The Apapa Command of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has collected a total of N540,431,401,641 as revenue from January to July 2023.
Assistant Comptroller-General of Customs, Mohammed Auwal, who disclosed this recently at a farewell session with senior officers of the command, also sued for compliance as the bedrock of port efficiency.
ACG Mohammed, who until Friday July 28, 2023 was Customs Area Controller (CAC) of Apapa Command, lauded the revenue collection as an outcome of leakage prevention, zero compromise for duty evasion and due diligence in the face of reduced volume of trade.
While thanking the officers and stakeholders for their support , the ACG described the various interventions such as demand notices to recover identified shortfalls in revenue as helpful.
He specifically commended the N119,049,235,263 July 2023 collection, which is the highest monthly revenue made by the Command. The July revenue surpassed the previous record of N95billion collected in January and August 2022 as the highest monthly collection.
The newly promoted ACG thanked the officers, other government agencies, and members of the Apapa port community for their cooperation throughout his time as Area Controller.
According to him, the job of preventing prohibited items such as arms, ammunition, illicit drugs, and others under the import and export prohibition lists from entering or exiting the country through Apapa port was treated as a collective duty under his watch.
The ACG described inter-agency synergy and intelligence sharing as the first bold step in defeating criminals who seek to use ports for their unlawful activities.
According to him, “Compliance is one word that appeals to both government and private sector stakeholders because we are all governed by rules to which we owe duty to obey.”
“Apapa port holds potential to handle the highest volume of trade in West and Central Africa with the possibility of being a trade hub for seamless cargo movement if importers, agents, and freight forwarders comply by making sincere declarations and avoiding smuggling”.
The former Controller was officially decorated with his new ACG rank on Monday, July 31 2023, by the Ag. Comptroller-General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR in Abuja.
Mr. Abubakar Usman, Chief Superintendent of Customs and PRO, Apapa Command, revealed this information via a press statement earlier today.