NCS: Senate summons Hameed Ali over plan to concession 3tn revenue collection

THE Senate Committee on Customs and Excise has registered its disapproval of the decision by the Nigeria Customs Service to concession its duty collection function to a foreign firm.

The upper legislative chamber has, therefore, invited the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service, Col Hameed Ali (rtd), to come and clear the air on the rationale behind the decision.

The vice-chairman of the committee, Senator Francis Fadahunsi, who disclosed this on Friday, said the NCS boss was expected to bring all documents relating to the agreement he signed with the foreign firm.

The senator said, “Our committee will write the CG, NCS to demand for the documents with which the agreement was signed. He is expected to bring all the documents relating to the agreement. All of us in the committee did not support the concessioning idea.

“If the CG, NCS refuses to bring the documents, we will write the Minister of Finance who is the chairman of the board, and a centre-point of the deal to bring them. We want to see the agreement. We held a meeting on the issue during the week.

“As soon as we go through the documents and we find out that it is almost the same thing which other administrations had done in the past which is just to find jobs for the ‘boys’, or a special interest for some people to steal our money, we will kick against it.

“There is no amount of money we want to generate in the Customs that the personnel of the Nigerian Customs Service, if properly trained and monitored, cannot generate.

“What is the essence of the seven per cent cost of collection? It is to collect maximum revenue. What the Comptroller General of the NCS should do is to recruit more personnel instead of looking for foreigners to come and spend a false N3.4bn, claiming that they will spend the amount on ICT.

“Meanwhile, the NCS had already awarded a contract of almost N384m early this year on the same scanner that the foreign firm said it would invest money.

Recall that former president Olusegun Obasanjo during his tenure once threatened to scrap the NCS if he had his way.

Shortly after his statement, a foreign firm, Crown Agent, was positioned to take over the revenue collection functions of the Customs in 2001 when Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was Minister of Finance.

The idea was however killed through stakeholders’ intervention.

Hameed Ali had once spurned the invitation of the Senate during his first tenure as NCS boss in 2017.

Ali, who did not appear in uniform when he previously appeared before the Senate as is expected of someone in his office, refused to appear before the legislators when summoned to explain the reason for his action.

His decision prompted the Senate to call for his resignation, adding that he was not fit to hold a public office.

The Custom boss defended himself by saying he acted based on legal advice.