A former chairman of Nigerian Bar Association, Olisa Agbakoba, Friday, tasked the newly-appointed Comptroller-General of Customs, Hameed Ali, on the need to secure the nation’s borders against smuggling.
Mr. Agbakoba, who gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, said the task of ensuring a well-secure border was critical to the growth of the economy.
According to him, every other important assignment being carried out by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) will have a base in a secure border.
“The new CGC must have as paramount, the task to ensure a secure border because it is on that basis that the local economy can grow.
“He needs to do this, to restore confidence in the customs because there is no confidence in them now,’’ Mr. Agbakoba said.
He said that a secure border would encourage investments, wherein people would be confident that sub-standard smuggled goods would not chase them out of business.
On the issue of revenue generation, Mr. Agbakoba said the new CGC should ensure that the revenue was enhanced.
He added that the customs service should be able to generate up to N3 trillion from about N1 trillion that it currently declares.
Mr. Agbakoba said that achieving enhanced revenue would mean plugging off all revenue leakages. (NAN)
