FG slashes petroleum subsidy by N771bn as product landing costs slide

The Nigerian government has slashed the amount that it would pay for petroleum subsidies in 2015 by N771 billion to N200 billion, with the hope that landing costs of oil products would continue to drop as oil prices drop.

The N200 billion which is against N971 billion paid in the current 2014 fiscal year, is contained in the 2015 budget proposal awaiting appropriation before the National Assembly.

Government is also proposing to draw down about half a billion dollars (N80 billion) from the Excess Crude Account (ECA) and borrow N570 billion to finance the 2015 fiscal deficit put at 0.79 percent, which is however down from 1.24 percent this year.

This comes as

FG approves sale of NITEL/MTEL for $252m

The National Council on Privatisation (NCP) on Thursday approved the sale of the liquidated Nigeria Telecommunication Plc and its subsidiary, Mtel, to NATCOM Consortium for $252 million.

Atedo Peterside, the chairman of NCP’s Technical Committee, told State House correspondents in Abuja that the approval was one of the decisions taken at a meeting of the council presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo.

He said that NATCOM beat one other bidder to clinch the deal.

“What happened today was that

UBA Extends Banking Services to Twitter

Customers of United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc in the 18 African countries where the bank has operations can now receive transaction alerts on their twitter handle as direct messages.

It is an innovative first from the pan-African bank and currently the only bank in Africa to offer this service.

“What we have done is take social media banking to a new level. Twitter is increasingly becoming a popular means of communication especially among the young adults. As a highly innovative bank, we are giving the Millennials, who are increasingly banking with us an option to get

Apple 'failing to protect Chinese factory workers'

Poor treatment of workers in Chinese factories which make Apple products has been discovered by an undercover BBC Panorama investigation.

 It found standards on workers' hours, ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were being breached at the Pegatron factories.

Apple said it strongly disagreed with the programme's conclusions.

Exhausted workers were filmed falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts at the Pegatron factories on the outskirts of Shanghai.

One undercover reporter, working in a factory making parts for Apple computers, had to

Oil price fall is temporary, says Saudi minister

Recent falls in the price of oil are likely to be temporary, says the oil minister for Saudi Arabia, Opec's biggest producing nation

Ali al-Naimi said commodity price fluctuations were to be expected and said he was hopeful for the future.

He added it was "difficult, or even impossible, for Saudi Arabia or Opec to undertake any measure that would lead to a reduction in [their] share of the market and an increase in of others".

The price of oil has halved since June.

On Thursday, the price of Brent crude was just below $63 a barrel, while US crude was near $58.

Oil prices, which were

Sub-Saharan Africa growth resilient to lower oil prices in 2015 – Fitch

In its latest sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Credit Overview released December 16, 2014, Fitch Ratings says that it expects average GDP growth of 5 percent in 2015, for the 18 countries rated by the agency, up from 4.5 percent in 2014.

Growth will not be evenly spread across the region but should be resilient to lower oil prices.

Countries’ ability to grow will be impacted by their degree of commodity dependence, exposure to China, domestic challenges and capacity to invest.

Growth in Nigeria, Sub-Saharan Africa’s largest economy, has been revised down from

Sony cancels The Interview release amid threats

Sony Pictures has cancelled the planned US release on 25 December of the film The Interview, after major cinema chains decided not to screen it.

The film is about a fictional plot to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Hackers have already carried out a cyber attack on Sony and warned the public to stay away from cinemas screening the film.

The US government said it was considering a "range of options" on how to respond to the attack.

"We know that criminals and foreign countries regularly seek to

Swiss National Bank will cut interest rate to minus 0.25%

Switzerland's National Bank (SNB) will bring in a negative interest rate cutting the value of large sums of money left on deposit in the country.

The Bank is imposing a rate of minus 0.25% on "sight deposits" - a form of instant access account - of more than 10m Swiss francs ($9.77m).

It is trying to lower the value of the Swiss franc, which has risen recently.

Russia's market meltdown and a dramatic plunge in the oil price have led investors to

Putin insists rouble will stabilise amid Russian economic crisis

President Vladimir Putin has insisted Russia's under-fire currency, the rouble, will stabilise, but warned the economic crisis could last two years.

He is currently holding his annual end-of-year news conference.

Mr Putin blamed "outside factors" for the falling rouble but admitted the central bank could have acted sooner.

He also accepted Russia had failed to diversify its economy, which has been hit by falling oil prices and sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.

''Goods have clearly been flying off the

Manufacturing’s robust performance in 2014 justifies call for industry-specific incentives

A leap in manufacturing’s contribution to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), huge investments in cement, sugar and automotive industries, as well as a surge in capacity utilisation within the year are indications that the sector can perform better in 2015 if the Federal Government pays more attention to broad-based, industry- specific incentives, rather than the individual-type motivations, stakeholders say.

“Majority of the members interviewed are of the opinion that once the government continues with broad-based incentives, the possibility of capacity utilisation improving further is high,” says the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), in its most recent economic review.

