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The Nigeria Customs
Service (NCS) says its main objective in 2011 is to mobilise its
workforce and resources toward surpassing the revenue generation target
achieved in the outgoing year.

Reviewing its
operations in the last quarter of the year, NCS Comptroller General,
Abdullahi Inde Dikko, said in Abuja that the various reforms initiated
in the service’s operational procedures will facilitate the realisation
of a new revenue target of more than N500 billion next year, from N450
billion set for 2010.

“Concrete steps
have been taken to reduce the corruption environment through a mixed
bag of welfare packages, including the approval of 100 percent increase
in the salaries and allowances of all officers and men in the service
to give them the new impetus to work harder to achieve the target,” Mr.
Dikko said.

The service, in its
2010 Annual Report by the Deputy Comptroller (Welfare), Mohammed
Ibrahim, indicated that in the last one and half year improved welfare
package has positively impacted the morale and wellbeing of the
officers, resulting in enhanced performance.

Areas of manifest
impact, Mr. Ibrahim claimed, include insurance, health, housing,
cooperative, pensions and training, as no fewer than 435 retired
officers and relations of about 134 others benefitted from the
insurance policy during the outgoing year.

The policy, which
commenced in 1992, has evolved and expanded into three schemes, with
the first requiring officers to contribute five percent of their annual
salary for a benefit that is three times their annual pay in event of
death, in addition to N80, 000 support for burial expenses. Besides, a
retired officer is entitled to 60 percent of his annual salary, in
addition to an interest payable on his contribution.

Though the NCS is a
self-accounting service, he said it has also initiated a Group Personal
Accident (GPA) policy since 2005, that enables claims of between N2
million and N6 million to be paid to officers who lost their lives in
violent circumstances in their line of duty.

“A premium of N800
million was secured during the year (2010), while claims for more than
40 officers were settled. In 2010, the insurance scheme should cover
assets, marine and aviation,” Mr. Ibrahim said.

Similarly, a
compulsory Group Life Assurance policy, as spelt out under the Pension
Reform Act 2004, entitles an officer to a minimum pay that is thrice
his annual total emolument as death-in-service, payable into his
Retirement Savings Account (RSA).

The NCS has also
been working with the Federal Mortgage Bank for a housing loan scheme
for a monthly contribution of 2.5 percent into the National Housing
Fund (NHF), deductible from individual officers’ monthly salary to
facilitate decent accommodation for officers.