According to the Senate Committee on Customs, the Nigeria Customs Service‘s (NCS) revenue target for the second half of 2024 must be increased for the federal government to meet its debt obligations.
Customs currently targets N5 trillion for the fiscal year 2024.
Speaking in Abuja on Monday at a meeting with Adewale Adeniyi, comptroller-general of the NCS, and the service’s management, Isah Jibrin, chairman of the Senate Committee on Customs, said the federal government needed to reduce the number of loans it took.
Jibrin said:
“Nigeria is saddled with a lot of debt obligations, and we need to wriggle ourselves out of that trap and one of the ways to do that is internally generated revenue.”
“Customs is one of the major providers of internally generated revenue and as it is today, we expect them to play one of the major roles in this drive to reduce our debt burden.
“We need to pay off what we owe now and minimise additional loans we are going to take.
“Customs is in a very good position, if they can block all perceived leakages, they should be able to generate a significant amount of income that will enable Nigeria to get out of debt, at least partially.”
The lawmaker stated that concessions should only be granted to specific sectors of the economy, such as solid minerals and agriculture.
He said:
“Concessions were in the interest of Nigeria to encourage importers who are going into specific areas in the economy.”
“There is a tradeoff here between importers and the country, particularly the things you think you are generating.”
According to Adeniyi, it is challenging to do “adequate planning” because of the exchange rate volatility.
“It is the mandate of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN to fix the rate, either the one we use during the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework, MTEF or the one we use for importation, or the one used for payment of customs duties,” the customs boss said.
“I have been in discussions with my minister. Perhaps, what you are going to advocate is that there would be a meeting point between authorities of government that are in charge of monetary policy and those in charge of fiscal policies.”