CBN

CBN to phase out old cheques April 30th

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has extended the phase-out date for old cheque books from January 1 to April 30th.

READ ALSO: Cost of petrol subsidy: What NNPC unremitted N4trn can do for Nigerians

The banking regulator said this became imperative due to the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

READ ALSO: NASD OTC Market CAP Increased By 0.50% WoW to Close at N502.82bn

CBN disclosed this in a circular to all Deposit Money Banks, accredited cheque printers/personalisers and Nigeria Interbank Settlement System on Friday titled ‘Re: Circular on the revised Nigeria cheque standard and Nigeria Cheque Printers Accreditation scheme.’

In the circular that was signed by the Director, Banking Services Department, Sam Okojere, it said it had come to its notice that some stakeholders interpreted the circular differently from the intended purpose.

Consequently, it had become imperative for it to issue clarifications on it, it stated.

Part of the circular read, “The parallel run, in which old and new cheques are allowed to co-exist, will end on April 30th. Only new cheques will be allowed in the clearing system from April 1, 2021.

“Full enforcement of the second edition of the Nigeria Cheque Standard and Nigeria Cheque Printers Accreditation Scheme version 2.0 will commence 1st April 2021 and the NCS/NICPAS 2.0. Sanction grid will be fully operational on 1st April, 2021.”

“All Deposit Money Banks are directed to actively enlighten their customers and ensure necessary provisions are put in place for a smooth migration to the new standard.

“The extension of the full implementation date from 1st January 2021 to April 1, 2021 is due to outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact it had on the Nigeria Cheque Standard and Nigeria Cheque Printers Accreditation Scheme version 2.0 project.”

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NASD

NASD OTC Market CAP Increased By 0.50% WoW to Close at N502.82bn

The 8th of March 2021 was the International women’s day, a day set to create awareness to people around the world for our collective effort to curb and combat gender bias and discrimination in all spheres of life while also promoting gender equality.

READ ALSO: Ecobank Reiterates Its Commitment As “The Partner Of Choice For Export Trade”

NASD understands the value women bring in every position they find themselves and we understand that there are studies which show a proven track record in companies that adopt healthy diversity.

In that same breadth, we at NASD decided to show appreciation not just to the women performing excellently amongst us but also to women all over the world, shattering glass, ceilings and breaking barriers set to slow or stop them.

We reached out to women in various fields to share their stories on how they have consistently stood tall, broken records and achieved great feats in their careers. These women are:

1.         Elizabeth Ebi, CEO FutureView group.

2.         Peju Adebajo, CEO Lumos Nigeria.

3.         Afolake Lawal, Founder and Managing Partner, Imperial Law Office.

4.         Monica Rovers, CEO Connect Corporation.

5.         Oby Ogbuma, Managing Director and Chief Risk Officer, Chapel Hill Denham.

6.         Toki Mabogunje, President, Lagos Chamber of Commerce, and Industry.

7.         Vivien Shobo, CEO, FVS Advisory Partners.

It was an interesting conversation we had with each of them and as much as we would encourage you to check our LinkedIn page to watch each video, we would also like to share a few things we learnt from them.

A key point which was stressed for women to stand out in their various field, is to believe in herself first, when that is done, she should also make conscious effort to update her knowledge in her profession and that alone will bring immense confidence when working or engaging with anyone.

Furthermore, the importance of speaking out and letting people know what she can do, while also networking but having a thick skin to handle any situation was also stressed upon.

One thing which we particularly love was the statement made to always seek out new challenges and seize every opportunity, rejecting, and challenging any stats quo that prevents her to grow and to keep pushing when she hits a brick wall.

Additionally, we noticed a common trend they all spoke about which was how important it is to treat people with respect because we all are in different phases and seasons of our life, hence, we should not be envious, look/talk down on anyone.

In conclusion, the importance of having a great support system in form of family, friends or spouse was also noted among the speakers.

We urge you to not just feel celebrating women as a seasonal event. They are the backbone of the world and deserve every respect, love, and support they can get. We thank you as you continue to celebrate every woman you come across as they are beautiful, strong, powerful, talented, resilient and an essential contributor in the development of the world.

