A bill to ensure that 40% of Nigeria’s national budget is allocated to capital expenditure in the next 10 years has passed second reading at the House of Representatives. The bill was sponsored by the Speaker, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, and debated on his behalf by the Minority Leader of the House, Ndudi Elumelu. The bill seeks to criminalize the failure of the Federal Government to allocate 40% of funds in the country’s annual national budget to capital expenditure. The lawmakers declared their...

China's industrial profits fell 9.9% in October year-on-year to 427.56 billion yuan ($60.74 billion), data released by the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Wednesday. That marks the biggest drop since the January-February period and compared with a 5.3% decline in September. China’s industrial sector has been under pressure in recent months as slowing demand at home and the fallout from the Sino-U.S. trade dispute undercut earnings. “The big drop in October profits suggests the real...

Brian Hartzer, CEO of an Australian Bank, Westpac, has been asked to step down on December 2nd, 2019, over issues regarding a money-laundering scandal. Australia’s Federal Court, along with the country’s financial intelligence agency, AUSTRAC alleged that Westpac breached anti-money laundering and terrorist financing obligations. Westpac was accused of breaching the law 23 times, as well as failure on their part to scrutinize international transactions that allegedly involved sending money to...

Kenya loses Sh5 billion every year due to violence on working women underlining the huge cost of gender-based abuse on the economy, a report by audit firm KPMG and telecommunications giant, Vodafone shows. The survey that covered nine countries spread across the world shows that in the past 12 months, more than half of the women have been forced to take time off work because of domestic violence drastically hurting their productivity across private and public organizations. In Kenya, at least...

The Groupe Nduom Bank (GN Bank) Liberia Limited, one of the country's fastest-growing banks, and the National Association of Foreign Exchange Bureaus of Liberia (NAFEBOL), have signed an agreement mutual partnership to promote access to finance. Madam Rhonda R. VonBallmoos, the bank Deputy Managing Director for Client Services and administration, said they know how much people use this service for transaction, and the bank is glad to have entered this partnership with the belief that it will...

In order to ease the traffic situation in Lagos State, the state government has instructed contractors handling road construction to create strategies that will help reduce the gridlock being experienced by motorists. The Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotosho, at the inauguration of the ‘Don’t Drink and Drive’ awareness campaign organized by the management of Lagos Traffic Radio, expressed serious concerns about the dilemma of motorists and commuters on...

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has kept the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) constant at 13.50%. Also, other parameters such as Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), Liquidity ratio, and asymmetric corridor remain unchanged. The Governor of CBN, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, disclosed this while reading the communique at the end of the two-day MPC meeting on Tuesday in Abuja. The decision of the MPC to hold all rates was informed by the conviction of the committee members that...

President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed plans to strengthen bilateral relations between Nigeria and Netherlands in areas of investment, trade, and security. He disclosed this during a business roundtable with the visiting Prime Minister of The Netherlands, Mark Rutte and members of his delegation at the State House, Abuja, on Tuesday. It was agreed upon by the two leaders that both countries need to specifically improve bilateral trade volumes as well as private sector involvement. While...

U.S. companies aren’t likely to pack up their manufacturing operations in China and move them back home amid the trade war between Washington and Beijing, according to a prominent economist Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University. This, he said is because supply chains are “very difficult to put together, and equally difficult to disentangle,” Still, several American firms have made plans to diversify their production beyond China since the trade war started last year. But few have...

The Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) on Monday signaled commercial banks to cut their lending rates after it lowered its benchmark lending rate for the first time since May 2018 and weeks after the removal of the legal caps on borrowing charges. CBK's Monetary Policy Committee, sitting for the first time since Kenya lifted a cap on commercial interest rates on November 7, cut the CBR rate to 8.50 percent from 9.0 percent, saying the economy was operating below its potential. The lowering of the...

Eskom has warned that it will cut off electricity supply to three Free State municipalities unless it receives payment. "Electricity supply services to three Free State municipalities will soon be stopped due to the municipalities' contravention of the payment conditions concluded with Eskom in the Electricity Supply Agreements," said the power utility. The measures are intended to reduce the escalation of the municipalities' debt to Eskom in the Free State. The utility intends to terminate...

South African retailer Pepkor Holdings has announced that it will exit Zimbabwe after an economic crisis in the country hurt its performance, Reuters reports. The news agency quotes a Pepkor statement as saying: "The decision to exit Zimbabwe was based on the continued adverse macroeconomic conditions affecting trading and the weakening currency." ZimLive.com reports that Pepkor operates retail shops under the Pep brand in South Africa. In Zimbabwe, the company was operating as Power Sales,...

