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Tag: Joseph Attah

  • Customs begins verification of North West orphanage homes

    Ahead of the commencement of distribution of relief items including: rice and other household items to orphanage homes and Internally Displace Persons (IDPs) in Zone B (North West), the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has begun due diligence and verification of the homes.

    The Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah, disclosed this to The Nation in the service headquarters in Abuja Thursday.

    He said that having concluded the distribution of such items to the orphanages in the South West, the sub-committee that is saddled with the responsibility will now continue from the North West, starting from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) next week.

    The spokesman said that: “We are now set to move to the North Western states. In Customs, we call that side Zone B. Next week, we will focus on FCT.

    “We do know that there are a number of IDPs in FCT, and orphanages either run by religious organizations, NGOs or private religious houses.  We have identified a number of them. Some have also sent letters to tell us that they are there, their number of children and other information.

    “Just as we have done in the South West, we will subject this to a very thorough verification and by next week we will distribute the items to them. After that we will go to Sokoto, Zamfara, Kano, Katsina and others.”

    Attah disclosed to The Nation that the NCS has already drafted its operatives to identify the orphanage homes, stressing that it is still difficult to state the exact number of people that will benefit from the next week distribution exercise.

    According to him, “those that have not been identified will come up and we will still verify them and once we see that they are properly registered, we will extend it to them. It is the number of orphanages and the number of children we are able to confirm in them that we will give to. But we know that it will run into hundreds of thousands.”

    On the challenges that associate with the distribution of the items, Attah said that due diligence is compulsory, especially as some of the homes are in difficult terrain.

    He recalled that the mandate that the Comptroller-General Col. Hameed Ali (retired) gave to the committee was that the items must not pass through any intermediary.

    Attah said based on the instruction, the committee will not hand over the items to any local government chairman, director or permanent secretary in the states.

    He insisted that “we are under strict directive to handover these items directly to the end users, to the operators of these orphanages in their homes.”

    Meeting up with the directive, according to him, puts a lot of stress on the logistic of the committee that starts from identification, verification, allocation, loading and escorting and ensuring that they get to the intended recipients.

    He explained that once the items are loaded, an officer gets a landing certificate to escort it, on arrival at the premises, the operator of the orphanage or IDP signs the certificate to show receipt.

  • Why Form M is delayed – Customs

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Monday explained the current delay in the approval of both Form ‘M’s as well as the issuance of Pre-Arrival Assessment Reports (PAAR) at the PAAR Ruling Centre is in the interest of stakeholders.

    It’s Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah, in a statement explained: “the delay being experienced in the process of Form ‘M’ and PAAR now is due to internal auditing of Fast-Track beneficiaries, which hitherto made up 20% in order to fish out the non-compliant beneficiaries.

    “NCS has now put in place modalities to identify this group of beneficiaries with a bid to removing them from the scheme while compliant ones continue to enjoy the fast track facility.”

    According to the statement, the normal speed in process will be restored immediately the backlog accumulated due to this intervention is cleared from the system.

    Read Also: Customs begins interrogation of officers

    The statement recalled that the timelines for approval of Form ‘M’ and issuance of PAAR were approved by the Customs Comptroller-General, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd) in April 2018.

    “The approval allocated a maximum of 24 hours process time for Form ‘M’ and the issuance of PAAR after the upload of all relevant documents from the duty collecting banks.

    “Nigeria Customs Service will continue to uphold the timelines and facilitate the timely process of all Imports and Exports in line with Federal Government effort to make Nigeria an investment destination.

    “While craving the understanding of our dear stakeholders in the on-going effort to clean the system, please be assured of the Service determination to make Import and Export processes even better,” the service added.

     

  • Customs begins interrogation of officers

    …looks into weapon handling

     

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), says its officers involved in the incident that occurred along Ijebu Ode road on Sunday are being interrogated.

    Mr Joseph Attah, the Public Relations Officer of NCS made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Monday.

    A video which went viral on Social Media on Sunday showed a man, supposed passenger of a commercial bus was allegedly shot dead by a customs officer, though, it was denied by NCS, saying it was an accidental discharge.

    Attah explained that the Customs Assistant Comptroller General, Zone A, Ekekezie Kessy had on Monday visited the Federal Operations Unit in the zone at Ikeja, Lagos to interrogate the officers involved.

    He said that the investigation was to find out the immediate and remote causes of the unfortunate incident that led to the death of an innocent citizen.

    According to him, the interrogation will also reveal if better handling of weapon will have averted the incident.

    “The officers involved are being interrogated, we look at it holistically, including weapon handling skills.

    “If the officers are found guilty, they will be punished appropriately, we will allow the investigation to take place first.

    “We still stand our ground that it is not a passenger of the bus that was deliberately shot dead but the victim was hit by the accidental discharge.

