Victor Ezeja
AdminThe Area Controller, Tincan Island Command of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Comptroller Dera Nnadi, says he is currently experimenting with 24-hour operations in his command, wondering why cargoes cannot be cleared in a day since “we receive containers and ships 24 hours daily and 7 days a week.”
Disclosing that it is for this reason that he resumes in the office daily at 8 am and remains at work until 10 pm, he expressed delight that his staffers have taken a cue from his leadership by spending more time at work. He stated that he sometimes asks his staff to come to work on Saturdays and Sundays for examination to also assist in easing up the system.
Speaking with newsmen in Lagos yesterday, the Customs Area Comptroller (CAC) revealed that his zeal and dedication to duty made him set a new revenue record within his first 11 days in office when the Tincan Island Port Command of NCS went beyond their N3.3bn target to generate N7.6bn revenue for the Federal Government in one day.
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His words, “Since I resumed at Tin Can, I’ve never left the office earlier than 10 pm. I’m not celebrating it, but, I’m glad to be leading my officers by example. They have also not attempted to abandon me in the office. It doesn’t mean that I’m punishing them, but I’m leading.”
“Upon resumption, I went round the port and observed that we still suffered from the old issue of late resumption to work. Why should we have a maritime system where we find people resuming work by 10 am or 11 am? I stressed that it was unacceptable.
“To lead by example, I offered to come to work by 8 am and when agents come to complain about delays in examination, firstly I ask them, when they resumed for the day. Previously, stakeholders reached an agreement for the examination of cargoes to start by 10 am, but I pushed for us to start by 8 am.
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“I later listened to their counsel that 8 am was too early as some officers and operators needed an hour to be set for the day; so we adjusted to 9 am.”
“While I’m preaching electronic transfer of documents between Customs and stakeholders, most of the things we do here are still largely manual. This is why the Customs Modernization Project is so dear to me. This is why I’m experimenting with 24-hour operations, starting by the number of hours I’m already spending at the office.”
While giving a new revenue record was set by the Command under his watch, Comptroller Nnadi said, “The target given to the Command on a daily basis by the Service is N3.3 billion; but for that day, “we collected N5.2billion. People were excited because for a very long time that didn’t happen at the Command. Nevertheless, we have gone beyond that figure recently.”
He then disclosed that recently, under his watch, the Command collected N7.6 billion in one day, adding that they have been making steady increases in the drive to generate revenue ever since.
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