Landmark achievement: NW Customs Sector records startling 409 MFCFA annual revenue in 2022.

The recent achievement was revealed during a meeting held recently in Bamenda to close activities for the sector.

According to a trusted source within the sector, the North West Chief of Sector, Epie Jerome, revealed during the meeting that at the close of the 2022 financial year, the sector collected the sum of 409,569,569 FCFA.

However, this feat is down by over 75 million FCFA, compared to 483 million FCFA that was assigned to the sector facing security challenges since 2017.

In addition, the sector also mobilised over 24.8 million FCFA as non-budgetary revenue during the same period, giving a total of 431,903,048 FCFA mobilised throughout last year. This statistics is a net score of 89.42% for the sector.

Great achievement amidst severe challenges

During the meeting with the collaborators, the devoted but media-shy sector boss saluted his collaborators, whom, under his stewardship, have set a new record for the sector since it was established.

The pious sector boss acknowledged that this new milestone for the sector has been achieved amidst individual and collective challenges.

“We went through thin and thick in a struggle to meet up with the prescriptions and targets of the hierarchy. In this endeavour, all of us went through different challenges; intimidation and attacks, opposition from those who do not see any importance in paying customs duty,” Epie noted.

Praising the resilience of his staff members, Epie stated that “some of us fell sick, some went hungry for days, others faced different challenges but none of us gave up entirely”.

“Due to our resilience, we are now coming out in distinctive and flying colours. That is simply because we carried out our tasks and missions professionally, with a lot of diligence and patriotism in a region marred by daily security issues. It is also true that some of us erred occasionally but not sufficient enough to dilute our success story,” the sector boss reiterated.

“Dear team members, permit me to reveal to those who do not know that never in the North West Sector’s history has this staggering figure been reached, even during normal times. Therefore, let’s congratulate one another for this extraordinary achievement that we have created for this sector in particular and the Directorate General of Customs in general,” he added.

Salutes support of hierarchy, other services

The committed Epie Jerome also used the opportunity to recognise the support they received from the hierarchy of the Customs department in corroborating with their efforts on the ground.

“To get here, we should appreciate the support of the head of department, the Minister, the Director General of Customs and his team,” he said.

While recognising the assistance of the Governor of the North West region and Defence and Security forces, the workaholic sector boss equally indicated that other services of the region such as importers, transporters and other stakeholders of the sector contributed to the breakthrough.