Newscast - Africa

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission issued a seven-day ultimatum for all lease and license holders operating in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, to disclose the real owners of their companies.
Chief Executive, Gbenga Komolafe, says the commission demanded that the information to be disclosed must include the identity of the beneficial owner the level of ownership, and details of how control is exerted.
He stressed that the full list of real owners of their companies is submitted to the commission.
Komolafe says the NUPRC is fully committed to working with NEITI to deepen Nigeria’s implementation of contract transparency and beneficial ownership disclosures in the country.

The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines, and Agriculture has called on the government to review policies that suffocated business establishments last year.
The president of the association, John Udeagbala, noted that 2022 was a year with significant economic complications, marked by a post-covid-19 recovery and the lingering Russia-Ukraine war that has added to the spiraling global inflation.
He says the country in 2022 witnessed a high cost of energy; a general rise in the cost of doing business; an astronomical rise in prices of goods and services; a rise in government debts with tepid growth in GDP and high-interest rates, which had an adverse impact on the private sector.
He added that the resultant harsh economic environment has negatively impacted many businesses and made a lot of them be struggling to survive.

Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, says that the Local Government Autonomy Bill is one of the biggest challenges facing the ongoing review of the 1999 Constitution and remains a priority to the executive arm.
Senator Omo-Agege says the expectation is that the state houses of assembly would take an independent stance on the matter rather than align with the positions of their state governors.
He, however, expressed optimism that there will be more votes in favor of this bill, particularly because the President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, is actively working to find a resolution.

The Independent National Electoral Commission has again commenced the distribution of Permanent Voters’ Cards to registrants at the 8,809 electoral wards across Nigeria.
INEC National Commissioner, Festus Okoye says the devolution of PVC collection to the wards commences tomorrow 6th January 2023, and all validly registered voters who are yet to collect their PVCs are encouraged to seize the opportunity of the devolution to the wards to do so.
Okoye says all those who applied for the replacement of lost, damaged, or defaced PVCs can collect their PVCs at the wards during the same period.
He noted that the PVCs of those that applied for transfer are available for collection in the local governments and registration areas where they intend to vote and not in the state or local government where they carried out the transfer.

Twitter’s head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, says Twitter Inc will reverse its 2019 ban on political advertisements, as the Elon Musk-owned company seeks to grow revenue.
The social media platform tweeted from its Twitter Safety account that it would relax its advertising policy for cause-based ads in the United States and align its advertisement policy with TV and other media outlets.
Ella Irwin says cause-based advertisements that will be allowed on Twitter include ads that educate or raise awareness of issues such as voter registration, climate change or government programmes like the Census,Political advertising made up a sliver of Twitter’s overall revenue, accounting for less than $3m of total spending for the 2018 US midterm election.

Meta has been fined €390m euros for breaking EU data rules.
The Irish Data Protection Commission says the way Meta asked permission to use peoples' data for ads on Facebook and Instagram was unlawful.
Meta says it is disappointed and intends to appeal, stressing that the decision does not prevent personalised advertising on its platforms.
The regulator says that Facebook and Instagram cannot force consent by saying consumers have to accept how their data is used or leave the platform.
Privacy campaigners say the decision is a major victory and mean Meta will have to give users real choice over how their data is used to target online advertisements.

Algeria's pharmaceutical industry minister says the country will start manufacturing insulin in a move expected to significantly reduce the cost of importing the drug used to manage diabetes.
Ali Aoun says the validation process has been completed and the unit is ready to start manufacturing insulin on 15 January.
Mr. Aoun says importing insulin cost the country $425m last year with at least 15% of Algeria's population diabetic.

Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has instructed officials to speed up the release of all the commodities at its ports, as the country continues to grapple with a dollar crunch.
The presidency's spokesman says that they also reviewed the international standards implemented at the Egyptian Customs Authority, particularly with regard to reducing the time required to release commodities.
The presidency also tackled the progress of the national economic reform program supported by the International Monetary Fund especially the amendments recently made to the law on prohibiting monopolies.

The Kenyan president says the country will not default on its debt in the face of severe economic challenges.
William Ruto says Kenya had applied the brakes on any more borrowing.
When it took over in September last year, his government said it would cut expensive commercial borrowing in favor of cheaper sources such as the World Bank.
Kenya's credit rating has been at risk of being downgraded because of rising debt and surging global interest rates.

The President of the Aircraft Owners, and Pilots Association of Nigeria, Alex Nwuba, says that airport privatisation will help to reduce the subsidy burden on the Federal Government.
He says that the privatisation of the airports would also help in commercialising them so that they would be more conscious of customer needs and efficient in terms of service delivery.
He says the government should also look into privatising airports to make them more commercial so that they will be more responsive to customer needs and much more efficient in service delivery.