Customs uncover four factories evading excise duties payment

…Generates over N4. 627bn in two months

By Omobolaji Adekunle, Abeokuta

The Ogun II Area Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has discovered four manufacturing companies operating businesses in the state without paying the statutory excise duties to the federal government.

The Command’s Area Controller, Comptroller OlusolaAlade, stated this during a press briefing with journalists in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, about the activities of his command between September and October this year.

Alade said that the command also generated over N4.627 billion in revenue from excise duties within the two others under review.

The Area Controller, while reiterating the core mandates of his command to include revenue generation through payments of excise duty, trade facilitation, as well as securing the national economic policies, among others, said the NCS’ monitoring teams were reinvigorated towards ensuring proper functionality for the revenue drive, which consequently resulted in bringing more factories under excise control.

Alade explained that the afected factories, including Glamour Foods & Consult, Abraham & Sarah Beverages, Cafro Group of Company, and Sprout & Kings, were uncovered through the deployment of intelligence in the Area II command, stressing that they are currently under different stages of registration with the federal government.

On the amount of revenue generated, the Area II Controller said a total sum of N4,627,054,451: 69 was realised by the command in two months, thereby representing a 24.8 percent increase when compared to the amount generated in the corresponding months of September and October 2023

While emphasising that the command adopted “sustained intelligence reconnaissance, effective monitoring, and robust stakeholders’ engagement” within the past three months when he took over the command, he stated further that the amount generated by his command for November was still under collation at the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Alade, assured that the command would not renege on its efforts at putting necessary measures in place to improve collections with the cooperation of other units of the service.

“I use this opportunity to solicit for the cooperation of the various factories on timely payment of appropriate excise Duty as well as other charges payable. to appreciate the traders that have been compliant so far and to encourage them to do better in discharging respective responsibilities.”