16 May 2014, Abuja – The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has threatened to reveal the identity of revenue defaulters in its system. It said will also make public the list of beneficiaries of duty payment concessions who default in honouring their obligations.
Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Inde Dikko Abdullahi stated this in Abuja while reviewing the activities of the Revenue Recovery Team(RRT) set up to address dwindling revenue.
According to him, defaulters include importers who were given various forms of deferred payment concessions to avoid accumulation of demurrage and facilitate trade.
Others in this category had un-utilised Risks Assessment Reports (RARs) still hanging in the system long after the departure of the three service providers who issued them during their dispensation.
“We can no longer tolerate them abusing the privilege. We are reminding the banks that their bonds were provided to guarantee payment of Customs duty. We have given defaulters only one week to pay all outstanding duties, failure of which their names will be published
in the national dailies.”
Abdullahi also directed that the bank bonds secured to cover the defaulting transactions be converted to duty payments at the expiration of the grace period. Within the first month of RTT’s activities, a total of N 2.5 billion have been recovered from unpaid assessments and un-utilised
RARs.
On temporary importation (TI), a total of N1.6 billion outstanding has been established against 3 beneficiaries who contravened the regulations. The defaulting beneficiaries applied for and enjoyed TI concession while they had active Forms M and RARs against their names.
The team has over 2000 companies under investigation. Transactions of RARs and unpaid assessment of these Companies are undergoing a comprehensive audit to confirm evidence of RAR utilization and duty payments.
– This Day
