The Federal Executive Council has approved the Electronic Cargo Tracking System (ECT) to aid the elimination of oil theft in the country.

Mu’azu Sambo, the Minister of Transportation, disclosed this on Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock Villa.

Sambo underlined that the tracking system which intrinsically ensures the elimination of loopholes in border operations and provides a boost to the Federal government’s revenue in form of duties, port charges and levies, is also expected to generate up to 235-million-naira revenue for the Federal Government.

“It is expected that this scheme will generate revenues to the Nigerian government ranging from about $90 million per annum to a peak of about $235 million per annum,” he said.

According to him, 26 African countries are already implementing the tracking scheme, which will equally tackle declaration at ports, secure imports and exports and provide transparency in cargo invoicing and declarations.

He stated that the implementation of the scheme will diminish the challenge of under-declaration, concealment and wrong classification of cargo which are primary causes of revenue leakages, insecurity and safety issues at the nation’s borders.

The investments according to him are going to be made by the investing private sector companies. He added that revenues derived from the small margin of charges would be shared in the ratio of 60 percent to the government and 40 percent to the consortium of companies.

“The implementation of the scheme will abet the problems of under declaration, concealment and wrong classification of cargo, which are the primary causes of revenue leakages, insecurity and general security issues at the borders.

“The deployment and implementation of this state of the art ECT scheme will ensure the elimination of loopholes on border operations and boost the revenue of the Nigerian government in form of duties, Port charges and levies,” the minister stated. (Channels TV)

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