Year-to-Date Overview

NASD OTC Securities Exchange Market closed on a negative note YTD as the market recorded a decrease in performance. NASD Security Index Year to date returns decreased by 5.51%. Total volume traded Year-to-Date stands at 35,031,112 units in 300 deals and total Value traded is N711,788,206.00.

Proshare Nigeria Pvt. Ltd.

NASD OTC Market CAP Increased By 0.50% WoW to Close at N502.82bn

Week 10 Overview

NASD OTC Securities Exchange closed the week with a positive return on NSI. The NSI returned  by 0.50% to close the week at 700.8 points against 697.3 points on Friday, March 05, 2021.

In addition, Week 10 saw NASD Investors gain N2.50 Billion in value. NASD OTC Market capitalization closed at N502.82 Billion compared to N500.32 Billion on Friday, March 05, 2021, resulting from a Positive movement of prices.

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Export Trade

Ecobank Reiterates Its Commitment As “The Partner Of Choice For Export Trade”

Ecobank has reiterated that it remains the partner of choice in Africa for export trade because of its unique positioning, wide network, pan African payment switch, settlement capabilities, award winning digital products and strategic focus.

READ ALSO: Nigeria’s 2021 Oil Market Playbook: Eyeballing Opportunities and Mitigating Threats

Kola Adeleke, Executive Director, Corporate Banking, Ecobank Nigeria made this assertion while speaking on African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) strategy, opportunities, challenges in export and trade at Ecobank/Nigerian Export Import Bank (NEXIM) webinar for exporters on Thursday.

READ ALSO: AFCFTA: DBN gives first tranche of N1 billion MSMEs fund to LivingTrust Mortgage Bank

He maintained that the pan African bank has structures in place to enable exporters exploit the opportunities in The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

According to him, “Our unique positioning in 33 African countries enables us leverage our extensive network to reduce the number of financial partners and relationships in executing trade.

We own the switch connecting countries where we operate across Africa. This centralized switch enables easy integration. We possess knowledge of the local markets in which we operate resulting in unparallel financial advisory. 

We offer real-time settlement across Africa and our customers enjoy instant transfers across 33 African countries.

Ecobank has a reputation for developing innovative products as the bank has won us several international, regional and local awards and we aspire to be the gateway to pan-African payments and trade.”

Mr Adeleke reaffirmed that Nigeria is poised to gain from the investment and trade opportunities that the AfCFTA will inevitably bring because of its market size, supply chain infrastructure and an abundant supply of professionals/skilled players in various industries.

He emphasized that businesses must strategically position themselves, endeavour to understand the dynamics of the ratification to be able to maximize the benefit and opportunities.

Adeleke, who regretted that export potentials in Nigeria is largely untapped due to focus on oil revenues, reiterated that real sector credit opportunities to utilizing the AfCFTA includes Export development financing, trade finance, Export development financing and SME financing.

In his presentation on Export Trade Insurance, Bashar Garba Illo, Acting Head, Export Credit Insurance, NEXIM, said the Export Credit Insurance (ECI) is designed to protect exporters in Nigeria against the risk of Non-Payment for goods and services exported on credit terms with a cover against Political Risk, stressing that the objective of ECI is to indemnify both Internal and External exporting customers from losses incurred from any payment default that could arise from political events in the export destination country by providing cover up to 80% of the value of receivables, subject to the Risk Asset Acceptance Criteria (RAAC) outlined for Political Risk. He explained that the Bank’s mandate is to support non-oil export sector of Manufacturing, Agro-processing, Solid Mineral and Services.

Also at the session was Chijioke Uzoukwu, Head of Trade, Ecobank Nigeria, who listed  the Ecobank products and services on offer to support Export Trade as comprising letters of credit, bonds, guarantees as well as bills for collections avalization. He said  “the Bank also provides loans for business such as import loans, export loans and supply chain finance. In the trade service, we support customers from initiation to execution in the areas of documentation and compliance, working with regulatory bodies and other stakeholders. We also offer trade advisory solution like market information across Africa, trade specialist support and after sales services. We have an electronic e-trade platform which provides an electronic frontend where the customers can initiate transactions and instruction from the comfort of their home and it will be delivered to the Bank. We also have various collection channels to optimize collections for business like in-branch products, Mobile App, POS, Web/ Online collection platforms, Ecobank Pay, Omniplus and Omni lite. The Omni plus has the capability to allow you to make bulk payments and also view your accounts with other banks in a single platform.”

