……..Hands over The Seized Fake Dollars to EFCC
The Nigeria Customs Service SEME Border Command generated a total sum of Three hundred and fifty-one Million , Ninety-Nine thousand , five hundred and Firty-one Naira , seventy-one kobo (N350,099,541.71)with a short fall of One hundred and five million,Ninety-Five Thousand, Seven hundred and Eight Naira, seventy-six kobo (N105,095,708.76) to the corresponding year of 2022.
During the briefing the Controller in charge of the Command Comptroller Dera Nnadi also handed over the fake seized 6Million dollars to the Economic and Financial Crimes commission EFCC at the Command conference room yesterday at SEME Border.
Comptrroller Nnadi explained the reasons to the deficit as the lull in activities during the cashless policy , wait by the traders for the outcome of election and majorly the unfriendly trade economic policy of the Republic of Benin which has constituted to the tariff barriers, and seek an urgent review .
The CAC had earlier in the year reiterated his worries about the negative effects of the economic policies of neighboring states on the optimal performances of Nigeria’s cross border trade.
He also lamented that competition between Dangote Cement being one of the major export product and regional brands accounted for the fall.
The Comptroller in his report announced that the Command made seizures of 2242 bags of r ice smuggled into the country , equivalent of 7 tankers of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) the seven tankers were made of 227,610 liters of PMS with DPV of N51,075,684 in the first quarter of the year.
He said that other items seized by the Command during the first quarter of the year includes 550 pieces of donkey skin with duty paid value (DPV) of N10,689,504; 6 Maltese International Passports with the same picture of a lady but with different names, 2 Senegalese International Passports.
Among the seized items were, “ 3 Togolese International Passports; Four (4) Republic of Benin International Passports, One (1) Republic of Niger International Passport and Ten (10) International Driving License of these various countries were seized and was handed over to the Nigeria Immigration Service on the orders of the CGC and in line with the Service desire to consolidate the synergy between NCS and partner agencies.
“Also seized by the Command is 1160 pieces of dead rats, 1102 pieces of dead tiny birds and 34 pieces of monkey skin and 14 parcels of cannabis sativa”..
His words “One of the core mandates of the Service in Seme as elsewhere is trade facilitation. The Command is conscious of its strategic location as the foremost frontier for trade and tourism in West and Central Africa particularly the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS) and the emerging African Continental Free Tade Area (AFCFTA).
“Nigeria has lots of potentials in both trade regimes considering its GDP, population and industrial capacity which is the highest in the West and Central Africa subregion and indeed Africa.
“However, I wish to repeat as I had earlier mentioned in my previous interactions with the media that the major source of revenue of the Command (import/export) have not been enhanced since the opening of the land Borders as directed by the Federal Government of Nigeria as the traders are still bracing with the challenges of having been out of business for over two years.
“Where few have embraced the reality of the circumstances, they have requested and appealed for a review of the process of obtaining approvals for re-exportation which requires that they go to Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning at Abuja for every application for re-exportation”.
