Felix Kumuyi
Olomu’s Unending Groundbreaking Revenue Collection Trajectory at Apapa Customs
… Hits over N1.2Trillion in 7 Months
Comptroller (Dr) Babatunde Olomu fsi, CAC, Apapa Area One Command, NCS
Apapa Area One Command, the most beautiful bride customs formations of The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), has continued with remarkable achievements in terms of its mandates of revenue collection, anti-smuggling and facilitation of legitimate trade, to place the service at the top notch position of government’s dependent performing agencies of government.
In another impressive manner, the command recently disclosed a revenue generation feat of a whooping sum of over N1.2Trillion in seven (7) months (i.e January to July, 2024).
The Customs Area Controller (CAC), Comptroller Babatunde Olomu, Phd, fsi under whose watch this remarkable revenue collection feat was achieved has indeed proven to be a top notch customs leader as he has risen through remarkable antecedents in his leadership sojourn in the service leaving indelible marks in most headship positions he had undertook before attaining the present status to head the peak and the highest valued customs formations, the Apapa Area One Command.
His quest for operational remodeling at the command and the subsequent measures and policies undertaken to drive home his mission at the command, have earned him huge success making him the most revered and performed CAC in the history of the command to date.
For the records, under his watch, the command attained a groundbreaking revenue earning of over One Trillion Naira historic collection in the half year of 2024 (January to June) into the federal government coffers. Not done yet on this trajectory path, in the following seventh month (July) of the year, Olomu’s led Apapa Command through his advanced policy measure pull up another round of an unprecedented revenue collection monthly feat to instructively hit a N201,853,406,964.61, this making it the highest monthly revenue collection record in the history of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).
However, in a recent press briefing to give account of the Command’s performance under his stewardship in the last seven (7) months, Comptroller Babatunde Olomu fsi who is poised to break more records, on Wednesday disclosed that his led command raked into the federation revenue purse a total sum of One Trillion, Two Hundred and twenty Seven Billion, Four Hundred and Thirty One Million, Three Hundred and Twenty Three Thousand and Sixteen Naira, Twenty Four Kobo (1,227,431,323,016.24) as revenue between January and July 2024.
This realized sum according to records was far more than the total revenue collection of (N1,172,414,793,960.32) recorded for the year 2023. According to the CAC, “The collected revenue for seven months of 2024 is higher than the total revenue collected for the twelve months of 2023
The CAC who has expressed commitment to surpass the Command’s revenue target however attributed the success to his implementation of the Comptroller General of Customs thrust of time release study to facilitate trade without delay. This move, according to him, yielded the outstanding results, which reflects in the command’s revenue collection.
He also expressed confidence in the command’s ability to do better. “I am optimistic about the possibility of beating this record as we look forward to surpassing it in months to come
“For the first seven months of 2024, that is January to July this year, the Apapa Area Command generated a total of N1,227,431,323,016.24.
“What has been generated so far for seven months is above the total collected revenue by the command in 2023, which was N1,172,414,793,960.32.
“In clear terms, our 2024 seven months collection is above last year’s twelve months total collection. Worthy of note is the interventions from the Tariff and Trade Department, which has contributed immensely to the successes achieved thus far”, Comptroller Olomu said.
Furthermore, he said that the compliance desk, dispute resolution team, Valuation, PCA, CIU and other units aimed at promoting seamless trade have been reinvigorated with daily, weekly and monthly evaluation by his office to oversee the progress we are making.
“We are committed to doing more in line with the directives and motivating examples of the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Adewale Adeniyi, MFR dsm psc (+).
Apapa Command handles the highest volume of trade for the NCS, collects the highest revenue, and therefore is saddled with a higher degree of expectation from the management of the service and the government, ” he said.
Meanwhile, the press release made available to the media by the Public Relations Officer, CSC Abubarkar Usman, revealed that the Comptroller Olomu met with stakeholders at the port before the commencement of the nationwide protests to assure them of customs availability for work during the period, a move that has further strengthened port users’ confidence.
He however advised Apapa port users to embrace only legitimate trade and restated that Apapa command is more alive to its responsibilities to detect all forms of concealment and plug any avenue for revenue leakage to the barest minimum.
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