Category: West Africa
-
Nigeria: Innoson, Chinese Consortium to Invest U.S.$1 Billion in Nigeria
Innoson Group is partnering with a consortium of Chinese investors to pump in $1billion into Nigeria’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. According to Innoson Group, the investments include $400 million, which will be invested in Nigeria’s Digital Switch Over (DSO) project in digital satellite TV station, and an additional $600 million covering other important…
-
Nigeria: High Fish Feed Prices Forcing Lagos Farmers Out of Business
Fish farmers in Lagos State are presently leaving the business due to the increase in the price of fish feeds in the state. The prices, according to the farmers, have gone up by as high as 80 to 100 percent and that was forcing some of them to abandon their farms in search of other…
-
Nigeria: State Loses Another N90 Billion to Attacks in Niger Delta
The revenue allocation to federal, states and local governments for September dropped by about N90.27 billion, as they shared a total of N420 billion for the month. About N510.2 billion was shared at the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting in August. The permanent secretary, Federal Ministry of Finance, Mahmoud Isa-Dutse, said the total revenue…
-
Nigeria: Air Crashes Imminent in Nigeria, Senate Warns
The Senate on Thursday warned of imminent plane crashes in the country if the aviation industry was not fixed immediately. The alert followed a motion tagged “Disturbing Development in the Nigerian Aviation Industry” by Dino Melaye. Contributing to the motion, the Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio, said the fear of plane crashes was real as airlines…
-
MTN shares hit by report of higher Nigeria money transfers
The amount of money which South Africa’s MTN Group is alleged to have illegally moved out of Nigeria could be “outrageously higher” than an originally estimated $14 billion, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, sending its shares to more than six-year lows. MTN officials, Nigeria’s trade minister and four lenders are to appear at a hearing in…
-
Nigeria’s retail landlords find the going tough
Amid slowing economic growth, forex shortages and currency depreciation, retail rentals have doubled in naira terms since December 2014. To retain tenants, retail landlords have had to offer significant rental concessions which include rent free periods, fit out allowances, pegged exchange rates, concessions on rents for limited periods and step-up lease agreements stipulating that the…
-
Is Nigeria losing its investment appeal?
Although the Central Bank of Nigeria left the repo rate unchanged at 14% per annum last month in a bid to control inflation and support the naira after abandoning the currency peg to the dollar in June, the economy continues to experience challenges. The fall in commodity prices that started at the end of 2014…
-
World Bank bemoans growing inequality in sub-Saharan Africa
—
by
A new research released by the World Bank at a forum called “End Poverty” has bemoaned the growing level of poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. According to the report, the inequality gap between the poor and the rich has widened due to excess focus on urban development to the neglect of agriculture. Attributing the phenomenon to…
-
Mali mine workers to go on five-day strike
Mali mine workers will go on strike on Oct. 24 for five days, a union official said on Tuesday, to protest what he described as unfair treatment of union workers. Mali is the third biggest gold producer in Africa behind South Africa and Ghana, and gold overwhelmingly dominates its mining sector, itself about a quarter…
-
Nigeria approves transfer of Visafone shares to MTN
Nigeria’s telecommunications regulator NCC said on Tuesday it has approved a request by internet provider Visafone to transfer its shares to MTN following its takeover by the South African firm. MTN bought Visafone in January to improve its broadband services in its biggest market Nigeria. “The NCC, in line with its procedure granted a Final-Approval…