Reps increase Customs’ revenue target to N1.6tr

The House of Representatives yesterday increased the revenue target of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) from N1.4 trillion to N1.6 trillion as expected revenue for the 2021 fiscal year.

The House also approved about N257, 183, 671, 694. 71 as budget for the NCS for this year and another N216, 646, 579, 231. 00 as budget for the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) for the same period.

The House also approved the request from the president to borrow about $1.5 billion and Euro 995 million to finance projects under the 2021 budget.

Presenting the report of the House Committee on Customs and Excise for consideration on the floor of the House, Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Leke Abejide said the Committee consider initial target of ¦ N1.465 trillion given to the service as inadequate and as such increase it to N l.678 trillion based on the fact that the target for 2021 Fiscal year is less than N 1.562 trillion collected in by the service in 2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic and  He said the committee also considered the expanded excisable item to include carbonated drinks, reduction of levy on new vehicles and devaluation of naira that will increase volume of money collected in naira term during the year.

Also approved by the House was the seven per cent cost of collection for 2021 of  N111,573,991,091.00.

They also approved that the service should keep two per cent of Value Added Tax (VAT) collected on behalf of the FIRS to be retained by the Customs and another  N47,007,935,827.20 intervention Fund from the Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS).

The Customs budget include Personnel Cost of  N99,719,722,681.71, Overhead Cost of N19,530,769,000.00 and Capital expenditure  N137,933,270,013.00.

The House asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to, as matter of urgency, procure the four scanners for the NCS, the best scanners manufactures either from Germany or America but not China made scanners.

Also considering the report of the House Committee on Finance, the House approved N216, 646, 579, 231. 00 as budget for the FIRS for 2021.

The budget is made up of N107, 521, 496, 984. 00 for Personnel Cost, N56, 469, 218, 415 .00 for Over Head Cost, and N52, 655, 863, 832. 00 for Capital Project.

The House at plenary also approved request from the President for approval to borrow $1,500,000,000 and Euro 995,000,000.00 to Finance the Priority Projects of the Federal Government.

The Senate had earlier approved the request for the loan.