Oil Market

Nigeria’s 2021 Oil Market Playbook: Eyeballing Opportunities and Mitigating Threats

Global oil market playbooks are changing as countries look out for their interests in the glacial movement of oil prices and the market’s recent choppiness. India, for example, recently announced its decision to diversify its oil import markets as it angles towards lower average energy prices.

READ MORE: AFCFTA: DBN gives first tranche of N1 billion MSMEs fund to LivingTrust Mortgage Bank

The gambit sees the country looking to extend imports beyond its traditional trade partners of the United States of America (USA) and Guyana.  

The India market shift, analysts note, could set the tone for more aggressive supply chain competition amongst non-traditional suppliers of oil to India who would find the country a fine game for offering ‘sweeteners’ to take a piece of the Asian oil and gas market. How would the tactic pan out for prospective suppliers? the possible outcomes are mixed depending on the existing relationships between India and the new supplier and the type of oil produced in the prospective country of supply. For example, Indian industries prefer heavier oil to the lighter oil brands that come from countries such as Nigeria and Angola. This would mean that African countries would not be the first choices in India’s oil supply diversification plans.

Preferred countries for the Indian foray into new supply markets for heavy crude would be Iran and Venezuela, but the ongoing political tiffs between both countries and the USA would make these options very difficult choices.

Many non-oil-producing countries depend on OPEC and its allies, a group called OPECplus, to supply oil for their domestic consumptions. To strengthen oil price, OPECplus extended its production cuts to April 2021 with little exception to Russia and Kazakhstan. But as OPECplus uses the production cut to tighten the oil market, oil importers are seeing domestic growth chopped at the knees by the rising cost of oil imports.

The Local Cost of An Oil Squeeze

Analysts note that domestic inflation in oil-importing countries has started to rise above policymaker’s expectations and could lead to unexpected monetary tightening which in turn would raise domestic interest rates and clobber gross domestic product (GDP) growth.

Against this development, oil importers have started to look for strategies that would improve possible economic outcomes such as diversify their import sources to generate more supplier competition to contain a supplier price squeeze.

The Indian economy was adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic as it recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases in the Asian continent. To curtail the spread of the virus the Indian economy enforced strict lockdown which adversely affected the economy. Although the Indian economy is out of recession as its GDP grew by +0.4% in Q4 2020, it recorded a pandemic induced recession in Q3 2020 as its GDP contracted by -7.3%

Fuel consumption has become an integral part of the Indian economy, therefore, activities in the international oil market affect the Indian economy. Also, recent reforms of the fuel taxation and subsidy system in India have meant that consumers would increasingly be susceptible to changes in the international oil market. Although India’s inflation rate eased to a 16-month low of 4.06% in January 2021 mainly on account of the softening of food and vegetable prices, the rise in crude oil prices and their transmission into retail fuel prices have posed a concern for the government’s economic recovery effort and the mandate by the Indian government to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to keep inflation within an average rate of 4% and a margin rate of 2% on either side of the average

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LivingTrust

AFCFTA: DBN gives first tranche of N1 billion MSMEs fund to LivingTrust Mortgage Bank

The aforementioned reforms and policy interventions provide the needed environment for small businesses in Nigeria and the coming of the AfCFTA could not have been at a better time.

Independent of the AfCFTA, the Federal Government of Nigeria has in recent times embarked on some far-reaching reforms aimed at enhancing ease of doing business both for the Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (“SMEs”) and across other strata of business in Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Excitment as FG credits Nigerian man under Survival Fund program.

Some of these reforms can be seen in the areas of policies, laws, business formation and registration, post-incorporation filings and taxation.

