By George Mgbeleke<\/p>\n
The Senate on Wednesday approved the 2026 budget proposal of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), endorsing a revenue target of N11.074 trillion and a total expenditure of N1.295 trillion for the 2026 fiscal year.<\/p>\n
The approval followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariffs, chaired by Senator Isah Jibrin (Kogi East), during plenary.<\/p>\n
Presenting the report, Jibrin said the committee assessed the agency\u2019s 2025 budget implementation before examining the 2026 estimates.<\/p>\n
He declared that the Customs Service exceeded its 2025 revenue target of N6.5 trillion, generating about N7.2 trillion, representing a performance of 110.53 per cent.<\/p>\n
According to him, the agency\u2019s performance could have been stronger but for the suspension of excise duty on telecommunications services, fiscal measures promoting local production of healthcare products and disruptions to global trade caused by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which affected imports, particularly wheat.<\/p>\n
On expenditure, Jibrin said although the Customs Service had an approved budget of about N1.132 trillion in 2025, actual spending stood at N591 billion.<\/p>\n
He attributed the shortfall in capital expenditure to delays in approvals by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) and the Federal Executive Council (FEC), resulting in several projects being rolled over to the 2026 fiscal year.<\/p>\n
The committee chairman explained that the Service\u2019s projected N11.074 trillion revenue target for 2026 would be driven by expanded deployment of technology, improved revenue recovery mechanisms, real-time audit systems, enhanced trade facilitation and intensified anti-smuggling operations.<\/p>\n
He added that the proposed N1.295 trillion expenditure consists of N421 billion for personnel costs, N307 billion for overheads and N565 billion for capital projects, with funding expected to come mainly from the statutory four per cent Free on Board (FOB) levy under the Nigerian Customs Service Act, 2023.<\/p>\n
Based on its review, the committee recommended Senate approval of both the proposed revenue target and expenditure estimates.<\/p>\n
Contributing to the debate, Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin praised the committee for what he described as a well-prepared report and commended the Comptroller-General of Customs and the entire workforce for their impressive performance.<\/p>\n
He said the agency\u2019s record revenue generation justified President Bola Tinubu\u2019s decision to extend the tenure of the Comptroller-General.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have an agency that budgeted to generate about N6.5 trillion but ended up generating N7.2 trillion. That is a wonderful performance, and we cannot commend the Comptroller-General and his team enough,\u201d Barau said.<\/p>\n
He noted that despite generating significantly higher revenue, the Customs Service spent only N591 billion in 2025, with a larger share devoted to capital projects than overhead costs.<\/p>\n
Barau also described the agency\u2019s projected revenue target of over N11 trillion for 2026 as evidence of confidence in the reforms and innovations introduced by its leadership.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor an agency to propose generating N11 trillion and spending only N1.2 trillion to run its operations shows remarkable fiscal discipline. This is an institution Nigerians should be proud of,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Following the committee\u2019s recommendations, Senate President Godswill Akpabio put the proposals to a voice vote, and lawmakers unanimously approved the revenue target and expenditure estimates.<\/p>\n
Akpabio commended the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariffs for its thorough scrutiny of the budget proposal and congratulated the leadership of the Nigerian Customs Service on its performance.<\/p>\n
He also expressed confidence that the approved budget would strengthen the operations of the Customs Service and boost revenue generation for the Federal Government<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By George Mgbeleke The Senate on Wednesday approved the 2026 budget proposal of the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), endorsing a revenue target of N11.074 trillion and a total expenditure of N1.295 trillion for the 2026 fiscal year. The approval followed the consideration of the report of the Senate Committee on Customs, Excise and Tariffs, chaired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14881,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15378"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15379,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15378\/revisions\/15379"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}