MINISTER of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed on Friday declared that delayed hike of value-added tax (VAT) and excise duty rates will be effected soon as the economy improved.
Speaking during a visit to the headquarters of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) ìn Abuja, she also contradicted some Nigerians and other international agencies who have lamented the country’s growing debt figures.
According to her, the government had considered raising VATA, Excise Duty and also include more items on the Excise Duty list.
However, this was put on until the economic condition improves.
On debt, Ahmed said it only appears high because of current low revenue profile.
She emphasised the importance of improving revenue generation, to achieve economic programmes government.
“People have raised concerns about our debt profile, but we do not have a debt problem.
“Our Debt ratio to GDP is still below 3 per cent, which is the threshold set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act.
“What we have is a revenue problem. We don’t have the revenue to pay salaries, to meet the recurrent as well as the capital expenditure,” she said.
Ahmed said that the functions of the Nigeria Customs Service in regard to revenue generation were key to the success of the Buhari Administration
Ahmed also told the Customs Comptroller General and his team, that she would look into the salary structure of the Service as a way of incentivising the officers.
Earlier, Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) had detailed the reforms he had undertaken to improve revenue generation.
Some of them include investing in training schools to improve the capacity of its officers; deployment of technology in blocking avenues of revenue
leakages among others While highlighting challenges, Ali explained that the poor salary structure of the Service was a huge disadvantage.
“Compared to other revenue generation agencies like the FIRS and NNPC, we earn the least.
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“Someone in FIRS earns at least three times what a Customs officer earns and for NNPC, you can all imagine how much they earn.
“We have lost 36 officers fighting smugglers. The work of the Customs service is very intense, yet we don’t get enough compensation,” he said.
Ìn addition, there Customs boss Ali appealed for the procurement of three scanners to be deployed to the major ports in the country.
He said that this would ensure proper screening of goods coming into the country.
It should be recalled that NCS was recently declared as one of the worst performing customs service organisations in the world partly because it inspects manually.
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