Senate 2024 Budget Set to increase Customs Employment revenue target
The Senate has said it would increase the revenue target of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) in the second half of the year.
Senator representing Kogi East and Chairman, Senate Committee on Customs, Isah Jibrin, dropped the hint at an interactive session between his committee and the NCS team led by its Comptroller General, Adewale Adeniyi.
Checks revealed that the NCS revenue target in the 2024 budget stands at N5.079 trillion.
Senator Jibrin maintained that all hands must be on deck to save the country from borrowing through an increase in internally generated revenue.
He said, ” First of all, Nigeria is saddled with a lot of debt obligations, and we need to wriggle ourselves out of that trap, and one of the ways to do that is through internally generated revenue.
Customs is one of the major providers of internally generated revenue, and as it is today, we expect them to play one of the major roles in this drive to reduce our debt burden.
We need to pay off what we owe now and minimise the additional loans we are going to take. Customs is in a very good position; if they are able to block all perceived leakages, they should be able to generate a significant amount of income that will enable Nigeria to get out of debt, at least partially.”
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Customs, however, justified the grant of waivers to players in certain critical sectors, such as agriculture and mining.
Aside from mandating the federal government revenue agency to increase its revenue target, the Senate Committee equally revealed that the NCS might be compelled to increase its employment benchmark from the present 1,600, as it noted that the rate of unemployment in Nigeria is very high.
Customs is not the only employer of Labour. They can only employ the number they believe they can adequately take care of, and we are putting them under pressure to exceed the 1,600 benchmark.
