…With a huge 90% of government’s revenue allocated to the funding of her humongous debt, I am of the opinion that Nigerians authorities and even her non-state actors, like the trade unions, are not sequentially addressing the major issues that are driving the positives or the negatives in the economy.
We are really not looking deep into the causatives. We are rather very busy looking into the results which are the by-products of the causatives. The implication is that we will get to a point where the result of the causatives will overwhelm us in such a magnitude that we will at a point crave for food, just for every meal. Nobody expects manna to fall forever anymore.
We seem not be learning from the hackneyed expression that ‘every beginning has an end’. We have seen the period of high price of crude oil and huge volumes of production and sales. That has actually come to pass. Before that there was the over two decades of massive commodities gains arising from various agriculture and minerals like cocoa, palm oil, rubber, groundnuts, timber, grains, iron ore, columbite, tin and other ornaments ; and those ones have also gone.
Oil and gas have remained the most subsisting natural products that have been the mainstay of Nigeria’s economy. But current developments, oiled by the unpredictable climate change theories are indicating that those sources can no more remain largely dependable.
There must be some highly creative and sustainable devices that can induce major changes which must be seen as the bedrock of our revenue imperatives. These creative devices can be found within the confines of our established structures and disciplined skilled manpower, other than the continued dependence on products whose financial values will be easily whittled down by new discoveries, technology or new regional alliances.A structured revenue base can be a formidable hedge for any down-trodden economy any day.
When ones looks at Nigeria’s vast land mass and commanding coastal surfaces he sees a great opportunity to make money from the sea, land and air. With so many land borders, large sea coastlines and river ports, as well as a growing array of international airports, the Nigerian Customs Service remains one major revenue axis that can be very dependable and must be made to become even more efficient now the government has returned the management of the agency to its conventional hands of core professionals with huge experience; not only in the corporate management of the institution, but in the handling of the financial aspects where much leakages have been identified in the past eight years.
With efficient structural renewal of the Nigerian Customs Service and the availability of men imbued with dynamic financial discipline, the revenue accruing from the import and export spaces will close up the gaps being experienced from the failed revenue areas. The new Comptroller General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, who has been identified as an experienced officer and who was in the services at all the times the institution had bailed the country out of messy revenue periods, is believed to infuse new ideas that will expand the Customs revenue base and move on to create further enlargements that can become new nets for new revenue from around the country.
One would anticipate that Adeniyi and his men can think further out of the box, by going back to review existing revenue yielding processes with the intention of advising government on new revenue policies that can add more strength to what already exists in the system. For instance, one would expect that the new Customs management can review the revenue collection models as well as the import inspection processes with the intention of identifying what fits into an expected new income-cow. There are strong indications that Adeniyi has been a veteran of various Customs Inspection Models and must be in the position to strongly insist on a particular program that will lay the golden egg for the Nigerian economy.
Transiting from Destination Inspection to Pre-shipment Inspection and vice versa at various times challenge knowledgeable technocrats like him to indicate the right way to go. It is true that the revenue collection under his watch during this very short period has been massive, when compared with what has been the case in those days of anomy spanning about eight years, but it is instructive that major new structural applications can further make more meaning.Few months ago, I visited the port of Antwarp while undertaking an economic reporting tour associated with revenue generation. One of our discussions centered on the global seaports that can make the entire money needed to fund their countries budget.
In that business discussion, we could see that the Nigerian government has failed to improve their revenue volume by failing to develop and improve the facilities, scope and size of their sea ports in line with global trends for the purpose of improved revenue. The discussions revealed that between the Nigeria Customs and the Nigerian Ports Authority, a huge opportunity is available for expanded revenue that can make little meaning of the much dependence in the oil and gas sector.
The reason is that the level of revenue flexibility in the oil and gas sector is so high and most of the time involves technical conspiracies which the operators have so much mastered which the government and its supervising ministry do not have better explanation for. In other words, the anticipated revenue efficiency from the Customs is directly a factor of the operational efficiency and disciplinary dynamics of the Ports Management. Since much is expected from the Customs, government must push the Ports management to become very efficient.
As long as Nigeria continues to be highly import dependent, there is huge income flow each day. This could only be real provided there is heavily reduced corruption rate through invoice meddling. On the other hand, developments within the product inspection side have been discovered to have been the sources of the largest revenue loss to government. If Nigeria’s major Liquefied gas exporter does not return adequate volume of exported products to the finance ministry, a major leakage has been compromised and Nigeria stands a big chance of losing money through its officials and agents.
Between the Ports Administration, Finance ministry and Customs lye an important point for revenue enhancement because that is where the possibility for optimal revenue reaches an equilibrium. If the Customs carries its functions correctly while the finance ministry and the Ports Authority allow their Civil Service tendencies to influence the bills to be generated, the anticipated income for government will not be attained. It is imperative that the Customs must be given all the opportunities for efficiency because it has been the only agency of government that looks good for dependable revenue.
Since the national revenue crisis has been a swan song since the last eight years with much reference to e failing oil and gas income government should optimize all the powers due to the Customs which has shown enough indications for improved services that can more aggressively impact our revenue.
