Business Drive

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has increased the salaries of workers in the state by 20 per cent, shortly after he secured a second term in office. The Head of Service, Hakeem Muri-Okunola, says the governor reiterated his administration’s determination to improve the welfare and well-being of public servants in Lagos State. Those affected by the increment were officers in the mainstream public service, local governments and local council development areas, and the State Universal Basic Education Board by 20 percent with effect from January 1, 2023. He says that the arrears for the month of January 2023 will be paid along with salaries for the month of March 2023, while the arrears for the month of February 2023 will be paid together with the salaries of April 2023.

The Federal Government has announced the removal of its proposed five per cent excise duty on telecommunication services. The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Isa Pantami, Pantami, says Muhammadu Buhari, has approved the exemption of the digital economy sector from the five per cent excise duty to be paid and this is because of the strength of the argument presented to him by the Committee that additional burden on telecom sector will increase the sufferings of Nigerians and that other sectors that are not making as much contribution to the economy should be challenged to do more and pay the five per cent excise duty. Pantami stated that the telecoms sector was already paying 41 categories of taxes, levies, and charges. He noted that the tax exemption will be upheld by the incoming administration.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp says New York Community Bank has agreed to buy a significant chunk of the failed Signature Bank in a $2.7bn deal. The FDIC says the 40 branches of Signature Bank will become Flagstar Bank, starting Monday. Flagstar is one of New York Community Bank’s subsidiaries. The FDIC said $60bn in Signature Bank’s loans will remain in receivership and are expected to be sold off in time. The FDIC says it expects Signature Bank’s failure to cost the deposit insurance fund $2.5bn, but that figure may change as the regulator sells off assets.

Central banks have moved globally to keep credit flowing after an unsettled period in the US banking sector and the Credit Suisse merger. Six central banks, including the Bank of England, announced they would boost the flow of US dollars through the global financial system. The Bank of England, Bank of Japan, Bank of Canada, the European Central Bank, the US Federal Reserve and the Swiss National Bank launched the coordinated action to enhance the provision of liquidity. The announcement says it served as an important backstop to ease strains in global funding markets" and to lessen the impact on the supply of credit to households and businesses.

Troubled bank Credit Suisse has been rescued by its Swiss rival UBS in a government-backed deal. Sunday's announcement came after a weekend of emergency talks in Switzerland between the two banks and the country's financial regulators. The Swiss National Bank says the deal was the best way to restore the confidence of financial markets and to manage risks to the economy. Credit Suisse says it was not expecting any disruption to client services.

Kenya's Cooperatives and SMEs Cabinet Secretary Simon Chelugui says the government is collecting over Sh100 million every day after the digitization of services on the E-citizen platform. He says 5,318 services can now be accessed via mobile phones with the government targeting a doubling of the figure by the mid this year. The CS further says that the roll-out of the Hustler Fund has transformed the previously unbankable young Kenyan into a millionaire through their savings on the platform.

The United Kingdom has earmarked a £10 million grant for innovators in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa and Southeast Asia to address the energy situation in the benefitting countries. Knowledge Transfer Manager for Innovate UK Nigeria, Mr Joshua Adedeji, says the programme was designed to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all. Adedeji says the mission of the energy catalysts was to accelerate the intervention needed to meet Sustainable Development Goal 7 by providing financial and advisory support to innovators. He explained that transforming energy access was to speed up access to affordable, clean energy services for poor households, enterprises and social institutions in Official Development Assistance-eligible countries.

The currency in circulation in the country dipped by 235.03 per cent to N982.09bn at the end of February from N3.29tn at the end of October 2022, on the back of the naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria. The CBN says the currency in circulation moved from N3.16tn to N3.29tn and N1.38tn in November 2022, December 2022 and January 2023 respectively. The governor decried the challenges associated with currency management, including the hoarding of banknotes by members of the public, with statistics showing that over 80 per cent of currency-in-circulation was outside the vaults of commercial banks.

The Federal Government has raked in N10.1tn from the collection of Value Added Tax under the regime of President General Muhammadu Buhari. The National Bureau of Statistics showed that VAT earnings continued to rise annually throughout the eight-year period. The country earned N759.4bn in 2015, N777.5bn in 2016, N972.4bn in 2017 and N1.1tn in 2018. VAT collections in 2019 amounted to N1.2tn, N1.5tn in 2020, N2.1tn in 2021 while N2.5tn was paid in 2022.

