Kunle Aderinokun
8 September 2008
Abuja — The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) said at the weekend that it cannot provide the accurate figure of the volume of crude oil that leaves the shores of Nigeria daily.
This is because its Maritime Unit responsible for such has collapsed owing to poor funding.
This startling revelation is coming on a day it emerged that the falling prices of crude oil at the international market has taken its toll on Nigeria - as the country's external reserves dropped from $64.9 billion in August 8, 2008 to $60.4 billion on the 28th of same month.
The Comptroller-General (C-G) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Alhaji Hamman Ahmed, made the disclosure on the Customs' record-keeping problem during a briefing on his 100 days in office.
"Today our Maritime unit has collapsed; we cannot afford to buy sea going vessels or boats. How do we tackle cases of bunkering? It's our own responsibilities. We don't even know today, how many vessels come into this country.
"The law says any vessel that comes into this country must be reported and any vessel that is leaving this country must also submit a report - a written application to the Custom to get permission to sail out. And in submitting that application, you submit your manifest so that we know what you are carrying.
"We are supposed to know the quantity of crude that goes out of this country, but as I am talking now, only very few companies will come and call us to go and inspect the vessels, only few of them, because we don't have the facilities to do it ourselves.
"If we don't have them how do we know the quantity of crude that goes out of this country? So we need funding for the customs to operate effectively in this country and we are prepared to do it as long as we have the funding. We will operate to the desire of the government and the people of Nigeria," he said.
Ahmed also said that the 7 per cent of collection, which is deducted from the Federation Account monthly and given to the NCS monthly, is too low to meet its expenditure demands.
"They give us 7 per cent of revenue as our cost of collection, and then what do we get from that seven per cent? Seven percent of the duty, in a month is about 1.5 billion. We have staff strength of about 10,000 or more than 10,000. The money just barely pays our salaries," he explained.
Ahmed, however, vowed that his administration would re-professionalise Customs officers by training to develop the requisite across board and that he required better funding that the service was receiving.
The drop in the nation's external reserves, which translates to a decrease of 7.5 per cent or $4.5 billion, was revealed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the weekend.
The price of crude oil, which accounts for 90 per cent of the Nigeria's earnings has fallen from $121.87 per barrel to $111.2 per barrel from August 1, 2008 to August 29, respectively, and is still falling. As at last Friday it was $105.9 per barrel. Just a day before, the price of oil dropped 1.3 per cent to settle at $107.89 per barrel in New York, the lowest close since April 4.
The depletion in the nation's external reserves may also not be unconnected with the N770 billion subsidies the Federal Government has so far granted on petroleum products. The subsidy is geared towards cushioning the effect of rising crude oil prices in the international market.
At the current level of the level of the foreign reserves, the apex bank said it should be able to finance about 25 months of imports.
Head of Corporate Affairs, CBN, Mr. Festus Odoko, however, allayed fears that the external reserves will be heavily depleted. "There is no cause for alarm. The change is simply a reflection of the relationship between inflows and outflows within the period," he said.
Analysts have said the agitation of the Niger Delta militants, occasioned by the blow out of pipelines and flow stations have led to huge loss in the nation's oil resources as output have been cut by about a quarter, thus, reducing Nigeria's earnings from oil.
Before the Niger Delta crisis began, Nigeria's crude oil production capacity was 2.6 million barrels per day, which has now dropped to about 1.8 million barrels per day - some barrels below the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries' 2.1 million barrels per day quota.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