    “An audio is now trending from one of the passengers of the bus that the person that died is not one of them.

    Read Also: Customs’ ‘accidental discharge’ kills one

    “We insist that the person that died was not a passenger but a good Samaritan who used to assist our officers, we described him as a friend of Customs,’’ he explained.

    The spokesperson said that training of its personnel was a continuous process, adding that the Service often sought assistance of the military in this regard.

    “Like we said that in our statement, it is painful and totally unnecessary to lose life in anti-smuggling operations.’’

    He urged the general public to be wary of what was being posted on social media because some of those things could mislead them.

  • Customs donates 68,000 bags of rice, others to orphanages

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has donated food items and relief materials to some orphanages in Lagos and other Southwest states. In all, 68, 256 bags of 50kg rice, clothing materials and other items will be distributed by the Service.

    NCS National Public Relations Officer, Joseph Attah, made this known during the flag-off of the donations in Lagos.

    Attah explained that the exercise is in line with a Presidential directive to the Service, adding that it  will  bring succour to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) and orphans.

    Attah, a Deputy Comptroller of Customs, told reporters that in compliance with the presidential directive, a seven-man sub-committee was inaugurated by the Comptroller-General of Customs to oversee the distribution of the relief materials.

    The sub-committee is headed by Comptroller Yakubu Salihu with representation from the office of the Service’s legal adviser.

    He said the distribution would take place in the four Customs zones to achieve a fair reach to intended recipients nationwide.

    “You will recall that had earlier announced that the Comptroller- General secured Presidential approval for the extension of relief materials to orphanages. Before now, these items were being given to only IDPs by a National Logistics Committee comprising of various security and regulatory agencies, but with the relative peace in the Northeast and some of the IDPs returning home,the need to extend to other people in need arose,” he explained.

    Attah further said to ensure that these items got to the intended recipients, landing certificates would be signed by recipients after taking delivery.

    “We are giving out 68,256 units of 50kg bags of rice, over 200,000 litres of vegetable oil, tomato paste,  spaghetti, soap, used clothing and other relief materials for Zone A comprising Southwest states.

    ‘’Nine operators of different orphanages in the Southwest have come forward for the relief materials. We are also assisting those without vehicles to convey the items to their areas,” Attah said.

    The NCS had donated relief materials to victims of insurgency in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Edo states in February 2017.

  • FG yet to set 2019 revenue target for Customs

    The Federal Government is yet to set the 2019 revenue collection target for the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS).

    On its own, the organization last year pledged to overshoot the revenue generation of 2017, but when The Nation asked the Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah to state this year’s target on phone on Monday, he said it was too early to conjecture it.

    He said “it is too early. We shouldn’t talk about it yet. The Federal Government has not even set its target for the service.”

    He had however, at the weekend, announced in a statement that the organization generated the sum of N1,202,271,240,478.30 for the year 2018, representing N164,897,273,077.50 over 2017 collection which was N1,037,373,967,400.80.

    Commenting on this historic feat, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd) described it as the result of dogged pursuit of what is right rather than being populist by compromising national interest on the altar of individual or group interests.

    According to him, the rising annual revenue generation from the service in the last three years is the result of reform programmes which include but not limited to:

     Upgrade on the electronic systems from Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS I) to NICIS II which has blocked leakages.
     Strategic deployment of manpower.
     Strict enforcement of extant guidelines by the Tariff and Trade department.
     Robust stakeholder engagement resulting to increased compliance.
     Increased disposition of Officers and Men to put national interest above selves.

    Read Also: Customs’ collections hit N1.2tr

    In the same vain, the NCS reinvigorated anti-smuggling operations yielded a total of 5,235 seizures with duty paid value (DPV) of N61,543,633,401.31.

    These seizures include arms, ammunition, more than 59 containers of Tramadol and other controlled drugs and 320,709 foreign rice etc.

    Though smuggling remains a challenge, the service three layers security strategy continues to make smuggling unattractive to the would be smugglers.

    While the service continues to deal decisively with smugglers, fellow citizens, especially border dwellers and port users are advised to support NCS by reporting any smuggling activity to the nearest Customs formation.

    Together we can protect our economy and security by joining hands to fight smuggling and ensure that appropriate customs duty is paid on every dutiable import.

    Accordingly, we appreciate compliant stakeholders that have supported the Service in 2018 and call on all Nigerians and especially international trade actors to help make 2019 better for the nation.

  • Allegation against Ali is baseless, says Customs

    The Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Customs Service, Mr. Joseph Attah on Wednesday said that a publication of corruption allegation against the Comptroller General, Col. Hammer Ali was baseless.

    Our reporter had asked him on phone to respond to an online story that accused the Customs boss of undermining, the anti-corruption was of President Muhammadu Buhari.