The Kano State Government has imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew with a view to avoiding a breakdown of law and order, following tensions generated from the collation of results of the governorship and state Assembly elections. The state Commissioner for Information and Internal Affairs, Muhammad Garba, says the decision was to prevent hoodlums from to causing chaos in the already made situation tense. The commissioner called on people in the state to remain indoors as security agents would not spare anyone or a group bent on causing trouble.

The country’s foreign ministry says China will once again start issuing a range of visas to foreigners in a major easing of travel restrictions in place since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The move marks the latest step towards reopening China to the outside world, as Beijing breaks with the strict zero-Covid strategy that defined its pandemic response until a few months ago. The updated policy will also allow for the resumption of visa-free travel for those arriving on cruise ships to Shanghai as well as for certain tourist groups from Hong Kong, Macau and countries within the ASEAN regional grouping.

US President Joe Biden is set to issue an executive order that aims to increase the number of background checks conducted before firearm sales. The Democratic president will sign the measure however Action on gun control appears unlikely in a divided Washington. Biden's call for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks on gun sales and repealing gun manufacturers' immunity from prosecution are unlikely to make headway while Republicans control the US House of Representatives.

Argentina's inflation rate has soared past 100% for the first time since the end of hyperinflation in the early 90s. Inflation hit 102.5% in February, the country's statistics agency said, meaning the price of many consumer goods has more than doubled since 2022. Argentina has been in economic difficulty for years, and most of the population now lives in poverty. Argentinian media said that this increase could partly be due to a sharp hike in the price of meat, which rose by almost 20% in the space of a month.

The US has accused Russia of reckless behaviour after an American drone crashed into the Black Sea following an encounter with Russian fighter jets. Russian jets are said to have dumped fuel into the path of the drone, which the US says was in international airspace. The US says the MQ-9 Reaper drone was downed on Tuesday after a confrontation lasting 30-40 minutes. Russia has denied its two Su-27 fighter jets made any contact.

The World Bank has temporarily suspended its future engagement talks with Tunisia amid uproar over recent statements by the country's president against migrants. Outgoing World Bank President David Malpass attributed the decision to recent statements about migrants by Tunisian President Kais Saied. The statements triggered tension between Tunisia and the African Union Commission with its chairperson terming Saied's comments as "shocking".

The Central Bank of Nigeria has scheduled the next Monetary Policy Committee meeting between Monday and Tuesday next week. The apex bank said the 290th meeting would be held at the CBN Headquarters in Abuja. The MPC is the highest policy-making committee of the apex bank with the mandate including to review economic and financial conditions in the economy and determine the appropriate stance of policy in the short to medium term. It is also empowered to review regularly, the CBN monetary policy framework and adopt changes when necessary, communicate monetary/financial policy decisions effectively to the public and ensure the credibility of the model of the transmission mechanism of monetary policy.

The president of the African Development Bank Group, Dr Akinwumi A. Adesina, says the size of Africa's digital economy will rise from $115 billion to $712 billion by 2050. Adesina says it was estimated that the size of digital global wealth would expand from $217 billion in 2022 to over $1 trillion by 2031 with most of this growth already being driven by four countries -Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Egypt. He says the creative industry in Nigeria is growing rapidly, in line with similar trend in Africa. The creative industry in Africa generated over $14 billion in revenue annually between 2015 and 2018 and is projected to help create close to three million jobs by 2025.

No fewer than 12.9 million cyberattacks have been recorded from within and outside the country during the just-concluded Presidential and National Assembly polls. The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof Isa Pantami, says over 6.9 million attacks were recorded on election day alone. Pantami says the attacks were successfully blocked owing to the sophisticated infrastructure on the ground by different agencies of government charged with the responsibility of protecting the nation’s cyberspace. The Minister stated that in the build-up to the presidential elections, threat intelligence revealed an astronomical increase in cyber threats to Nigeria’s cyberspace.

US President Joe Biden has approved a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska that faced strong opposition from environmental activists. The company behind the Willow project, ConocoPhillips, says it will create local investment and thousands of jobs however the $8bn proposal faced a torrent of online activism in recent weeks, particularly among youth activists on TikTok. Opponents argued it should be halted over its climate and wildlife impacts. The US Bureau of Land Management estimates, that it will generate up to 278 million metric tonnes of CO2e over its 30-year lifetime - the equivalent of adding two million cars to US roads every year.

Bank shares in Asia and Europe have slumped, despite reassurances from the US president that America's financial system is safe following the collapse of two US lenders. The falls come after authorities moved to protect customer deposits when the US-based Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed. Joe Biden promised to do whatever is needed to protect the banking system. But investors fear other lenders may still be hit by the fallout.