Two of the legislative instruments which are critical to these reforms deserve some mention here:

Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020 (CAMA, 2020)

The signing of CAMA, 2020 into law by President Muhammad Buhari on 7th August 2020 came as a very cheering news to the SMEs community.

Some of the provisions which impact directly on SMEs include but not limited to the following

(i) a single member/shareholder for a private company

(ii) minimum share capital in place of authorized share capital. This allows promoters of business to pay for only shares that are needed at the point of incorporation;

(iii) exemption of SMEs, small companies or companies with single shareholders from the requirement of appointing Auditors to audit their financial records

(iv) filing, share transfer and meetings can be done electronically by private companies

(v) Statement of compliance which was hitherto signed by legal practitioners can now be signed by the business owner or his agent

(vi) introduction of Limited Partnerships and Limited Liability Partnership thereby providing options for promoters who may want to incorporate partnership instead of limited liability companies

(vii) Appointment of company secretary now optional for private companies

(viii) AGMs and other company meetings can now be held virtually, amongst other reforms.

Finance Act, 2020

Complementing the reforms under the CAMA 2020 is the Finance Act.

Enacted first in 2019, the Act was further expanded and re-enacted to among other things address the negative impacts of COVID 19 on small businesses and this led to the new Finance Act, 2020.

The new Finance Act was signed into law on 31 December 2020 and took effect from 1st January 2021.

It introduced over 80 amendments to 14 different laws such as the Personal Income Tax Act, Companies Income Tax Act, Capital Gains Tax Act, Value Added Tax Act, Customs & Excise Tariff Act, Tertiary Education Trust (TET) Fund Act, Fiscal Responsibility Act, Public Procurement Act, CAMA, Nigerian Export Processing Zone Act and Oil and Gas Export Processing Free Zone Act.

SMEs are expected to take advantage of the incentives provided under the new Act.

SMEs with a turnover of less than N25 Million are exempted from Companies Income Tax and TET tax amongst other incentives.

SMEs engaged in primary agricultural production are qualified for pioneer status for an initial period of four years and an additional two years.

MSME Survival Fund

In a bid to ameliorate the impact of COVID-19 on small businesses, the Federal Government of Nigeria launched the N75 Billion Survival Fund for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME).

The Fund which was touted as part of the economic sustainability Plan of the Federal government is meant to support small businesses to meet basic operational needs and provide funding in order to boost the production capacity of MSMEs in Nigeria.

The AfCFTA

The aforementioned reforms and policy interventions provide the needed environment for small businesses in Nigeria and the coming of the AfCFTA could not have been at a better time.

The critical question remains, how SMEs can leverage the opportunities provided under the AfCFTA to scale up their operations.

SMEs are often considered the economic backbones particularly in developing countries as they account as major contributors to the GDP and in the area of job creation.

Nigeria has a vibrant SME ecosystem. Out of the 95 Million SMEs in Africa, over 45 Million of them are in Nigeria.

Thus, on the continent Nigeria plays a huge role, accounting for close to 50% of SMEs.

In terms of economic impact, SMEs contribute 48% of national GDP in Nigeria, make up the 96% of businesses and contribute 84% of employment.

Despite the contribution to the economy, SMEs in Nigeria in particular, have continued to grapple with the challenges of high cost of capital and lack of access to funding as well the inability to compete globally.

Due to the largely informal nature of SMEs in Nigeria, obtaining data for the purpose of planning has also been difficult.

On this, the role of Small & Media Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) in amongst other things, formalization of SMEs in Nigeria should be encouraged.

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Survival fund

Excitment as FG credits Nigerian man under Survival Fund program.

A young man identified as Kunle O is one of the beneficiaries of the FG’s MSME Survival Fund programme- Kunle O shared a screenshot of a credit alert he got from the Bank of Industry –

READ ALSO: ANALYSIS: Can GTBank replicate WorldPay in Africa with HabariPay?

The young man said he was happy to be one of the beneficiaries of the programme, noting he does not know anyone in government

Simply identified as Kunle O, a young Nigerian could not contain his excitement on Monday, March 8, when he received a credit alert from the Bank of Industry following his successful application for the federal government’s Survival Fund programme.

