The Comptroller General of Customs, Alhaji Dikko Abdullahi, who will mark his two years in office tomorrow, spoke with Dele Aderibigbe on the efforts being made to transform the service into a modern, dynamic and formidable outfit. Excerpts:You have embarked on many reforms, rebuilding and reshaping the image of the service. What has been your motivation'I always tell my story to those who care to listen that I rose from the ranks. I started as a cadet in Customs. So, I have seen the good, the bad and the ugly side of the system, and know that we actually have to change certain things so as to make the system more focus and effective in meeting the present day challenges.I know I must make a difference because I have to leave something that will be a legacy.What were your major challenges in the areas of revenue generation when you assumed office'You could see that our performancelast year was relatively small. But now it is different. We have a hope of not only attaining our target this year, but surpassing it'But one can understand what created some of the challenges. You know that we have been so much into pre-shipment inspection. By pre-shipment regime, it means, every aspect of Customs responsibility in terms of valuation, assessment and clarification is done outside. So, only the paper is presented to us; and that we only examine to releasethe cargo.But with the change to Destination Inspection (DI), we now have the statutory responsibilities of Customs. So, in other to be effective at this level, we have to initiate a revolution. We have to reach out to all, in terms of capacity building, hence, on assumption of duty, I created a different department that will take charge of training.As it is now, most of our officers, at least about 14,000 out 17,000 have fully been trained and retrained and the effect of it is that officers are now very good in clarification, valuation and assessment.Specifically, we have taken full responsibility of our own schedule, and that is why some people are crying that we are bringing in new pressures on them. Actually, we are only trying to strengthen the protection aspects of the job. That is why we no longerallow any laxity, just as we don't allow any revenue to slip out of our hands. Don't forget we fund our Service out of Customs collection. Thus, whatever that is going to maximise revenue is what we are doing. What we are expecting is more revenue, and that is whywe have trained and retrained most officers;and still have not stopped training.With the nation now in the third quarter, how much would you say the service has generated so far' We have generated over N409 billion. Our revenue target is N650 billion. So, we are not too far in reaching the revenue target even though we doexpect that by December; we are going to be in the neighbourhood of N819 billion. We are working towards doubling the target.Talking about blocking revenue leakage, what measures are you taking to curb officers' connivance with agents to aid revenue leakage as recently witnessed at the Tin Can Port'Well, like I told you, its only when you know that you can attend to a situation; if you don't know a thing, you cannot talk of measures.If you actually know the right classification of an item, it will give you the right revenue that is collectable as duty for that item and that is whywe now collect higher than expected.However, as for what happened at Tin Can Island, it wasborn out of ignorance. You see, we are fully trained, those people were not trained. So, in order to avoid another recurrence of what happened, we are out to train the agents to understand what we are exactly doing because if everyone understands how an item is being classified or why it is supposed to be classified in a particular order, then there would be less friction.If all relevant stakeholders understand every issue in deeper perspectives, and a decision is to be challenged, it would be a matter of mere argument and harmonising differences and everyone goes his way. But when one person is doing whatis wrongwhile he doesn't know he is doing the wrong thing, that is where the real problem is,That is whenthe two cannot go together. That is why we are all out to train the agents to be knowledgeable as well. We will start that immediately after the fasting; the agents will be fully trained and I am sure after the training, there will be high level of competence.Some have reasoned that with scanners lying idle at the ports, the 100 per cent examination is nothing but a time wasting exercise. What do you think of this'I disagree with that view. The scanner machines are good, but they are more effective where the goods are homogenous. We are not interested in delaying cargo in the ports.That is why we even allow some people to carry their cargo into their premises and there we examine it. Those who are complaining are people often dealing on cargo which are not homogenous.That is where you have spare parts, loaded together with computer parts.If weapon is hidden inside those items, how will you identify it' The scanner cannot even tell you that there is a machine gun dismantled or an AK..47 dismantled inside such container.
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