ministry of finance,” he said.

“So, it sounds very strange to hear that customs get up and says they are making a policy.

“That is what I am yet to understand and there is no way to fathom that before the law.

“The referral is already before us. I was waiting for him (Customs CG) to appear before the senate before we commence a full blown investigation into some of those issues that have been referred to us.

“Concerning the suspended policy on payment of customs duties on old vehicles, the committee will continue to interface with the service to ensure that the policy is cancelled, not suspended.

“The whole idea is about governance and governance is about the people and nobody is licensed or entitled to talk about the people more than the elected representatives.

“So in my view there is no hullabaloo. We will discuss with them and wise reasoning will prevail,” he said.

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