The Survival Fund is an initiative by the federal government set up to ensure Nigerian Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) survive amid the damaging impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Payroll Support is meant for business owners who are experiencing difficulties paying their staff salary.

The salary support ranges between N30,000 and N50,000. Under the MSME Grant, the federal government will provide credit support to MSMEs and key sectors impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic with a view to enabling an increase in manufacturing capacity.

The Guaranteed Off-take scheme, as the name implies, is to guarantee the offtake of the products of the beneficiary companies.

The target beneficiaries are the MSMEs that are ready to launch their products.

Sharing a screenshot of the bank alert on Twitter, Kunle O, expressed happiness that he benefited from the programme, noting that he got the fund on merit as he does not have any connection in the government.

The excited young man tweeted:

“It don happen ooo! the FG has kept to their words as touching #SurvivalFundNG I know no body in govt. Am happy to say am a beneficiary.”

Answering a question regarding the process, Kunle O said he started the process in 2020. He added that he experienced some “difficulties” along the line but he “didn’t throw in the towel”.

Meanwhile, the federal government has announced that the Nigeria Youth Investment Fund (NYIF), being implemented by the Ministry of Sports and Youth Development, has successfully completed its pilot disbursement of loans totalling N165,700,000 to 239 beneficiaries.

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GTB Habari pay

ANALYSIS: Can GTBank replicate WorldPay in Africa with HabariPay?

It took two acquisitions, for WorldPay to emerge among the top three largest payment processing companies in the world…

Before WorldPay became a globally renowned payment processing company, it was merely providing end-user payment gateway as a subsidiary of National Westminster Bank in 1995.

READ ALSO: CBN/NIRSAL reopens portal for MSMEs, Individuals To Access Up To N25m

It took two acquisitions, one in 2002 by Royal Bank of Scotland Group and the second by Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) in 2019, and a series of expansion projects for WorldPay to emerge among the top three largest payment processing companies in the world.

The firm now has a 42 percent market share in the UL payment transactions and a wide reach into online transactions through its global e-commerce division.

Guarantee Trust Bank (GTBank), Nigeria’s fifth-largest bank by customer deposits, is attempting to replicate the success of WorldPay in Nigeria and Africa. The bank’s playbook will be borne and perfected by HabariPay, a fintech company it is planning to deploy later this year.

Alongside banks like Access Bank and Sterling Bank, GTBank had applied for a holding company (Holdco) structure from the Central Bank of Nigeria. In November 2020, the banks announced they have been granted an approval-in-principle (AIP) by the CBN. All that is left is formal approval.

An AIP usually takes six months. But GTBank is not waiting until the approval arrives in the mail before it sets out. The bank is currently shopping for fintech talents and is quick to inform potential candidates about the mission to make HabariPay a fintech unicorn.

Habari 1.0

A search on the Google Store would not come up with Habari Pay but just Habari. It is most likely that the bank intends to replace the existing Habari product with the Habari Pay.

Nonetheless, Habari, possibly adapted from the Swahili word that translates to ‘information’, was unveiled by GTBank 0n 23 November 2018, at an elaborate event attended by popular personalities in entertainment.

Habari was created as a platform to offer users direct access to the largest catalogue of local and foreign music online, a seamless shopping experience, and an exciting way to connect with friends, amongst other features.

Habari was, among other things, GTBank’s most ambitious effort at reinventing itself.

Segun Agbaje, CEO of the bank, described the platform as the bank’s way of reimagining the role of banking.

“By reimagining the role of banking and driving innovation in how we serve customers, we have built a platform that is less about us as a bank and more about the customers and everything they need to enable their lifestyle,” Agbaje said at the time.

Habari was the first mobile in Nigeria created by a financial institution that focuses on enabling people’s needs and lifestyles rather than providing a limited bouquet of banking products. But the jury is still out on how much of a success that Habari has been. Nigeria’s e-commerce space continues to be dominated by the likes of Jumia, Konga, Jiji, and new entrants such as Flutterwave, and Paystack.

Some experts have said the reason for Habari performing below expectation may have more to do with a traditional banking culture that does not prioritise the customer. But the bank would likely argue that it was constrained by lack of holding company structure licence to deploy as many resources as it would have desired to compete in the market.

