Since the confirmation last month of Adewale Adeniyi as the Comptroller-General of Customs, emerging news also indicates the urgency of implementing radical reforms to reposition the Nigeria Customs Service. On Wednesday, the service told senators that the government lost N1.3 trillion through waivers and concessions, amid reports of seizures of contraband and revenue collections and shortfalls by its various commands. Reports of endemic corruption persist. President Bola Tinubu’s ambitious economic turnaround programme must therefore include reforming the NCS.
With Tinubu’s backing, Adeniyi and Wale Edun, the Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, should strive hard to achieve this objective.
It is not an easy task as the service suffers from the prevailing national ills of poor administration, politicisation, corruption, and poor funding and equipping. In 2022, it fell short of its N3.1 trillion revenue target by over N400 billion, generating just over N2.64 trillion. It collected N2.23 trillion in 2021, N1.56 trillion in 2020, and N1.34 trillion in 2019 as revealed in the MoF website.
It has for years been the government’s second highest revenue collector after the Federal Inland Revenue Service.
Indeed, customs and excise are recognised as playing important roles in a country’s economy; levying taxes on trade, facilitating trade, and according to UNCTAD, engaging in “the protection of society against illegal trade, irresponsible business and dangerous products.”
The NCS proudly sets out to “excel in the efficient and timely collection of and accounting for revenue,” promoting trade facilitation, and protecting society. It also identifies its “core functions” as revenue collection, and the prevention and suppression of smuggling. Its “other functions” include a wide spectrum of trade promotion, and financial, cultural, health and security support services.
Its record has been mixed. While it has been a major revenue collector for the treasury, and frequently interdicts smugglers and seizes contraband, it is afflicted with many ills and has a poor reputation.
It is regularly in the news for alleged corruption by some of its personnel, abuse of procedures, collusion with smugglers, and sometimes, obstacles to trade instead of facilitators.
Scanners purchased for the service to help achieve the 48-hour goods clearance target don’t work, and many port insiders allege deliberate sabotage.
Worse, customs personnel have been involved in the extrajudicial killings of innocent Nigerians ostensibly while chasing smugglers. In a 2019 survey, the UNODC identified customs, police, the oil industry, and health and education workers as the main drivers of bribery in Nigeria. The World Bank, in an earlier 2018 report, ranked Nigeria 110th out of 167 countries regarding the efficiency of its customs service and border management services.
To realise the President’s eight-point economic revitalisation agenda, NCS needs to be radically reformed. Apart from personnel and leadership shortcomings, the service faces other challenges.
One is under-funding and lack of infrastructure; another is political interference, and the proliferation of government agencies at the ports that hinder customs work. These agencies number 22, according to shippers.
The NCS must adopt and maintain the latest technological equipment and do away with manual inspection of goods. The indiscriminate grant of waivers, exemptions and concessions by the government drains revenue and should be stopped. Such fiscal measures are carefully planned and judiciously applied elsewhere to stimulate the economy, not for politics or cronyism.
Training, retraining and merit-based recruitment should replace the existing nepotism and abuse of the federal character principle that have degraded the efficiency of the service for decades.
Edun and Adeniyi should work hard to efficiently fulfil the NCS’ three-fold mandate of collecting revenue, combating smuggling, and facilitating international trade. Adeniyi should stamp out corruption, and ensure the adoption of ICT in all customs operations.