    Debunking the story, he said; “the allegations are bogus and compound in nature, lacking necessary flesh that should add any meaningful value.

    “My worry is about how long it should take for some of NCS stakeholders to accept that things have changed with the current Comptroller General of Customs Col.Hameed Ibrahim Ali rtd.

    “After more than three years, such allegations bordering on personal interest on the part of the CGC clearly shows lack of proper understanding of a man whose unquestionable Intergrity preceded his present  position as the CGC.

    “Allegations of corruption appears to be the cheapest anchor point where there is hidden intention to smear anybody or organisation in Nigeria. It is therefore not difficult to know that this  one coming from a section of the online maritime  publication is not different.

    Read Also: Court declares Mohammed Kabiru as Apda interim chairman

    “There is no doubt that NCS as presently constituted generates unprecedented  revenue for the FG and more than ever on the offensive against Smugglers with spectacular seizures of arms and ammunition, dangerous drugs and other items that can compromise national economy and security.”

    The story had said  that  President Mohammadu  Buhari’s anti-corruption battle is being compromised by the Nigeria Customs Service(NCS) headed by Col. Hammed Ali (rtd),the Comptroller General of Customs(CG) sequel  to  the series of activities that have been taking place in the agency.

    It said that investigation has  shown that goods which import duties have been paid are intercepted on the roads by the officers of the Federal Operations Unit (FoU) and the CG’s Strike Force headed by his Principal Security Officer (PSO).

    The only exemption is when the importer or his agent “settles” the officers.

    The PRO was, however, concerned that the allegations were sweeping and devoid of particular incident or names that could help in investigation.

    “The FOUs, it was alleged have organized syndicates made up of clearing agents who collect money illegally on their behalf  to avoid interception of containers.

    The CGC was also alleged to be single-handedly awarding contracts to his preferred contractors.

    This, according to Attah, is devoid of the names of the victims, or companies awarded such contracts that would have helped any investigation.

    The NCS, he said will do better with comments and suggestions that will strengthen the system rather than distractions.

     

  • Customs collections hit N140b in August

    Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) on Tuesday said that it recorded highest ever monthly revenue collection of N140,415,355,659.97 in the month of August 2018.

    Commenting on this historic feat, the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ibrahim Ali (Rtd) described it as a result of dogged pursuit of the reform programmes which include: Strategic deployment of manpower; Upgrade on the electronic systems from Nigeria Integrated Customs Information System (NICIS I) to NICIS II which has blocked leakages and Strict enforcement of extant guidelines by the Tariff and Trade department. He also attributed the feat to the robust stakeholder engagements resulting in higher compliance and increased disposition of Officers and Men to change the way of doing things for the better.

    The Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah disclosed this in a statement a on Tuesday.

    Read Also: Customs seizes smuggled goods worth N500m in Bauchi

    Ali’s implementation of three pronged Presidential mandate of Restructure, Reform and Raise revenue in NCS has continued to strengthen the Service as a crucial contributor to National economy and Security.

    In the last eight months, the Service has effected seizures of 156,090 bags of smuggled rice, 15,632 sets of military wears, 489,000 ammunitions and other items with the highest monthly revenue collection of over N140 billion in August 2018.

    These positive harvests in the areas of anti-smuggling and Revenue generation is a clear testimony of what can be achieved under a selflessly focused leadership.

    NCS p, according to the statement, called on Nigerians to support the Service by providing credible information that will help nip smuggling at the bud and generate needed revenue for national development.

  • No disquiet in Customs, says PRO

    …says Hameed Ali doesn’t limit performance 

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Public Relations Officer (PRO), Mr. Joseph Attah on Thursday  said that the Comptroller-General, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) debunked online publication that there was disquiet in. 

    He noted that the CG does not limit legitimate performance of duty in the service.

    According to him, who spoke with The Nation on phone, the report claimed that the anxiety was among top echelon of the service: the Deputy Comptroller-Generals and Assistant Comptroller-Generals.

    The report, he said, also claimed that “a person around me (PRO) told them in confidence the CGC is starving me of logistic to do my job. They added that I cannot complain publicly.”

    Read Also: Customs Strike Force goes tough

     Attah, who noted that the Customs boss does not limit legitimate performance, however, pointed out that that it was the same Comptroller-General that approved his official trip to Port Harcourt, where he was when the mischievous story broke.

    His words: “Incidentally, my attenuation was drawn to this mischievous publication when I was even outside the headquarters performing my official duty. So, who approved my journey? Is it not the same Comptroller-General?

    “The Comptroller-General that I know is not a man who limits you or dictates to you once he is convinced that he knows what you are doing. He gives you free hand to do your job.”

