The Senate on Monday raised the 2025 revenue target of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to N10 trillion as against the N6.584 trillion the organisation originally set for itself.
The directive came as the Senate Committee on Customs chaired by Senator Isah Jibrin (Kogi-East), held a budget appraisal session with the management of the NCS at the National Assembly in Abuja.
The NCS management team led by the Deputy Comptroller-General, Jibo Bello, had told the panel that though Customs revenue target of N5.079trn in 2024, it surpassed it by more than N1trn.
This made the committee to encourage the agency to raise this year’s target to N10tn.
The agency’s proposed expenditure for this year is N1.132trn, a figure the committee immediately approved at the session for onward presentation to the Senate in plenary.
Making further remarks, Jibrin urged the agency to beef up its surveillance against illicit drugs and smuggling “to ensure that, as much as possible, you should be on top of your game.”
According to him, there is so much illicit drugs flowing all over the place, which “is contributing to the issue of banditry in Nigeria because most of these guys are on drugs.”
He added, “What I am saying is that, in addition to your revenue drives, you should also be mindful of some of these other functions.
“Then the issue of smuggling generally is also very important. So many items have been smuggled into Nigeria. And that shouldn’t be so. The President of the country did mention some time ago that we should eat or consume what we produce.
“The essence of that is that we should as much as possible curtail or reduce importation to the basics. Most of these items that are imported or smuggled into Nigeria can be produced comfortably here, even in their most crude form. Let’s consumed what we produce so as to conserve our foreign exchange earnings.
“By the time that is done and there is patronage of these, companies that are producing some of these items in Nigeria, a lot of employment opportunities will be generated; a lot of raw materials that are idling away all over the place will also be put into use.”
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