Senate probes Customs over N62bn under-remittance

The Nigerian Customs Service has come under heat as the Nigerian Senate is probing it for failing to remit N62 billion as revenue.

The Senate Committee on Public Accounts chaired by Senator Aliyu Ahmed Wadada accused the agency of under-remitting revenue to the nation’s coffers.

The Chairman of the committee summoned the NCS to come up with their defence on the allegation of under remittance in two weeks time.

Relying on the 2017 Auditor General’s Report forwarded to it, the Senate Committee queried the total remittance of the agency in 2017.

The query read,  “In the report of NCS summary of the monthly collection 2017 total collection for the Federation account was N691 billion.”

“However, the receipt of NCS collection and remittance into Federation account 2017 showed actual remittance into Federation account with the CBN for the year under review to be N629 billion. A comparison of these two documents revealed an under-remittance of N62 billion.

“There was no footnote or any form of additional information attached to the two reports.showing the reasons for the discrepancies neither there was any form of communication of the management on the intention for the future reconciliation or remittance.

“The above anomalies could be attributed to weaknesses in the internal control system at Nigeria Customs Service Headquarters Abuja.”