The Nigeria Customs Service has disclosed that smuggling of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) into Cameroon has drastically reduced after the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu.
The Comptroller Adamawa/Taraba Area Command, Salisu Abdullahi Kazaure, disclosed this while displaying impounded items to journalists at the weekend in Yola, the Adamawa State capital.
Kazaure noted that smugglers of PMS have since abandoned the illegitimate business of taking the product across the border to Cameroon republic, after the removal of subsidy in the country.
He said, “It is evident that smuggling of PMS had reduced drastically owing to the removal of the subsidy and the product is all filling stations.”
It had been widely reported on June 7, 2023 that some motorists and residents in Cameroon have said the planned removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol in Nigeria, has created an acute scarcity of the essential commodity in the neighbouring country.
At the event displaying seized items on Friday, 494 50kg bags of dry NPK fertilizer were seized with a duty paid value of over N9 million, among other 15 assortment of seizures.
In all, 16 different items were impounded with a total duty paid value of N22, 894,723.
“It might interest you to ask that, now that we are in farming season fertilizer would be highly needed by the farmers to improve their yields, why the apprehension (sic) of the fertilizer?
“The Nigeria Customs Service is one of the agencies saddled with the responsibility of implementing the Federal Government policy on the movement of fertilizer.
“The dry blended NPK fertilizer is predicated on the restriction of movement of the product placed by the National Fertilizer Quality (Control) Act, 2019 section 10 which restricts its movements, especially into the Northeastern States,” Kazaure explained.
The Comptroller also frowned at the attitude of some desperate Nigerians who smuggled Cameroonian made bar soaps into Nigeria. According to him, “if these unpatriotic actions of a few are allowed, it will kill local soap industries.” (Nigerian Pilot)
