Vincent Toritseju

Lagos — Despite a drop in cargo throughput, the Apapa Command of the Nigeria Customs Service yesterday said that it collected N1,023 trillon for the first half of the year spanning January to June 2024.

Disclosing this to newsmen in Lagos, the Area Controller in charge of the command, Comptroller Babatunde Olomu said that the command equally made seizures of eleven containers comprising of prohibited items such as expired and unregistered pharmaceuticals, footwear, used clothing, armored cables, frozen poultry products with a Duty Paid Value of N424,105,975.00 as against 42 seizures with a DPV of N1.4 billion made in the corresponding period in 2023.

Compt Olomu said “Whereas this collection is coming despite a sharp reduction in the volume of trade, it is necessary to note that extra measures have been put in place to prevent losses of government revenue.

“Upon taking over as Area Controller of Apapa, I set up a revenue recovery committee comprising of seasoned and dedicated officers with a mandate to carry a out more detailed look into areas of leakages, especially in bonded terminals under Apapa Command.

We are applying a blend of intelligence with community relations for better awareness of our operating environment to achieve greater trade facilitation and fight criminality.

I want to use this medium to register our utmost appreciation to the Comptroller

General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi MFR dsm psc (+) and the entire Management team for providing us with the needed support and leadership in discharging our responsibilities.

Finally, I want to thank officers and men of the command for their resilience, our stakeholders for their support and urge that we continually work together to achieve a better second half for 2024. The contributions of our compliant importers, exporters, licensed customs agents, freight forwarders, members of the media and all other esteemed stakeholders is not going unnoticed. I commend you all.” Olomu concluded.