In a radical move that took career officers by surprise, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Hameed Ali, a retired colonel with a steely mien, as the new Comptroller-General of Customs last month. He replaced Abdullahi Dikko, who voluntarily retired from service shortly after Buhari assumed office. Ali’s choice suggests that something is inherently amiss in the system.
During his maiden meeting with management of the Nigerian Customs Service, he unfolded his three-pronged action plan as given to him by the President. He said, “The mandate he has given me are three basic things: go to Customs, reform Customs, restructure Customs, and increase the revenue generation, simple. I don’t think that is ambitious; I don’t think that is cumbersome. It is precise and I believe that is what all of you are here to do.”
The NCS is a critical revenue collection agency; it collects import and excise duties and other cross-border trade levies. According to its performance scorecard, between August 2009 and August 2011, it collected N1.13 trillion into all Government Accounts. In 2014, it generated N977.09 billion, which was N223 billion lower than the N1.2 trillion target set by the Federal Government. The major revenue collector, the Federal Inland Revenue Service, generated N4.69 trillion within the same period, surpassing its target by about N400 billion, just as it had made N4.8 trillion in 2013.
Over the years, government had carried out a series of reforms at the NCS aimed at enabling it to discharge its statutory obligations efficiently. A presidential task force was set up in 2009 for this purpose. And under Dikko, it carried out the automation of the clearing process, recruited 5,000 personnel in 2009; an additional 2,800 in July 2011 and purchased 400 operational vehicles.
It also reduced abuse of the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme through site visits to factories in member countries to ascertain the eligibility of products for lower import tariff in Nigeria and setting up of a special team in Lagos and Port Harcourt to investigate fraud cases, especially non-payment of appropriate duties, among other measures. Instructively, it made 9,497 seizures and 517 arrests for which N16.22 billion duty was paid.
In spite of these reforms, its operations are still steeped in massive corruption. Federal government’s high tariff regime has helped to worsen the situation, as many importers now prefer to route their goods through Cotonou ports in neigbouring Benin Republic, to the disadvantage of Apapa ports in Lagos. Most of these goods then enter Nigeria without the correct duties paid on them, with the connivance of Customs officials.
There have been embarrassing cases where Customs raided markets in towns in the hinterland in search of contraband that easily crossed our land borders, sea ports and airports, allowed in after officials at these duty posts must have been compromised. Referring to this band of bent officers, Dikko said, “A total of 74 officers and men had been handed various forms or punishment, ranging from reduction in rank to outright dismissal, during the period.” The cleansing mechanism should be deepened now in line with Ali’s presidential mandate.
More evidence that the country loses so much revenue to corruption in Customs was provided by John Atte, during his brief tenure as Acting CGC. He raised the average monthly revenue from N13 billion to N35 billion after he met with Area Comptrollers.
However, our considered view is that the success of Ali’s tenure should not be measured only by how much revenue or increase Customs might make, but by how well Nigeria’s economy and local jobs are protected. There is an import prohibition list, of which textile material is prominent. Imported from China and other Asian countries, these materials have destroyed the local industry.
Nigeria has a record job loss of 776,000 as a result, according to a former Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Samuel Ortom. As of 2013, he said, the industry which once provided 800,000 jobs had a paltry 24,000 left. In June this year, Customs officials, in one fell swoop, seized N315 billion textile materials in Kano, in an operation that saw the sealing off of 75 warehouses.
Dikko, still in charge then, recalled how “over 200 trailers loaded with contraband were burnt in Kano and over 400 others were burnt in Lagos State.” Economic sabotage of this nature negates attempts by the government and entrepreneurs to revive the textile subsector of the economy. Little wonder that the N100 billion Cotton, Textile and Garment bailout fund disbursed by the Bank of Industry has yet to produce any salutary effect.
On Ali’s watch, Customs could help the country in job creation and economic growth by ensuring strict enforcement of government’s import prohibition policy on frozen chicken, refined vegetable oils and fats, fruit juice in retail packs, water, bagged cement, soaps and detergents, sanitary wares, plastics and a series of medicaments, among others.
No meaningful economic progress can be made without a robust manufacturing sector. Buhari’s electoral victory was underpinned by three key promises: taming insecurity, corruption and providing jobs for the teeming unemployed youths. A revamped, efficient NCS can be a vehicle for this economic redemptive drive.
However, Ali should not be deluded into believing that he could achieve his three-point presidential mandate without a well-equipped workforce. They should also be better paid if they are to effectively checkmate our local and international economic predators.
