CBN to Sanction Exporters Over NXP Numbers

By Adedapo Adesanya President Bola Tinubu has been charged by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) to investigate the allegations that over $15 billion of oil revenues and N200 billion budgeted to repair the refineries are missing and unaccounted for between 2020 and 2021, as documented by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI). In the letter dated September 23 and signed by SERAP deputy director, Mr Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation urged him to “name and shame anyone suspected to be responsible for the missing and unaccounted for public funds and to ensure their effective prosecution as well as

By Aduragbemi Omiyale Mr Tokunbo Akande, the Special Adviser to the Executive Chairman of the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service (LIRS), Mr Ayodele Subair, has waded into the controversies surrounding stamp duty. The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) have been at loggerheads at to which of them should collect the revenue charged on financial transactions in the country. Mr Akande, while commenting on the matter, described stamp duty as ‘a revenue stamp and not a postage stamp.’ While featuring as a guest on The Tax Talk programme on Channels Television recently, he emphasised that

By Adedapo Adesanya A foreign oil company, Equinor ASA, has chosen a little-known Nigerian company, Chappal Energy, as the preferred buyer of its stake in one of the country’s largest deep-water oil fields, Agbami. According to a report by Bloomberg on Monday, the Norwegian energy giant is trying to sell its 20.2 per cent interest in the Agbami field – joining other international producers such as Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corporation and Eni SpA in looking to offload assets in Africa’s biggest crude producer, Nigeria. In January, Equinor launched the sale of its stake in an offshore Nigerian oilfield, joining

By Bliss Okperan The exchange rate instability in the country is already giving small business owners sleepless nights and it threatens their investments. This concern was raised recently by the National Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Association of Small-Scale Industrialists, Mr Segun Kuti-George. He emphasised that business owners would have to increase their prices because of the unavoidable consequence of the current exchange rate crisis in Nigeria. According to him, if consumers are unable to meet up with the increase in the cost of goods and services, businesses would be forced to shut down their operations, which would, in turn,

By Adedapo Adesanya The value of agricultural goods exports marginally increased by 0.44 per cent to N280.87 billion in the second quarter of 2023 compared with the N279.64 billion recorded in Q1 2023, but higher than the N141.77 billion recorded in the second quarter of last year by 98.1 per cent. This information is from the latest Foreign Trade in Goods Statistics Q2 2023 report of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which showed that the country witnessed a 5.8 per cent growth in the period under review at N12.74 trillion. Out of this, total trade in agricultural goods in

By Dipo Olowookere The 50 percent pension balance of workers of the defunct Nigeria Airways Limited has been approved by the federal government, Business Post has learned. This information was confirmed by the immediate past Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, during her handing over on Tuesday. While presenting her handover notes to Dr Mahmoud Isa Dutse, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, in Abuja yesterday, the Minister said before leaving office, she was able to make President Muhammadu Buhari approve the payment of the N22.5 billion balance of the former workers of the nation’s defunct national carrier. She said

By Modupe Gbadeyanka On Wednesday, October 16, 2019, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) will auction treasury bills worth N121.9 billion to investors via the primary market. This debt instrument would be offered in three maturities; 91-day bills worth N5.85 billion, 182-day bills worth N3.50 billion and 364-day bills worth N112.54 billion. Business Post reports that at the last exercise, the central bank pegged the stop rate of the three-month instrument at 11.08 percent, the six-month maturity was cleared at 11.60 percent, while the 12-month tenor was offered at 13.20 percent. For analysts at Cowry Asset, stop rates would be

**Says Oil Prices Could Rise to $85 Per Barrel By Dipo Olowookere As investors prepare for 2019, UBS Global Wealth Management said they (investors) will need to weather more volatility in order to capture opportunities in the coming year. According to the Year Ahead report from UBS, the world’s leading wealth manager, global economic growth will decelerate next year to 3.6 percent from 3.8 percent in 2018, and company earnings will grow at a slower rate. However, a 2019 recession still looks unlikely, and the price of many financial assets has already moved to reflect uncertain prospects, it said in

By Dipo Olowookere Newly licensed merchant bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), NOVA Merchant Bank Limited, has commenced operations in Nigeria after its formal launch in Lagos on Thursday. The financial institution has former Group Managing Director (GMD) of United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Mr Phillips Oduoza, as its chairman. While addressing newsmen yesterday, Mr Oduoza explained that the lender is focused on project financing, asset management, capital market operations, wholesale and investment banking. According to him, merchant banking has not been fully tapped into in Nigeria, describing the sector as very important because it supports the

By Dipo Olowookere An investigative report by Premium Times has shown how the Lagos State government led by Mr Akinwunmi Ambode gave the contract of waste management to Visionscape despite not having the necessary experience for the job as earlier insinuated by the Governor. Lagos has recently become very dirty with heaps of refuse seen across the city, which used to be very clean until the present administration cancelled the existing system to introduce its own. Residents of the metropolis have had to deal with daily exposure to severe odour oozing from the refuse dumps in the ‘mega city’. There

By Modupe Gbadeyanka The Department of Trade and Industry (the dti) will lead a business delegation on a Trade and Investment Mission to Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria from March 20-25, 2017. The mission forms part of the dti’s objective to identify and create export markets for South African value-added products and services. It will also serve to promote South African products, and service offerings, whilst creating business partnerships between business communities of the respective countries. The Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr Rob Davies says that the mission is aimed at advancing Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa’s trade and

By Dipo Olowookere Negotiations on the new recently approved N30,000 minimum wage for workers in the country have commenced between the Oyo State government and the labour union in the state. This week, the Oyo State chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) elected Comrade Titilola Sodo as Chairman in an election which held at the Adamasingba Stadium, Ibadan. Oyo State Commissioner for Information, Mr Toye Arulogun, commended the union for a peaceful transition from one leadership to another on the same day Governor Abiola Ajimobi inaugurated a first of its kind joint transition committee to midwife the handing and