Thursday, December 03, 2020
Interpol Raises the Alarm over Fake COVID-19 Vaccines in Nigeria, Others
The International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) has alerted Nigeria, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and 190 other countries of threat from organised criminal groups during the upcoming COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, including fake vaccines and the theft of supplies. The alert came as the UK yesterday became the first country in the world to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for widespread use. Read more
Afreximbank Launches MANSA, Africa’s Digital Due Diligence Repository
African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has officially launched the operations of ‘MANSA’, a pan-African customer due diligence repository for financial institutions, corporate entities and SMEs, developed to address the perceived risk of doing business in Africa and with Africans. MANSA is a single source of the primary data required for Customer Due Diligence (CDD) and Know Your Customer (KYC) checks on African entities, including financial institutions, corporates and SMEs, in accordance with best practices. Read more
New Finance Bill proposes 10% VAT for defaulters
The Finance Bill 2020 scaled second reading on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday. The proposed legislation stipulates various amendments made to the 2019 version of the Act. The Leader of the Senate, Yahaya Abdullahi, in his lead debate said the bill proposed amendments into Capital Gains Act and the Value Added Tax.He said Section 19 increased the penalty payable by a taxable person for non-remittance within the specified period from 7.5 per cent to 10 per cent. Read more
CBN introduces new bills to control liquidity
The Central Bank of Nigeria has said it has introduced special bills as part of efforts to deepen the financial markets and avail the monetary authority with an additional liquidity management tool. It said this in a circular on, “Introduction of Central Bank of Nigeria special bills, signed by the Director of Banking Supervision, Bello Hassan. Read more
Agusto & Co. assigns ‘A’ rating to Fidelity Bank
Agusto & Co. has assigned an ‘A’ rating to Fidelity Bank Plc with a stable outlook. The rating agency, in a statement, said the rating considered the bank’s good liquidity position, strong ability to refinance, adequate capitalisation and satisfactory asset quality. It said, “We have also factored in Fidelity Bank’s good staff productivity and experienced management team. However, constraining the aforementioned positives are the obligor concentration in the loan book and the Bank’s high operating cost profile. Read more
Buhari to go tough on Discos, agents selling prepaid meters
The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has reiterated his resolve to mete stiff measures to any of the Discos or their agents selling prepaid meters to their customers against the directive that they should be distributed free. This is in furtherance of the directive that a total of six million meters, manufactured or assembled locally, should be rolled out to electricity consumers to end the agitation against estimated billing. Read more
CBN provides fresh guidelines on diaspora remittances
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued fresh guidelines on the management and payment of diaspora remittances to recipients, mandating the international money transfer operator (IMTO) to ensure that transfer funds are deposited in “the agent bank’s correspondent account”. The apex bank, in the circular issued yesterday, also authorized the recipients to decide how they would be paid. Read more
‘Rising debt profile, direct threat to Nigeria’s democracy’
The Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education, CHRICED has raised an alarm over the unsustainable rise in Nigeria’s debt profile.It noted that recent figures from the Debt Management Office (DMO) reveal Nigeria has a debt profile of N31.009 trillion, adding that the DMO figures further indicated that the current high debt stock belongs to the federal, 36 states government and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Read more
Technology platform targets 3m MSMEs for growth, profitability
In recognition of the immense importance of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to economic growth, Excite Enterprise, a fully digital Business Development, and Enterprise solutions provider, is hoping to help about three million small businesses scale up. Read more
