Vincent Toritseju
Lagos — The Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service, NCS, Mr. Adewale Adeniyi has said that lull in cargo throughput may affect its 2023 revenue target of N3.6trillion.
Adeniyi disclosed this weekend while Speaking to a group of protesting Customs agents saying that port business is not like it used to be as some of the terminals he visited were almost empty but for a large volume of accident vehicles.
Adeniyi also said increasing the country’s exports trade to shore up the Naira was the only way out of the economic crisis Nigerians are facing.
He explained that he visited some terminals, noting that the terminals were not what they use to be.
He said: “I walked almost one kilometer of the terminal, and the terminal is not what it used to be, the terminal is practically empty.
The vehicles that are there are also not the kinds of vehicles we use to see those days. Most the vehicles that I saw here are accident vehicles and there are so many implications for this.
For us, it is painting us because we are not going to get revenue that we need. Our revenue this year is N3.6trillion we cannot achieve N3.6trillion with what we are seeing here.
And the situation here is not different from other places. For you, I also know the implication, you are not having enough jobs that can keep you ‘Beleful’ I know that for sure. But we must ask ourselves why. Why is Customs duty high, has anything changed in Customs duty, the duty has not changed. The cost of goods has not changed, your insurance has not changed. If we are not deceiving ourselves, you know what has changed, it is the exchange rate and the last time I checked, Customs does not manufacture Dollar.
“What will bring Dollar for us is a collective action of all of us to reverse the trend we are currently having and that is the trend of overwhelming reliance on imports alone.
“We need to devout this kind of energy, this kind of concern that we are giving to imports, we need to channel it to exports so that we can earn foreign exchange for the country.
“So many other sectors of our economy, has to get this kind of concern. We must begin to carry placards to encourage exports, we must demonstrate that export must be encouraged. I do not see any of you taking action for exports that is what will bring food to our table. That is what will encourage more Dollars into our economy and that is what will help us to increase the value of the Naira.
“We need to understand that we have to be very deliberate about it, so it is not about those changes. It is about the fact that the economy is not doing enough to bring to in Dollar so that the value of the Naira will improve.
“It is a very simple concept and philosophy of international trade. Let trade be more evolving, let us also benefit from international trade. We should not just be bringing in, we must also learn to export to the rest of the world so that we can gain more Dollars into our economy.”
