CUSTOMS RAKES N185BN IN FIRST QUARTER OF 2012

THE Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has collected a total of N185 billion  from its 30 area commands across the country for the first quarter of 2012, an indication that its N1 trillion revenue target for the year may not be realisable.

Although, the collection  for the first quarter of this surpassed the same period of last year, there are factors that are currently militating  against the realisation of the over N1trillion target.

Statistical figure made available to Vanguard showed that the premier Commands in Apapa  area one  collected the highest revenue of N27billion for  the first quarter  which was closely followed by Tin-Can Island Customs Command with a collection of N22billion.

For Port Harcourt area one and the PTML commands, N10billion and N7.5billion was collected respectively for the period under review, while the KLT command in Lagos collected N5billion  as first quarter revenue collection.

N359million, N10million and N40million were collected by the Abia, Adamawa and Borno\Yobe commands respectively for the same of 2012, as against  Bauchi command's collection of N10million.

Although, no revenue collection was  recorded for the Federal operation Units (FOUs) for the first quarter of 2012  but the commands in Cross River, Edo\Delta, Enugu\Anambra  and Kano\Jigawa collected  N1.5billion, N4.6billion, N2billion and N350million respectively.

For Katsina\Kaduna command, the sum of N800million was realised as revenue collected for the fir first quarter of the year while N1billion was collected by the FCT  Abuja command.

The Lagos Industrial area and the Lilypond commands both raked in a total of N3.5billion and N5billopn  while MMIA an the Niger\Kogi commands collected the sums of N4.5billion and N30million respectively.

A further breakdown of the figure showed that  the Ogun, Ondo and Oyo\Osun commands collected a total of N800million, N25million and N3.5billion as  revenue for period under review.

For the Port Harcourt area one, Plateau and Seme commands N4billion, N16.3million and N700million was realised as revenue collected for the first quarter of 2012.