It is also possible the bank may have been distracted by the too many services it needed to keep running. It operates GTPay, a payments gateway similar to Paystack; GTCollections, a payments aggregator; QuickCredit, a digital lending platform; and Habari, an e-commerce super-app.

Habari 2.0

Habari Pay offers GTBank an opportunity to get back on track to compete in the payment market.

“Nigerian banks need to be retooled and reinvented, and fast,” Aloy Chife, managing partner and CEO SAANA Capital, a venture capital and high-impact firm, said.

“The era of monopoly trusts mollycoddled by the regulator may be fast approaching its expiration date (Nigeria is broke and there’s only so much paper the regulator can print after all),” Chife said.

He highlighted two lessons from the US regulator the Office of the Comptroller of Currency (OCC), first in 2019 when it opened up the core business of banking – receiving deposits, paying checks, lending money – to fintech. This move meant that any fintech firm was free to venture into any of the banking areas. Secondly, in 2020, the OCC authorised banks to open custodial services for crypto assets.

The CBN is expected to give final approval for the Holdco structure by the second quarter of 2021 enabling GTBank to deploy Habari Pay. GTBank is promising to prioritise agility with Habari Pay: “We fail fast, we invest faster, and we drive value for customers.”… WorldPay.

Chife said the deployment of Habari Pay may signal a new era of a recalibration by banks that want to become technology companies.

“A bank that wants to become a financial technology company must completely reinvent itself,” Chife said.

In the past, banks have prided themselves on being among the first financial institutions in Africa to deploy digital banking services to customers. They often point to Kenya where the banks delayed taking the initiative only to see their lunch taken away by a telecom operator in Safaricom.

However, while many of them invested heavily in digital technology, less priority was given to improving customer service. Many banks got overwhelmed deploying too many services than they were able to handle.

However, Habari Pay gives GTBank the opportunity to house all its digital banking services on one platform and deploy commensurate human resources to manage them efficiently. It also allows the bank to truly inculcate the DNA – agility, quick decision-making, innovativeness – of a startup, and truly prioritise the evolving needs of customers.

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NNPC

Cost of petrol subsidy: What NNPC unremitted N4trn can do for Nigerians

The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is currently being scrutinised by the Wole Oke-led

The billion naira waste Nigeria incurs fixing its leaking pipelines and subsidising petrol is no longer news, but what is news is the opportunity cost forgone by this waste in a creaking economy.

READ ALSO: CBN/NIRSAL reopens portal for MSMEs, Individuals To Access Up To N25m

The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is currently being scrutinised by the Wole Oke-led House of Representatives Committee on Public Accounts (PAC) over an alleged failure to remit N4 trillion into the federation account as contained in a report from the office of the Auditor-General for the Federation.

In response, a representative of the NNPC group managing director, Mele Kyari, justified the deductions by saying that it was in line with the law that established the corporation.

“What we do is backed by the provisions of the law. First, the NNPC Act is very clear that we should submit the net revenues of our cost,” the NNPC told lawmakers at the meeting Wednesday in Abuja.

Umar Ajiya, NNPC’s chief finance officer, who represented the GMD, conceded that “there is confusion within government circles at the moment for which a lot of consultations are ongoing on how to handle the implication of sustained subsidy.”

He was responding to a report by the Auditor-General of the Federation claiming the NNPC did not remit N4 trillion.

The corporation admitted that fuel subsidy and other costs accounted for the shortfall in remittance.

However, the issue has further raised concern about how urgently Nigeria plans to reform its alleged corrupt national oil company through a new oil bill yet to be passed after 20 years of first presentation.

Financial experts have raised concern about the opaque system that is bleeding Nigeria’s economy considering the high level of life-threatening hunger in a country with over 95.9 million people living in extreme poverty.

Refineries:

For instance, Emerald Energy Institute at the University of Port Harcourt estimated the construction cost of a 100,000-barrels per day (bpd) refinery plant at $2 billion (N600bn). This means the unremitted N4 trillion could have helped the country construct at least six of such refineries, instead of importing light petroleum products estimated at $15 billion per annum.

