Tue, 18/09/2012 - 4:46am | JULIET ALOHAN
Customs Focus
Three months after the Federal Executive Council (FEC)
approved N1.7 billion for the acquisition of a surveillance jet for the
Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), the aircraft has been commissioned in
Abuja.
The urgent need to effectively cover the borders
and protect it against the influx of dangerous and harmful substances,
prompted the NCS to waste no time in ensuring the delivery of the jet.
The aircraft is expected to help boost surveillance and spot illegal
activities which could be difficult for officers on the ground to
detect.
The aircraft, a Cessna Citation CJ4, with registration
number 5N-DIA, which was built in the United States of America (USA),
was commissioned by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of
the economy, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, recently, at the domestic wing
of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The jet is
equipped with a state-of-art gadgets incorporated to suit the
anti-smuggling need of Customs and can fly at 45,000 altitudes. It is
also equipped with two engines and has the capability to fly on one
engine in the case of an emergency, and its radar has the capability to
pick signals at 1,000 kilometres distance.
During the
commissioning, Okonjo-Iweala, congratulated the Comptroller-General of
Customs, Abdullahi Dikko, for the timely delivery of the jet, noting
that the jet would further boost efforts to provide more effective
surveillance of the borders and ensure national security.
She
said: “We have long wanted to enhance the capability of the Customs to
increase surveillance on borders and sea. There’s been a combination of
measures to enhance their performance on land and sea by also acquiring
boats.
“By doing this, our target is three pronged, which is to
increase security, enhance and facilitate trade and strengthen revenue
drive, by tackling all the factors posing constraints,” the minister
said.
She stressed that the aircraft was an investment for which
the country expects good returns and urged the Customs Service to work
harder to achieve better results for the country.
In his response,
the Customs boss assured that the jet will be put into judicious use
in-line with the purpose for which it was approved for acquisition by
the Federal Executive Council (FEC).
“I want to assure you,
honourable minister, that this aircraft will be put into good use.
Customs will surprise you this year by recording improved revenue,”
Dikko stated.
Acquisition of the jet was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) at the sum of N1.7 billion in May this year.
Information
Minister, Labaran Maku, who disclosed the approval to journalists after
the FEC meeting, said that the aircraft acquisition was aimed at
facilitating effective surveillance and management of the country’s
borders to deal with economic sabotage and other cross-border crimes.
Maku
had said that the aircraft, a Cessna Citation CJ4, would be fitted with
surveillance equipment, photographic and communication gadgets for
detection and nipping-in-the-bud activities of smugglers.
Speaking
in the same vein, the Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama,
said the need to curb the activities of smugglers prompted the ministry
to present the memo for the procurement of the aircraft on behalf of the
Customs Service.
He said that the purchase of the aircraft would
go a long way to curb smuggling and block the loopholes being used by
economic saboteurs.
Ngama further explained that the memo for the
acquisition of the aircraft was raised because the efforts of Customs
officers on ground could only be successful if they had air coverage.
“That is why we brought the memo to acquire this aircraft which is
equipped with satellite communication equipment that can actually survey
the border unseen from the ground.
“It can also communicate with
the men on ground to tell them that in this area or that area we can see
illegal movements of vehicles. We have defined points, where the
Customs men can actually monitor movements across our borders, but
Nigeria is very big, you cannot have our Custom men at each point of the
border. Therefore, the air coverage is actually a strategic move to
ensure their effectiveness.”
In a similar development, the federal
government had also in May this year, approved N3 billion for the
procurement of two high-speed patrol boats for the Customs marine
operations. The boats are also to be used to check the activities of
smugglers in Nigeria’s water ways.
Since the coming on board of
the Dikko led-management, the NCS has remained committed to strategies
and policies geared to curb smuggling and reduce it to an insignificant
level. These strategies have been successfully achieved with the good
support the Service is getting from the federal government.
The
Service has rolled out various strategies which include the deployment
of hi-tech in a bid to reduce smuggling, block revenue leakages and
corrupt practices by reducing human contact in the entire export, import
chain. These efforts are already yielding positive results, especially
in the area of revenue collection which has progressively increased from
the inherited monthly N30 billion to about N100 billion presently.
http://leadership.ng/nga/juliet_alohan/35124/2012/09
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