The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has announced that it has started working closely with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to achieve a stable exchange rate for imports. This move aims to address the frequent distortions in business planning caused by fluctuations in exchange rates over the past few months.
At a press conference in Abuja to mark his one-year anniversary in office, Comptroller-General (C-G) of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, highlighted the NCS's significant revenue growth over the past year.
The service generated a total of N4.49 trillion in revenue between June 2023 and May 2024, representing a remarkable 74% growth compared to the N2.58 trillion collected during the corresponding period of the previous year.
The revenue growth was driven by a sustained increase of 70.13% in average monthly revenue collection compared to the previous year. The NCS recorded an average monthly revenue collection of N343 billion, compared to the N202 billion monthly average.
Additionally, there was a substantial 122.35% rise in revenue collection during the first quarter of 2024 compared to the same period in the previous year.
The gains were attributed to several key initiatives, including the recovery of N15 billion through the Revenue Review Performance Recovery exercise, N2.79 billion from the regularisation of uncustomed vehicles, and N1.5 billion from the decongestion of overtime containers and vehicles from the port. The NCS also recorded a daily All-Time-High of N58.5 billion in revenue collection on June 13, 2024.
Adeniyi emphasized the importance of deploying officers to sensitive posts based on merit and capacity, which he said was key to the service's performance.
He also highlighted the decongestion of ports and the re-opening of previously inaccessible access roads as crucial trade facilitation measures.
