Nigeria’s financial woes continues after it emerged that banditry activities, especially in the North, has cut into revenue mop up from customs and excise duties, Truthlive.net has learnt.
This detail was revealed at a recent briefing by Nigeria Customs Service, Katsina Area Command, which, according to it, says it is experiencing a decline in revenue collection owing to incessant attacks by gunmen known as bandits in the area.
Similarly, the command during the period under review, between 1 July and 10 August, 2022, has collected a revenue of N99,777,343.
Wada Chedi, the Area Controller, Nigeria Customs Service in the state disclosed this to newsmen at a press briefing held in Katsina on Thursday.
Chedi said the activities of the bandits along the Jibia axis of the state have greatly hindered the collection duties of the service.
Katsina, like many other states in the North-west and a part of the North-central, has been witnessing series of bandits’ attacks that led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of many others.
Jibia, a border town in Katsina State, has also had its shares of such attacks despite the presence of heavily mounted security checkpoints on the road.
“Despite the security situation, his officers succeeded in seizing smuggled items worth N73,675,024 and collected N538,406,126 from export during the period under review”.
According to him, 10,827.40 metric tons of items such as cement, hibiscus flower, chilli pepper, animal feeds, tamarind, and beverages with a value of N538,406,126 were exported.
“We were also able to intercept different vehicles, including truck and grader caterpillar worth more than N45.5 million within the same period”.
“We also succeeded in seizing one used motorcycle with the duty value of N60,000 and also 447 bags of foreign rice worth more than N13.2 million”.
“We seized 337 cartons of Spaghetti worth more than N2 million, 32 cartons of Macaroni worth N192,000, 115 kegs of petrol and 89 kegs of diesel amounting to more than N1.7 million”.
“Other items seized include, 126 bags of 50kg and 25kg bags of foreign flour worth over N1.9 million and seven cartons of miky creamer milk worth N141,750,’’ the Customs boss said.