Nigeria revenue service bill threatens our existence, says customs CG

Bashir Adeniyi, comptroller-general (CG) of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), says the proposed tax reform bills are in jurisdictional conflict with the NCS and threaten the agency’s existence.

Speaking on Wednesday at a public hearing organised by the house of representatives committee on finance, Adeniyi highlighted key objections contained in a 17-page memorandum submitted by the customs.

According to the NCS boss, Sections 23, 29 and 41(a) of the joint revenue board bill present jurisdictional conflicts.

He also cited Section 1 of the Nigerian Revenue Service (NRS) Establishment Bill 2024, which he argued could override the Nigeria Customs Act of 2023.

“Basically, these are jurisdictional conflict issues,” Adeniyi said.

“In the Nigeria Revenue Service Established Bill, Section 1 seeks to completely legislate Nigeria Customs Service out of existence, if you pardon my words.”

“Also in Section 4, this is also another omnibus provision. This particular provision gives the proposed NRS oversight functions over all taxes and levies.

“We are worried that this new law is seeking to override all previous laws that were done to address issues regarding the economy”.

Adeniyi called for collaboration and operational integration between the customs and tax authorities, rather than the abolition of the agency or the repeal of an existing law to introduce a new one.

“The principal recommendation we made was that we should encourage collaboration, integration of operations between customs and the tax authority, not to abolish customs, or not to repeal the law, because we want to do another law,” he said.

The NCS boss noted that a lot of effort and resources were invested in establishing the Nigeria Customs Service Act of 2023, which was enacted less than two years ago, urging lawmakers to uphold the law.

On October 3, 2024, President Bola Tinubu asked the national assembly to consider and pass four tax reform bills.

The proposed legislations include the Nigeria tax bill, tax administration bill, and the joint revenue board establishment bill.