Primary health centre, education

Using Freedom of Information requests and analysis by transparency campaign group Public Private Development Centre, it would cost an estimated N28 million to build primary healthcare centre and N17 million for a 3-classroom block. This means N4 trillion is capable of building 142,857 primary health centres or 235,000 blocks of classrooms needed across Nigeria’s 774 local governments.

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NIRSAL CBN

CBN/NIRSAL reopens portal for MSMEs, Individuals To Access Up To N25m

GoldenNewsNg reports that  CBN/NIRSAL has reopened its portal for Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

READ ALSO: Corporate oil, gas deals in Nigeria fall to lowest in 5yrs

And households affected by COVID-19 to access up to N25 million.

This was disclosed by the Personal Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on New Media, Bashir Ahmad, via his Twitter handle on Wednesday.

He tweeted, “The CBN, through @NirsalMFB introduces a stimulus package to support households and MSMEs affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. An individual can access up to N25million.” CBN/NIRSAL.

The Federal Government had announced that the MSME Survival Fund Payroll Support Portal would be exceptionally reopened for 30 states that had been unable to meet their quotas.

The government, in its announcement, said that the scheme is aimed at supporting vulnerable MSMEs in the payroll obligations of over 500,000 employees

by pandemic

What you should know

  • The Federal Government had announced that the MSME Survival Fund Payroll Support Portal would be exceptionally reopened for 30 states that had been unable to meet their quotas, according to Nairametrics.
  • The government, in its announcement, said that the scheme is aimed at supporting vulnerable MSMEs in the payroll obligations of over 500,000 employees.

SOURCE LINK

Gas deals

Corporate oil, gas deals in Nigeria fall to lowest in 5yrs

The scale of corporate deals between privately held businesses and their investors in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is at the lowest ebb in five years, as transactions hit a low of $123 billion in 2020, a sharp decline compared to a record high of $301 billion recorded in 2018.

READ ALSO: Why investors flock to Ikoyi, V.I despite challenges…

This is troubling because oil and gas sector deals such as mergers, acquisitions, asset sales, debt financing, among others, drive investments, improve infrastructure, technical expertise, and grow the economy, thus improving living standards.

According to data from IHS Markit, a London–based energy information resource, Nigeria recorded 82 oil and gas deals last year worth $123 billion, a 69 percent decrease compared to 138 deals valued at $208 billion in 2019.

The data also show that 2018 was Nigeria’s best performing year in the last six years with a total deal volume of 183 deals valued at $301 billion. This is lower when compared to $182 billion, $201 billion, and $196 billion recorded in 2017, 2016, and 2015, respectively.

A further breakdown of 2020 data reveals that the upstream sector accounted for about 45 percent of all deals recorded followed by the midstream sector with 26 percent, while the downstream sector and oil field service accounted for 24 percent and 5 percent, respectively.

Although investors in Nigeria’s energy sector are not immune to the economic effect of coronavirus and the impact of lower oil prices, which made acquisition financing much harder last year compared to previous years, however, experts say their fortunes are made worse by a regressive fiscal regime and increasing risk profile.

“Price volatility, tough fiscal regime, rough business environment, and lack of capacity are some of the biggest challenges facing Nigeria’s oil and gas deals in 2020,” Joe Nwakwue, chairman, Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) said.

In 2019 deals, IHS Markit showed the upstream sector was also responsible for the lion share of about 52 percent of total deals followed closely by the midstream sector accounting for about 40 percent, while oil field service and downstream sector account for the remaining share of 4 percent each.

“Nigeria needs to put the right fiscal regime that will make projects more valuable in the midstream and downstream sector which would attract the right kind investment,” Nwakwue said.

Elias & Co, a business law firm with specialty in mergers and acquisitions, said transactions in the energy sector had been less busy lately compared to six years ago.

“It is far from being inactive,” analysts at Elias & Co said in a note.

Mergers and acquisitions in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector have slowed in recent years after an initial surge two years ago when some indigenous players, buoyed by the Federal Government’s initiatives, took advantage of some divestment opportunities by international oil companies operating in the country.

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