The Zone C Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Port Harcourt, has lamented that under-utilisation of ports under the zone, concession on selected food items as well as other challenges have been affecting its revenue generation.

The Zonal Coordinator, Zone C, ACG Sambo K. Dangaladima and the Area Comptroller, Area 1 Command of the NCS, Mustapha Hashim, disclosed this in their separate addresses before the chairman and members of the House Committee on Customs and Excise who were on an oversight visit to the command on Wednesday.

Mustapha Hashim while presenting the Command’s performance details, disclosed that the command lost N34 billion in revenue in five months – from August to December 2024 – as a result of concession on selected food items by the federal government.

He said that despite the challenges, the command has a target of N128 billion from January-December 2023 and a target of N184 billion from January-December 2024 which indicated an increase of the 2023 target by N56 billion representing 43.7%.

He however informed that, the command generated N116 billion from January-December 2023 and N200 billion from January-December 2024, exceeding the 2023 revenue generation by N84 billion, representing 72% increment.

Comptroller Hashim added,” The command has also generated over N128 billion from 1st to 22nd April, which has already exceeded the N17.4 billion collected in April 2024.”

Earlier, the Zonal Coordinator, Zone Area Command, ACG Sambo K. Dangaladima, stated that underutilisation of ports under Zone C, coupled with poor road networks from ports to other parts of the region are some of the challenges of the command.

[DailyTrust]