    Describing it as laughable for one to conjecture disaffection in the Service at the moment that it is progressing than ever, he said that compliance with the policies of the NCS has never been optional.

    He said that “there is no disquiet in the service, loyalty in the service is not an option. Nigeria Customs Service is a para military organization and therefore loyalty is not an option. I have personally tried to investigate all the boys that work under me and nobody said so. If they said somebody around me said so, they should be bold enough to tell me the person. They cannot cry more than the bereaved. 

    Continuing, the spokesman insisted that “cheap display of an agenda cannot fly in the place of a man whose antecedent is predicated on discipline, truth and integrity.”

  • Ali doesn’t limit performance, says Customs PRO

    …says no disquiet in Customs

    The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Public Relations Officer (PRO), Mr. Joseph Attah on Thursday said that the Comptroller-General, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) does not limit legitimate performance of duty in the service.

    He debunked an online publication that there was disquiet among the top echelon of the organization.

    According to him, who spoke to The Nation on phone, the report claimed that the anxiety was among top echelon of the service: the Deputy Comptroller-Generals and Assistant Comptroller-Generals.

    The report, he said, also claimed that “people around me (PRO) told them in confidence the CGC is starving me of logistic to do my job. They added that I cannot complain publicly.”

    Attah, who noted that the Customs boss does not limit legitimate performance, however, pointed out that that it was the same Comptroller-General that approved his official trip to Port Harcourt, where he was when the mischievous story broke.

    His words: “Incidentally, my attenuation was drawn to this mischievous publication when I was even outside the headquarters performing my official duty. So, who approved my journey? Is it not the same Comptroller-General?

    “The Comptroller-General that I know is not a man who limits you or dictates to you once he is convinced that he knows what you are doing. He gives you free hand to do your job.”

    Describing it as laughable for one to conjecture a disaffection in the Service at the moment that it is progressing than ever, he said that compliance with the policies of the NCS has never been optional.

    He said that “there is no disquiet in the service, loyalty in the service is not an option. Nigeria Customs Service is a para military organization and therefore loyalty is not an option. I have personally tried to investigate all the boys that work under me and no body said so. If they said somebody around me said so, they should be bold enough to tell me the person. They cannot cry more than the bereaved.

    Continuing, the spokesman insisted that “cheap display of an agenda cannot fly in the place of a man whose antecedent is predicated on discipline, truth and integrity.”

  • Rice importation exit: No hiding for smugglers – Customs

    Rice importation exit: No hiding for smugglers – Customs

    When President Muhammadu Buhari gives the go-ahead for the implementation of total stoppage of rice importation this year, the smugglers will no longer have any hiding or guise for trading on the prohibited item.  

    His administration had last year stopped the importation of rice through land borders. Besides, in his 2018 New Year broadcast, he dropped the hint that there will be the total stoppage of rice import this year.

    But speaking with The Nation on phone on Sunday, the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) Public Relations Officer, Mr. Joseph Attah, noted that the fight against rice smuggling will be easier when the policy implementation begins.

    He said that unlike now that the criminals hide under the guise of the seaport to smuggle rice into Nigeria, upon the enforcement of the policy, any rice that is not Nigerian, will be seized as a smuggled item. 

    He said that “We have been fighting rice smuggling and if there is a total stoppage in seaport, land borders and all that, I think criminals will no longer have a hiding place. “The difficulty of knowing whether this rice came from the seaport or land border will be totally out of the picture. As long as it is not locally produced rice, it is a smuggled rice. So, they cannot hide under any guise.” 

    Asked how prepared the service is to implement the policy, the spokesman noted that with the support of the Federal Government, the organization looks forward to possessing more vehicles and equipment in 2018.

    According to him, the NCS is prepared and will be better equipped to combat smugglers. 

    “He said that We are prepared. With the support of the government any moment from now we will be taking over vehicles and other working equipment. So, we are going to be better equipped this year and that will also boost our activities to deal with not only rice smuggling but also to deal with smuggling of any prohibited items.”

    Attah, however, noted that the challenge he envisages in the implementation of the policy is that of the unpatriotic Nigerians who still harbour smugglers.

    He appealed to the citizenry to appreciate smuggling as a criminal act, and support the service to fight them by exposing their act. 

    The PRO said that “There will be no other new challenges rather than the challenges we have been facing. I will rather say that we will appeal for support from Nigerians. 

    “People should look at smugglers as enemies of the state. And the act of smuggling itself is a crime and this means no good for Nigeria and Nigerians. The more we continue to expose them to customs the better we do. 

    “But in a situation where a fellow Nigerian will provide shelter to smugglers to hide could be a challenge. We appeal to all to support and understand that fighting smugglers is a collective responsibility. 

    “They should do their own by providing the solution to us by exposing smugglers so that they don’t have any hiding place.”