The Senate has mandated its Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariff to carry out holistic investigation into the activities of the Nigerian Customs Service with a view to identifying leakages, irregularities and the causes of the declining revenue profile of the Customs Service and come up with recommendations aimed at reinvigorating the revenue profile of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS).

The resolution came after Senate’s consideration of a motion titled ‘‘Urgent need to examine the operations of the Nigerian Customs Service Revenue Drive’’ sponsored by Sen. Isaac Mohammed Alfa (PDP:Kogi) where he noted that the revenue projections and targets of the Nigerian Customs Service had not been met in recent times despite multiple strategies and policy initiatives to improve revenue collection. He also emphasized NCS key function as a revenue generator for the Federal Government and that the NCS had recorded a revenue shortfall of N230 billion by the last quarter of 2015 with Tin Can Island and Apapa command recording a revenue shortfall of N2, 700,000,000 (Two Billion, Seven Hundred Thousand) and N2, 000,000,000 (Two billion) naira in the first quarter of 2016 respectively. In addition, Sen. Alfa attributed the revenue shortfall to unwholesome and fraudulent trade malpractices, under declaration, abuse of fiscal policies, concealment, over and under invoicing and false declaration of values. However, he reminded the Senate of its commitment to create an enabling environment through legislation for increased revenue generation by the NCS to fund the National budget.

Commenting on the motion, Senate President, Bukola Saraki (APC:Kwara), blamed the drop in revenue collection by the NCS to corruption and leakages in the NCS and called for a public hearing to examine existing laws in line with best practices.