TheCable

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has revealed that it made a revenue of not less than N77.9 billion in the first quarter of 2014 from duties, fees, and levies from consignees and their agents.

The service said that out of the revenue collected during the period, N41.7 billion was remitted to the federation account, while N36.2 billion was remitted to the non-federation account.

The figures, released in a revenue document by the NCS, show that N27.4 billion was collected in January, N23.8 billion was collected in February, and N26.7 billion in March.

A breakdown of the data showed that  N7.2 billion was collected on port levy, N1.4 billion on levy on sugar, N7.2 billion on wheat grain levy, and N1 million on flour levy. Also, N2.6 billion was collected from 100 per cent rice levy, N79.2 million from brown rice levy and N112.5 million from steel levy.

Furthermore, it was revealed that N41.7 billion of the revenue was received from 5 per cent Value Added Tax (VAT), while N131.8 million was from National Export Supervision Scheme (NESS).

Other special levies, which provided revenue during the period, according to NCS, are comprehensive the Import Supervision Scheme and ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme, which accounted for N10.5 billion and N6.3 billion, respectively.

A further analysis of the revenue figure showed that textile levy accounted for N24.1 million, N4.8 million from wine, cement levy, N274.9 million and N135 million from cigarette levy.

An independent agency under the supervisory oversight of the Nigerian Ministry of Finance, Customs is responsible for the collection of customs revenue collection and anti-smuggling efforts.