Africa Business News

Lagos State Government has raised the alarm of a possible third wave of Coronavirus pandemic, following a sharp increase in the number of positive cases recorded in the last few weeks.
He says the development may not be unconnected to the careless attitude of air passengers from countries in the high-risk zones.
Sanwo-Olu disclosed that 18 per cent of 50,322 air passengers of interest could not be reached for COVID-19 status monitoring by EKOTELEMED because they supplied the wrong contact details.
Sanwo-Olu says air passengers would face prosecution, including fines and imprisonment in line with the Lagos State Coronavirus Law of 2021.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to order the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission and the National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission to perform their statutory functions to review downward the remuneration and allowances of President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo, 36 governors and members of the National Assembly”.
SERAP says that slashing jumbo pay for these high-ranking political office-holders would reduce the unfair pay disparity between political officer holders and judicial officers, address the persistent poor treatment of judges, and improve access of victims of corruption to justice and effective remedies.
SERAP added that an order of mandamus to direct and compel the RMAFC to perform its mandatory constitutional duty to urgently review upward the remuneration, salaries, and allowances, as well as the conditions of service for Nigerian judges.

Finance ministers and central bankers from the group of 20 rich countries will meet face to face on Friday for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic at a gathering in Venice where corporate tax reform will top the agenda.
The G20 is expected to give its political endorsement to plans for new rules on where and how much companies are taxed which were backed last week by 130 countries at the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Officials say the two-day gathering in Italy’s historic lagoon city will open a discussion on how to put the OECD proposals into practice, with the aim of reaching a final agreement at a Rome G20 leaders’ summit in October.

Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics agreed to ban fans from the events under a COVID-19 state of emergency.
Japan’s Olympics Minister Tamayo Marukawa says they reached an agreement on no spectators at venues in Tokyo.
Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga says it was essential to prevent Tokyo, where the highly infectious Delta COVID-19 variant was spreading, from becoming the source of another wave of infections.
Suga says taking into consideration the impact of the Delta strain, and in order to prevent the resurgence of infections from spreading across the country, we need to step up virus prevention measures.

UN agency says Countries of Latin America and the Caribbean should register GDP growth of 5.2 per cent on average in 2021, an improved forecast but not enough to offset coronavirus losses.
The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean upped its April forecast of 4.1 per cent for 2021, which comes on the back of a 6.8 per cent contraction in 2020 as the region of 33 countries was ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report says the expansion, however, will not manage to ensure sustained growth, because the social impacts of the crisis and the structural problems in the region have deepened and will continue to do so during the recovery.
It added that there is nothing to indicate that the low growth dynamic prior to 2020 is going to change.

The World Health Organization says Africa has just lived through its most devastating week of the pandemic, but the worst is yet to come as the third wave gathers pace on the continent.
The WHO’s regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti says Africa has just marked the continent’s most dire pandemic week ever. But the worst is yet to come as the fast-moving third wave continues to gain speed and new ground.
Coronavirus cases have been rising in Africa since the start of the third wave on the continent on May 3. During the week ending July 4, more than 251,000 new Covid-19 cases were recorded on the continent, a 20% increase over the previous week and a 12% jump from the previous January peak.

Tunisia’s health ministry spokeswoman says the health system has collapsed under the weight of the Covid-19 pandemic describing the virus’s effect on the country as catastrophic.
Tunisia recorded 9,823 cases and 134 deaths, its worst daily toll from the virus.
Hospitals in the north African country have seen a significant influx of patients over the past two weeks.
The country of approximately 12 million inhabitants has suffered nearly 465,000 cases and 15,735 deaths.
She says the current health situation is catastrophic and the number of cases has risen dramatically.
Ben Alya said hospitals are overwhelmed, and it is difficult to find available beds and oxygen supplies.

The Ugandan government has begun distributing Covid relief money to people affected by the second lockdown.
The money will be distributed through mobile money services with each beneficiary expected to receive $29.
Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja launched the exercise in the capital, Kampala with about half a million people living in urban areas benefitting from the 53.7bn Ugandan shillings.
The beneficiaries will include slum dwellers, food vendors, waiters, club bouncers, restaurant workers, musicians, comedians, taxi drivers, single mothers, teachers and support staff in private schools as well as those in government schools who are not on the payroll.

The UN Security Council members have backed the African Union’s mediation efforts on the Nile dam row between Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.
The members asked the three countries to resume negotiations, which have yielded little progress since they began a decade ago.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, says the negotiations should be held under the leadership of the AU and should recommence with urgency.
The European Union says the AU-led talks needed to be intensified adding that it was ready to support the negotiations as observers working with the UN and the US.
Vassily Nebenzia, the Russian representative to the UN, proposed that the three parties meet while in New York to resolve the issues.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service has directed commercial banks in the country to freeze the accounts of Multichoice Nigeria Limited and Multichoice Africa, in a bid to recover about ₦1.8 trillion outstanding taxes.
FIRS spokesman, Abdullahi Ahmad in a statement says FIRS discovered that the companies persistently breached all agreements, while the groups’ performance did not reflect in their tax obligations and compliance level in the country.
FIRS further explained that multi-choice Africa, which provides services to its Nigerian subsidiary had never paid value-added-tax to the Nigerian government since its inception, even as the country contributes 34 per cent of total revenue for the multichoice group.
They said the decision to appoint the banks as agents and to freeze the accounts was due to the groups’ continued refusal to grant FIRS access to their servers for audit.