President Cyril Ramaphosa has come to the defence of finance minister Tito Mboweni as unions bay for his blood over plans to cut the public-sector wage bill by more than R160bn over three years.

Mboweni has said he has the political support to push through the cuts, beginning with this year’s annual increase due to be implemented on April 1.

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The International Monetary Fund, IMF, and the World Bank Group have pledged their readiness to help member-countries tackle the challenges posed by the COVID-19 virus.

The pledge was announced in a joint press statement issued by  the Managing Director of the IMF, Ms. Kristalina Georgieva and the President of the World Bank, Mr. David Malpass in Washington DC, United States of America, yesterday.

According to the two institutions, their Rapid Financing Facilities can be quickly deployed to strengthen health surveillance, as well as, the provision of technical assistance and policy advice for affected member countries.

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There are indications that Nigeria’s compressed natural gas, CNG, deficit may not abate in the near future as inappropriate pricing, poor state of infrastructure and non-existence of a regulating agency are yet to be settled.

Outlining these challenges during a visit to NIPCO facilities in Benin, Edo State, Managing Director, NIPCO Gas limited, Sanjay Teotia, stated that the development of CNG, which is also being used to fuel vehicles for profitability and environmental friendliness is being hampered by lack of accessibility to land.

He expressed regret that with the enormous gas reserves in the country, the potentials in the sector have not being fully utilised to the benefit of the people. Nigeria, Teotia said, would continue to miss the gains of the deposit of such gas reserves if the challenges are not resolved. He, however, lauded the Federal Government’s National Gas Expansion Programme Committee, which was recently inaugurated by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timpre Silva, to steer the gas sector for optimal performance.

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The Lagos State government said it was yet to track everyone who had contact with the Italian man who tested positive to Coronavirus (COVID-19) last Friday.

In a statement made available to newsmen last night, the Commissioner for Health, Lagos State, Prof. Akin Abayomi said so far it had identified over 100 persons, but that there were still persons yet to be tracked.

He said: “The contact being traced includes 159 passengers on the aircraft, six people who came in contact with index case at the hotel, 35 people at the factory, two drivers and an ambulance driver.

On his part, the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu disclosed that two persons suspected and tested for COVID-19 have tested negative to the infection.

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International Breweries Plc has recorded 100 percent subscription in its recently concluded Rights Issue. The company raised N165 billion on the sale of 18.3 billion units of ordinary shares of 50 kobo each at N9.00 per share offered to existing shareholders through a Rights Issue in December 2019. The additional shares were offered on the basis of 17 new ordinary shares for every eight ordinary shares held as at November 6, 2019.

Speaking when the Board and Management team of the company paid a courtesy visit on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, the new Finance Director, Mr. Bruno Zambrano, said the offer closed in December and was 100 percent subscribed. The Rights Issue is the largest equity issuance ever in the Nigerian capital market. The additional shares were listed on the NSE on Friday, February 7, 2020.” As part of the visit, there was an interactive session with the Council Members of the Exchange, led by Mr. Oscar Onyema, the CEO of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, who commended the visitors, and informed them that the Exchange was engaging government on the need for listed companies such as IB Plc to be allowed tax breaks as an incentive to promote growth and productivity.

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US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in New Delhi on February 25, 2020.

The first fatality from the novel coronavirus has been confirmed on US soil, as President Donald Trump on Saturday urged Americans not to panic.

Health officials said the man who died in Washington state was one of a handful with no known links to global hot zones to have contracted the virus — indicating that the pathogen was now likely spreading in communities.

The death occurred in King County, the most populous in the state and home to Seattle, a city of more than 700,000 people.

While this is the first death in the United States from the coronavirus, it is not the first death of an American. A 60-year-old US citizen died earlier this month in the city of Wuhan, China, where the virus first appeared in late December.

President Donald Trump and US officials previously said in a press briefing that the patient was a woman. A senior administration official later blamed the mix up on Redfield, who tweeted later Saturday that the "CDC erroneously identified the patient as a female" during a briefing with Trump and Pence.

US officials urged Americans not to panic.

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It comes after data showed Chinese factory activity fell in February at the fastest rate on record.

On Friday the US Federal Reserve made a similar pledge to stop more big falls on the world's financial markets.

Last week concerns about the outbreak wiped more than $5 trillion from global stocks.

In a rare emergency statement, Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said the central bank would take necessary steps to stabilise financial markets: "Overseas and domestic financial markets continue to make unstable movements due to heightening uncertainty over the impact on the economy from the spread of the coronavirus.

On Monday the privately-run Caixin/Markit Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index showed the fastest rate of contraction in China's factory activity since the survey was launched in 2004. That followed the release on Saturday of equally weak official numbers.

Both sets of data come after employers across the country were ordered to remain closed after the annual Chinese New Year holiday as part of attempts by authorities to stem the spread of the virus.

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Inspector-General of Police, Hillary Mutyambai, has assured that he has increased security patrols across the city, but urged the public to remain vigilant, following a short statement on the U.S. embassy's website on the possibility of a terror attack at an unidentified, major hotel in Nairobi. The embassy has urged hotel visitors in the area to be more aware of their surroundings, plan for emergency evacuations and monitor local media reports.

Inspector-General of Police, Hillary Mutyambai, has assured that he has increased security patrols across the city, but urged the public to remain vigilant, following a short statement on the U.S. embassy's website on the possibility of a terror attack at an unidentified, major hotel in Nairobi. The embassy has urged hotel visitors in the area to be more aware of their surroundings, plan for emergency evacuations and monitor local media reports.

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The United Bank for Africa Plc (UBA) has announced its audited results for the full-year ended December 2019, recording impressive growth across top and bottom lines.

According to the 2019 financials filed at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Friday, the bank’s gross earnings grew by 13.3 per cent to N559.8 billion, compared to N494 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2018.

The bank’s total assets also grew by 15.1 per cent to an unprecedented N5.6 trillion for the year under review.

This was the first time the bank’s gross earnings and assets would respectively cross the N500 billion and N5 trillion marks.

Notwithstanding the challenging business environment in Nigeria, the bank’s profit before tax was impressive at N111.3 billion, compared to the N106.8 billion recorded at the end of 2018.

Furthermore, its profit after tax rose by 13.3 per cent to N89.1 billion, compared to the N78.6 billion recorded in 2018.

These results depicted the bank’s deepening of its Pan-African business strategy, given the growth in the contribution of its 19 African subsidiaries to the Group’s net earnings and total assets.

Ex-Nigeria operations’ contributed 46 per cent to the Group’s profit before tax (PBT) in the year under

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Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has said the Italian businessman who became Nigeria’s first index case of Coronavirus, COVID-19, after testing positive to the disease in Lagos, is clinically stable but showing mild symptoms.

Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, NCDC’s Director-General, stated this in the Centre’s fourth public health advisory on COVID-19 which was made available to journalists in Abuja on Sunday.

Recall that the Federal Ministry of Health, FMoH, last week announced the index case of COVID-19 in Nigeria following laboratory confirmation that the Italian who flew into Lagos had been infected.

However, Ihekweazu noted that prior to the laboratory confirmation, the patient had travelled to Ogun State for a business meeting.

He further said that  NCDC’s national Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) has been activated at the highest level and was leading the national response. He explained that Currently, there are four laboratories in NCDC’s molecular laboratory network, with the capacity to test for COVID-19 in Nigeria. These laboratories are sufficiently equipped with reagents and supplies for testing.

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