BY Busola Aro
Hammed Ali, the comptroller-general of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), says the agency’s modernisation project, also known as e-customs, will commence soon, regardless of controversies.
Ali spoke to journalists on Tuesday at a mentorship lecture organised for the newly recruited customs officers in Lagos.
In April, the federal executive council (FEC) approved the modernisation project, despite a court order barring implementation.
The comptroller-general, however, said the public-private partnership (PPP) project would commence soon as concessionaires have invested over $300 million into it.
“Government won’t take anything out of its budget, their (concessionaires) repayment will come from customs collection and we will finance this to get more revenue,” Ali said.
“They will deploy their money and they have to recoup their money. As of today, they have put over $300 million on the ground to be able to get to where we are.
“We laid the foundation for the modernisation because we needed a more rigorous modernisation project process whereby in the course of doing our transaction, it must get to a point that we are at par with best customs administrations, and most customs administrations today are working on a paperless process.”
Speaking more on the process, Ali said the agency “went through the rigours of getting concessionaires, and along the course of the process there are people who dropped out for whatever reasons”.
He said the customs embarked on the process to ensure it “came to reality and today it’s a reality”.
Also reacting to allegations that some officers were not carried along in the course of the project, Ali said the top customs management staff gave their full support.
“I have seen reports of officers not being carried along. That is a lie because we have done all the sensitisation to carry all our officers along and I can assure you that all officers in active service are in tune with this concept,” the comptroller-general said.
“they have imbibed it and all senior officers are in tune with this modernisation.
“There are so many stories about court cases, about wasting $3.62 billion but it’s a PPP project. These guys will earn their money from what we collect and not that the government will take anything out of its pocket. It will come from customs collection.”
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