“What this translates to in the economic-wide aggregate, is

Luxury tax to fetch N10.56bn as FG unfolds 2015 budget

The Nigerian government, in 2015 hopes to raise N10.56 billion additional revenue from levies on luxury items – one of the strategies it is adopting to shore up revenue to manage the economy in the light of present shocks coming from falling oil prices.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, co-ordinating minister for the economy and minister of finance, announced that beginning next year, a 10 percent import surcharge would be imposed on new private jets and that this is estimated to yield about N3.7 billion to the federation revenue.

The government has also slammed a

Unsolicited Text Messengers Defy NCC's Warnings

Telecommunication subscribers are beginning to feel embarrassed with the avalanche of unsolicited calls and text messages that hit their mobile phones on a daily basis, in spite of warnings from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the industry regulator, to stop the action.

The subscribers have therefore called on  NCC to make further efforts in addressing the situation, which they  have said, constitutes  distractions and overloading of their phone memory, where text messages are stored.

Although telecoms operators have

Fraud: AfDB imposes 3-yr ban, $18m fine on Chinese firm

Africa Development Bank (AfDB) has imposed a three year debarment on China First Highway Engineering Co. Ltd. following its admission of fraudulent and collusive practices in an AfDB-financed project. The bank also levied a financial penalty of $18.86 million on the company to support anti-corruption projects on the continent.

A statement issued by the Bank Group said, “Ensuing from investigations conducted by the AfDB’s Integrity and Anti-Corruption Department (IACD), CFHEC admitted to

‘Nigeria Still Far from Meeting Domain Name Registration Target’

The Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), the body in charge of the registration of Nigeria's country code Top Level Domain name (ccTLD), otherwise known as '.ng domain name', has said Nigeria is still far from meeting  the  set target of registering 250, 000 domain names in the country.

President of NIRA, Mrs. Mary Uduma, who gave the information in a telephone interview with THISDAY Newspapers, said NIRA had in 2013, set a target to register up to 250,000 .ng domain names, but was unable to meet the target at the end of 2013. This  compelled  NIRA to 

FG to privatize railways, inland waterways, 6 others in 2015

These sectors include: Railway; Inland waterways; Road Authority; Roads Funds; National Transport Commission; Ports & Harbour reform; Federal Competition and Consumer Protection and Postal bill.

Mr. Benjamin Dikki, the Director General of the bureau, disclosed this during the end year workshop of the Commerce and Industry Correspondence Association of Nigeria (CICAN) in Lagos, saying “Government is riding on the success story of the previously privatised Public Enterprises, PEs, such as banking, power, telecom, marine, steel sectors of the economy, etc.

According to him “Today,

Russians flock to stores to pre-empt price rises

Russian consumers flocked to the stores Wednesday, frantically buying a range of big-ticket items to pre-empt the price rises kicked off by the staggering fall in the value of the ruble in recent days.

As the Russian authorities announced a series of measures to ease the pressure on the ruble, which slid 15 percent in the previous two days and raised fears of a bank run, many Russians were buying cars and home appliances in some cases in record numbers before prices for these imported goods shoot higher.

The Swedish furniture giant IKEA already warned Russian consumers that

Russia plans new measures to stabilise the rouble

Russia is planning new measures aimed at stabilising its financial markets after the rouble's slump against the dollar.

The country's central bank said that if necessary, it would provide additional capital to Russia's banks and financial companies.

It also said it would hold more foreign exchange auctions if needed.

Russia's rouble has regained ground from Tuesday's all-time low, although trading remains edgy and volatile.

It extended its gains against the dollar after the

PAAR push up Customs’ revenue by 20% in 2014

Abullahi Babani, the Controller, Pre-Arrival Assessment Report (PAAR), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), on Wednesday said that PAAR scheme had increased revenues by 20 per cent in 2014.

He said there was tremendous improvement on the revenue in the current year, considering the economic situation in the country when compared to the performance of NCS in 2013.

Babani explained that PAAR was the new system of Destination Inspection (DI) which transferred the assignment from the service providers to the NCS in December 2013.

The controller added that

Nigeria’s revenue again slumps N36.6bn as ECA depletes to $3.1bn

Nigeria’s federal gross revenue yet again crashed N36.6 billion to N500.07 billion in November from N536.69 billion October figures as slump in both oil output and prices continue to take toll on Africa’s largest economy.

The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) which met Tuesday night to consider usual monthly allocations to the three tiers of government said the drop seen in revenue was as a result of the drastic 33 percent decline in export volume between September and October 2014, and a further decrease in

Finance Minister to present 2015 Budget today

Finance minister and co-ordinating minister for the economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, will today present the 2015 budget estimates separately to the two chambers of the National Assembly.

The total budget figure to be presented by the minister is N4.357.96 trillion. Out of this amount, government proposed N627billion for capital expenditure and N2.622 trillion for recurrent expenditure.

The Federal Government had  returned the revised 2015-2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) to the Senate to ratify the adjustments carried out on the document, in tandem with  current realities in the oil market.

This is the second time President Goodluck Jonathan has