After successfully rolling out of the first and second phases of the electronic tax stamps (ETS) management system on excisable products, the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) says it is ready to offer its experience with Uganda Revenue Authority (URA). The TRA's Acting Director for Taxpayer Services and Education, Mr. Richard Kayombo, made the pledge recently after attending the African Tax Administration Forum which was graced by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Kampala. Speaking during...

GTBank Plc, Access Bank, Zenith Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria, Citibank Plc and 15 others have disbursed N610.4 billion for 593 projects in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACS), CBN’s third quarter (Q3) 2019 economic report revealed. According to the report, while Zenith Bank disbursed N123.91 billion, UBA Plc released N83.53 billion, followed by Sterling Bank Plc, which gave N72.43 billion. FBN (N52.99billion), GTBank (N39.85 billion), Keystone (N30.05...

Forte Oil Plc will be getting a new name very soon. This is following the shareholders’ resolution to change the name of the oil company to Ardova Plc. The company made this disclosure in a notification sent to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), where it announced its forthcoming Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), scheduled to hold on Tuesday, December 17, 2019. The Directors of the company were empowered to draw up, sign documents and appoint advisers regarding the matter where necessary....

The Nigeria Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) Plc has introduced Reconnect, an easy-to-use information exchange web application to enhance the relationship between company registrars and clearinghouse and improve capital market efficiency. According to The Nation, the Managing Director, CSCS Plc, Mr. Haruna Jalo-Waziri disclosed that the new application was to strategically automate and improve operational efficiency in the Nigerian capital market. The application was developed having...

The Republics of Benin and Niger have failed to meet the conditions for the reopening of Nigeria’s land borders. This was stated by Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture when he led a government delegation to the Seme border yesterday. Judging from the rate at which goods were smuggled and the number of illegal immigrants arrested over the last two weeks, the Minister noted that nothing was done by the neighboring countries to address the issues. The Federal Government...

Bulgari owner LVMH has reached a deal to buy Tiffany & Co. at $135 a share in cash, or $16.2 billion. Shares of Tiffany, the iconic New York-based jeweler, have risen over hopes of a higher-priced deal. Shares closed on Friday at $125.51. They had traded at about $140 in the middle of last year. It said it would also “transform LVMH’s Watches & Jewelry division and complement LVMH’s 75 distinguished Houses.”LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault said that the company intended “to develop this...

The number of Kenyans earning below Sh30,000 per month has risen to nearly half of the total employed workers captured in government records, laying bare the prevailing income inequality. Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), to be released this week, will show that the number of salaried workers taking home below Sh30,000 has grown by 154,945 members or 14 percent to 1,279,982. This equals 46.3 percent of the total 2,765,159 salaried workers captured in the Kenya Revenue...

Sudanese Prime Minister Dr. Abdallah Hamdouk considered the settlement of Sudan's debts, state reform at security and civil service level and removal of Sudan from a list of state sponsors of terrorism were big challenges that would confront the policies of a transitional government. " There was a number of issues need to discuss with our people, top of them was management of expectancy, especially that our people have big and deserved expectancies that should be managed together" Dr Hamdouk...

Malawian Government has been asked to avoid providing debt to financial institutions that do not provide proper expenditure guidelines for their loans to avoid misuse of the funds and counterfeit development projects. Veteran journalist Ephraim Munthali made the call Thursday in Mzuzu during a two-day training for journalists on financial reporting organized by Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM). Munthali, who is also the Managing Editor for Nation Publications Limited, was commenting on a...

The Federal Government of Nigeria has reiterated its interest in keeping existing investors while also seeking to attract potential investors in the country. The announcement was made by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo, during the 2019 USA-Nigeria Business and Investment Summit held in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Adebayo who was represented by the Director of Infrastructure Investment and Policy Matters, Olajide Bamidele, said that Nigeria is committed to...

The entire issued share capital of Dangote Flour Mills (DFM) has been delisted from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), effective Monday, 18 November 2019. The development was announced by the Nigerian bourse through a statement issued on the NSE website. This is coming after the shareholders of Dangote Flour Mills Plc endorsed the acquisition of the company by Crown Flour Mills Limited, the Nigerian subsidiary of Olam International Limited. The acquisition was carried out through a Scheme of...

Nigeria received $5.36 billion capital importation (inflows) in the third quarter (Q3) of 2019, compared to $5.82 billion in the second quarter (Q2). This is the lowest amount of capital importation received in the year. According to the latest capital importation data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the $5.36 billion capital importation in the third quarter represents a -7.78% contraction from the total amount ($5.82 billion) received within the second quarter (Q2)....

Another public hearing on the Finance Act (Amendment) Bill is expected to be held today by the House of Representatives, as reported by. This is the coming days after members of the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives successfully boycotted a joint public hearing over issues surrounding the passage of the Finance Bill. Their reasons for the boycott was likened to a battle of supremacy between the Upper Chamber and the Lower Chamber as the Reps accused the Senate of consistently...