Africa Business News

The Federal Government is partnering with Microsoft Corporation to accelerate Nigeria’s resolve towards a more digital economy.This is in line with the Economic Sustainability Plan of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, said a statement by Laolu Akande, the spokesman for the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo.In an announcement by both the government and the tech giant, no less than five million Nigerians would benefit from a digital upskilling programme.Professor Osinbajo stated that the government was committed to leveraging innovation and technology to bring better outcomes across a wide area of governance concerns.The Vice President added that This launch is indicative of our commitment to this and will involve collaboration with various government agencies as implementing partners.

The Federal Government has approved the establishment of the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons.The new centre will be domiciled in the office of the National Security Adviser and Retired Major General AM Dikko has been appointed as Pioneer Coordinator.The Head, Strategic Communication, Office of the National Security Adviser, Zakariya Usman says the decision is part of the ongoing restructuring of Nigeria’s security architecture.He says President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the establishment of a National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons to be domiciled in the Office of the National Security Adviser.

The military is restating its commitment to the Nigerian Constitution with a promise that it will remain apolitical and loyal to the civil authority and the President who is the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces.The acting Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu made the pledge on behalf of the military in a statement on Monday.The military pledged that it would continue to discharge its constitutional responsibilities professionally, especially in protecting the country’s democracy, defence of its territorial integrity, as well as protecting the lives and property of the citizens.It added that the current security challenges in the country were not insurmountable, saying the Armed Forces and other security agencies were working assiduously to ameliorate the problems.

Two pioneering web services of the internet age, Yahoo and AOL, have been sold after the latest owner failed to revive their fortunes.US telecoms giant Verizon is selling its media assets, which include the two companies, to a US private equity firm in a deal worth $5bn.Verizon bought Yahoo in 2017 and AOL in 2015 for a combined $9bn.Verizon will retain a 10% stake in the division under the sale of the media assets to Apollo Global Management.Verizon bought the two brands in the hope of a quick entry into the digital advertising market, believing they still had enough resonance with consumers.Yahoo and AOL were pioneers in offering a wide range of free and informative web services to consumers, long before Google came into existence.

A draft decree showed that Italy is considering extending to mid-2022 tax breaks that are expected to spur on mergers in the fragmented banking sector while boosting incentives for any tie-ups.The draft bill seen by Reuters reintroduces for the current year tax benefits for companies shedding impaired loans which had expired in December.The government is considering extending state guarantees on bank loans to firms and a debt holiday scheme, with only interest payments resuming after June.Tax breaks for corporate mergers, due to expire in December, are a key plank of an incentive package Italy’s former government had prepared to convince the country’s No.2 bank UniCredit to take on loss-making Monte Dei Paschi.The proposed changes extend the timeframe for possible mergers and give banks an even bigger incentive to join forces and buttress profits through cost cuts.

South Africa has allocated an extra 4 billion rand to buy COVID-19 vaccines and extend a special distress grant to thousands of people hit by the pandemic, in a Special Appropriation Bill presented by the finance minister.The bill, expected to be debated with the National Treasury in a parliamentary committee meeting allocates an additional 1.25 billion rand to the department of health to purchase COVID-19 vaccines and another 2.82 billion rands to social development for funding the distress grant.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation sold crude oil worth N267.59 billion in February, while its total daily production stood at 1.42 million barrels per day in the first quarter of 2021.The value of the crude, both export and domestic for February, was 97 per cent higher than that of January which was N134.35 billion.Similarly, crude oil export revenue received in March amounted to $93.37 million, equivalent to N35.72 billion, representing a 204 per cent increase compared to February’s receipts.NNPC says Nigeria maintained a 1.426 million BPD OPEC production cut in 1Q21. The overall NNPC crude oil sale valued at N267.59bn (export & domestic crude) in February 2021 is 97.71 per cent higher than the N134.35 billion recorded in January 2021.

The Lekki Port LFTZ Enterprise Limited says it has received the sum of $60m, which is the first instalment of the $629m loan facility from the China Development Bank for the construction of the deepest seaport in Sub-Sahara Africa.The Managing Director, Lekki Port LFTZ Enterprise Limited, Du Ruogang stated that the first instalment of the loan facility was received on Thursday, April 29 as the company had satisfied all the conditions necessary for the release of the funds.He stated that receipt of the first instalment of the loan facility is a major breakthrough in the quest to deliver a world-class deep seaport and to ensure that commercial operations commence before the end of 2022.

The Charted Institute of Taxation of Nigeria, Ikeja and District Society, has urged governments to imbibe and display the culture of accountability and transparency in administration and utilisation of tax income.The tax body said corruption was responsible for the low income from tax in the country.The Chairman, CITN, Ikeja and District Society, Mr Funso Abidakun, made reference to recent research by the Nigerian Economic Summit Group, which revealed that more than 81 per cent of taxable Nigerians did not pay their income taxes as and when due.The research showed that the local governments and their officials were among the most untrustworthy, followed by the state governments and the tax officials, the statement said.He says figures available revealed that there were 20 million registered taxpayers in the country, which was low compared to the country’s population of nearly 200 million people.

The country’s external reserves lost $350m in two weeks, falling to $34.9bn on April 29 from a high of $35.25bn as of April 16.Figures obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria on Monday revealed that the reserves, which had been fluctuating, rose from $34.85bn as of April 1 before returning to a downward path in the middle of the month.The CBN had recently attributed the improvement in the level of external reserves to the recent upsurge in crude oil prices on the backdrop of the renewed optimism on the successful deployment of COVID-19 vaccines across the globe.It added that available data showed that Nigeria’s reserves per capita decreased to $171.88, compared with $176.89 at end-December 2020.