Nigerian Oil and Gas Firms Pay N71.6bn as Flaring Penalties

By Dipo Olowookere Profit-taking persisted at the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited on Thursday, with Customs Street going down by 0.31 per cent on its return from a midweek break. The market closed its doors to traders on Wednesday due to the public holiday declared by the federal government to mark Eid-el Maulud, the birthday of Prophet Mohammed. Business Post reports that market participants did not take their minds off the pressing issues affecting the Nigerian economy, especially rising inflation, energy costs and the foreign exchange (FX) crisis. As a result, they liquidated their shares, leading to a negative market breadth

By Adedapo Adesanya The Naira appreciated against the US Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E), the Peer-to-Peer (P2P), and the black market arms of the foreign exchange (forex) market on Friday, September 29, as a turbulent third quarter ended. In the official segment, the local currency improved its value against the greenback by 2.6 per cent or N20.04 to close at N755.27/$1, in contrast to the preceding day’s N775.31/$1 amid a drop in the supply of FX into the system by 11.6 per cent or $16.73 million to $127.82 million from the $144.55 million published on Thursday. In the

By Adedapo Adesanya The Chairman of the Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee, Mr Taiwo Oyedele, has cleared the air regarding recent reports on the transfer of funds to the Joint Tax Board (JTB) by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) under the erstwhile chairman, Mr Muhammad Nami, for the tax reform committee. In a statement on Friday, he revealed that N5 billion was paid to the board to fund activities of the team set up by President Bola Tinubu, noting that “The committee’s budget includes provisions for a national Data for Tax project which the JTB had been

By Dipo Olowookere No fewer than 15 Nigerian Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs) will share the N75 million set aside by a tech giant, Google, in the 2023 edition of Hustle Academy Fund. The initiative was introduced in 2022 to provide equity-free funds to small business owners to scale up their operations and support entrepreneurial growth in Nigeria. Entries for the exercise opened on Thursday, September 28 and will close on Thursday, October 12, 2023, and to be eligible, businesses must be Nigerian-founded, operating within Nigeria for 1-5 years, and have a clear and scalable business plan. They should have

By Dipo Olowookere The Nigerian government has said it would establish not less than six delivery units called focus labs in ministries to tackle the challenges faced by investors in the implementation of this government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP). Minister of Budget and National Planning, Mr Udoma Udo Udoma, made this disclosure on Monday after the ERGP Central Steering Committee presided over by the Vice President, Mr Yemi Osinbajo. While addressing newsmen, the Minister said the delivery units would be set up in the agriculture, transportation, industry, trade and investment, mines and steel development and power, works and

By Adedapo Adesanya Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP) Plc and FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc returned the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange to the bullish territory as both companies’ prices moved up. The share price of NDEP Plc gained N5 or 1.9 per cent to close at N275 per unit compared to the previous closing price of N270 per unit, while the value of Friesland appreciated by 37 kobo or 0.3 per cent to close at N130.37 per share in contrast to the previous N130.00 per share. The growth recorded by the two bellwethers spurred the key performance parameters of

By Adedapo Adesanya Crude prices rebounded by 2 per cent on Tuesday as American President Joe Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill did a lot to counter fears of COVID-19 sweeping through China. At the market yesterday, the price of the Brent crude went up by $1.70 or 2.46 per cent to $70.74, while the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) moved up by $1.95 or 2.93 per cent to $68.43 per barrel. The market clung to the assumption that President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill will boost oil product demand and lift economic performance in the world’s largest oil-consuming nation in the

A group of 131 refugees were evacuated last night out of Libya to the Emergency Transit Mechanism (ETM) in Niger, run by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. The evacuees were from Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, and included 65 children under the age of eighteen. Some of the group were previously held in detention centres for more than a year. “We cannot underestimate just how important these life-saving evacuations are,” said Jean-Paul Cavalieri, UNHCR Chief of Mission for Libya. “On World Refugee Day, for the first time in a long time, these refugees will be able to sleep at night knowing

By Aduragbemi Omiyale The Governor of Edo State, Mr Godwin Obaseki, has again raised the alarm about the economy, emphasising that the federal and the state governments may find it very difficult to pay salaries of workers from July 2023 unless the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is compelled to print Naira massively. Recall that in 2020, Mr Obaseki informed Nigerians that the apex bank was printing the local currency to make up for the shortfall of revenue shared monthly to the three tiers of government. This was because the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited was no longer remitting

By Modupe Gbadeyanka A Marketing Communication professional and employee with one of the leading commercial banks in Nigeria, Mr Nduneche Ezurike, has advocated a revolutionary shift in employee management in the modern workplace. Mr Ezurike, in his research work titled ‘Employee MarketPlace- a study on employee engagement and workplace innovation in the millennial age,’ cautioned that organizations seeking to create happy moments and fat pay cheques as a strategy for achieving improved productivity are in for hard times in the era of the millennials. He advised that they should instead pay greater attention to creating enabling environment which harnesses individual

By Modupe Gbadeyanka Students who want to test their Mathematics prowess can begin to register for the QuickLearning Mathematics Contest (QLMC) Nigeria. The organisers said intending participants have till Sunday, July 4, 2021, to enter the competition and entry into the competition is absolutely free with over N3 million cash prizes will be won. QLMC Nigeria is open to JSS3 students attending full-time secondary education in both public and private schools in Nigeria and registration for the competition, which are in two stages: Stage One is the Qualifying Online Examination and Stage Two the TV Quiz Show, is going online

By Adedapo Adesanya The Abuja Electricity Distribution Company (AEDC) has assured customers within its franchise area of steady power supply during the Yuletide. The assurance was given by Mr Oyebode Fadipe, AEDC General Manager Corporate Communications, in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday. Mr Fadipe said that in order to ensure steady supply during the period, a special rapid response team has been set up to reinforce and strengthen the existing structure. He said that the team was set up to respond to customers’ complaints with dispatch. “We recognise the fact that the demand for electricity always increase during the