The revenue collected by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) from January to August 2018, was N792billion.

A breakdown of the revenue collection shows that it generated N96.6 billion in Jan., N79.26 billion in Feb., N87.58 billion in March and N94.3 billion in April.

The organization also generated N100.5 billion in May, N98.4 billion in June, N94.9 billion in July and N140.4 billion in August.

This was contained in a data that The Nation sighted yesterday.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, yesterday blamed the apparently high debt profile of Nigeria to the challenges of low revenue generation that the country is presently grappling with.

He made the disclosure during a visit to the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) headquarters, Abuja.

She said that in order to achieve the economic programme of the country, there must be improvement of revenue generation.

Her words: “People have raised concerns about our debt profile, but we do not have a debt problem. Our Debt ratio to GDP is still below 3 per cent, which is the threshold set by the Fiscal Responbility Act. What we have is a revenue problem. We don’t have the revenue to pay salaries, to meet the recurrent as well as the capital expenditure.”

Ahmed said that the functions of the Nigeria Customs Service in regard to revenue generation were key to the success of the Buhari Administration.

She noted that it was for this reason that the Customs Service was constantly being pushed to improve revenue collections.

Ahmed said that the government had considered raising Value Added Tax, Excise Duty and also include more items on the Excise Duty list.

However, she said that the government decided to hold on to the idea, until the economic condition in the country improves.

Ahmed also told the Customs Comptroller General and his team, that she would look into the salary structure of the Service as a way of incentivising the officers.

Earlier, the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (rtd) highlighted some of the reforms he had undertaken to improve revenue generation.

He said that because human development was vital, the NCS had invested in training schools to improve the capacity of its officers.

In addition, he said that the Service had deployed the use of technology in blocking avenues of revenue leakages.

Tell them I said "it's useless if it doesn't benefit anyone!"

next level...Nigerians will pay tax for the air they breathe