Newscast - Africa

The House of Representatives has asked the Central Bank of Nigeria to reinforce the use of coins in the country, as part of efforts to tackle price inflation and stabilise the economy.
The matter was deliberated upon during plenary on Tuesday following a motion moved by a lawmaker, representing Toro Federal Constituency in Bauchi State, Umar Lawal.

The Federation Accounts Allocation Committee has shared N695.03 billion to the three tiers of government as revenue for February amid plans by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation limited to deduct N242.53 billion for subsidy.
The FAAC Director Information, Mr. Olajide Oshundun, says the Federal Government received N236 billion, the states received N190 billion, the Local Government Councils got N140 billion, while the oil-producing states received N23billion as derivation and Cost of Collection received N23 billion and Transfer/ Refunds got N80 billion.
Oshundun noted that the Gross Revenue available from the Value Added Tax for February 2022 was N177 billion as against N191 billion distributed in the preceding month of January 2022, resulting in a decrease of N13 billion.
It also revealed that Petroleum Profit Tax increased significantly, while Oil and Gas Royalties increased marginally.

United States President Joe Biden’s administration is imposing travel bans on Chinese officials whom it accuses of repressing Uighur Muslims, as well as other ethnic and religious minorities.
The US State Department announced that it is barring the officials from travelling to the US because of their involvement in repressive acts and crackdowns on freedom of speech and religion in China and abroad.
The department did not identify which officials would be subject to the expanded ban, nor say how many would be affected.

A Russian court has labelled Meta Platforms Inc an extremist organisation banning the activities of the United States company on Russian territory.
Moscow’s Tverskoi District Court upheld a lawsuit filed by Russian state prosecutors, the court’s press service said in a statement, which accused the tech giant of tolerating Russophobia during the conflict in Ukraine.
The court says the ban does not apply to the activities of Meta’s messenger WhatsApp.
The Interfax news agency reports that Lawyer Victoria Shagina says that the company was not carrying out extremist activities and stood against Russophobia, Access to Meta’s flagship platforms Facebook and Instagram had already been partially limited amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

The European Union is set to approve a new defence strategy designed to increase the bloc’s capacity to act, including setting up a 5,000-strong rapid reaction force.
EU foreign policy Josep Borrell says the plan has undergone a last-minute rewrite to increase the focus on the threat from Russia after Moscow invaded Ukraine adding that It’s not the answer to the Ukrainian war, but it is part of the answer
Borrell says the new strategy is designed to boost defence cooperation between EU states.

Hong Kong Government says the country will resume international flights from the United States, Britain and seven other countries as it announced a loosening of some of the world’s toughest Covid-19 restrictions.
Authorities earlier banned flights from nine countries deemed high-risk including the United States, Britain, France and India.
Lam says Hong Kong will lift flight bans for the nine countries from April 1.
She says the epidemic situations in those countries are not worse than Hong Kong’s, and most arrivals did not have serious symptoms.

The Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, says a key challenge with Credit Rating Agencies is the lack of transparency in their rating methodologies, procedures, practices, and processes.
He says the conclusions by the international rating agencies affected the prospects of African countries raising the required external financial resources on the capital market to promote economic expansion on the scale European economies did in the 1950s and 1960s.
Mr Ofori-Atta says the unfair ratings affected developing countries access to credit.
He says African sovereigns were significantly less likely to be promoted from B into the BB category, compared to other regions, even after accounting for improvements in the macro-fiscal environment and the willingness of African governments to service debts.

Zimbabwe has hinted it may further reduce fuel levies to stymie a sustained spike in the domestic price of petroleum products after global prices soared on market uncertainty due to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube says he started reducing levies on fuel late last year to hold local prices steady, although this was not made public.
He says however a fuel subsidy has become even more necessary amid the uncertainty in the global markets, which has seen western countries take steps to shun Russian fuel imports following its special military operation in Ukraine

President Muhammadu Buhari will be commissioning the newly built international terminal of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos.
The acting general manager, corporate affairs, Faithful Hope-Ivbaze, says that there will also be a signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Lagos State Government on the 9km Airport-Shasha-Alimosho link Road to be constructed by the State Government.
The Acting GM further noted that the new terminal is expected to generate about three thousand direct and indirect employment for Nigerians, as well as enhance passenger facilitation and comfort at the Lagos airport.

The Chairman of the Presidential Steering Committee, Boss Mustapha say fully vaccinated travellers coming into Nigeria will no longer be required to take a pre-departure PCR COVID-19 test.
Mustapha says passengers who are unvaccinated or partially vaccinated however are still expected to take a COVID-19 PCR test 48 hours before departure or do a Day 2 and day 7 test on arrival.
He says such passengers will be expected to pay for their PCR tests through the Federal Government’s travel platform, while fully vaccinated passengers will not be charged for rapid antigen tests at the airport.