Aso Villa Reads for 12/09/19

Every day, we bring you the best stories that the Media is reporting about the Government of Nigeria

The Nation reports that the Federal Government has approved construction of the $5.3bn Ibadan to Kano standard gauge rail line project. Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, disclosed this on Thursday at the third Maritime Stakeholders Interactive Forum. He said: “Just yesterday, we got approval to complete the $5.3bn Ibadan to Kano rail project. “We have also applied for funding to commence coastal rail for the Port Harcourt to Warri segment.”

According to Vanguard, the Federal Government has proposed an increase of the Valued Added Tax, VAT from five per cent to seven point two per cent. The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed disclosed this while briefing State House Correspondents after the Federal Executive Council, FEC meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja. The Minister said that the increase will only be commenced after the VAT Act is amended by the National Assembly and after consultations with the state and local government areas as well as the Nigerian populace. According to her, “Our projection is to finish consultations early enough so that it takes effect in 2020.” She further disclosed that the FEC approved the Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategic Paper, MTEF/FSP for 2020 to 2022, which will guide the 2020 Budget. The Minister said the next step was to present the document to the National Assembly for consideration. FEC also approved a total of N182.68 billion for various road projects across the country. The Minister of State for Works and Housing, Abubakar Aliyu, while briefing journalists stated that the road projects covered Lagos, Niger, Kano, Katsina, Edo, Kwara, Taraba, Jigawa, Imo, Abia, Yobe, FCT, and Anambra.

The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, Wednesday said the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved N10.07 trillion as the budget for 2020. The minister also said the council approved the increase of value added tax (VAT) from the current 5 percent to 7.2 per cent. However, she was quick to add that implementation of the new VAT rate would be subject to amendment of the extant VAT law. Briefing reporters at the end of the first FEC meeting since the swearing in of new ministers, Ahmed said the estimate was contained in 2020–2022 Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) presented to the council by her ministry. According to her, the document contains N10.07trillion budget proposal for 2020 fiscal year, revenue target of N7.5 trillion and additional N2.09trillion revenue from VAT, $55 per barrel oil benchmark, N305/$ exchange rate and oil production of 2.1 million barrels per day. Ahmed, who said the budget would run at N2.15 trillion deficit, which she described as a reduction from the N2.24 trillion budget deficit of the outgoing 2019 fiscal year, also said the economy had been projected to grow at 3.01 percent at the end of 2019. According to her, the economy had grown from 0.8 per cent in 2017 to 2.02 per cent in the first quarter of 2019, adding that inflation has also fallen from 18.7 per cent in 2017 to 11.02 per cent as at July 2019. Vanguard reported.

Up to $10 billion worth of foreign direct investment (FDI) is expected to flow into Nigeria in the next five years from the decision of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited to finally go ahead with the expansion of its LNG capacity by an additional eight metric tonnes per annum (MTPA), the company said Wednesday. According to This Day, NLNG is owned by four shareholders: the federal government, represented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) with 49 per cent interest; Shell Gas B.V, which has 25.6 per cent; Total Gaz Electricite Holdings France with 15 per cent and Eni International N.A. N. V. S.àr. l — 10.4 per cent. The Shell-run NLNG said in Abuja yesterday that it had selected a consortium comprising Italian firm, Saipem; South Korean Daewoo Engineering and Japanese Chiyoda to build its $7 billion Train-7 LNG expansion plant. The company added that an additional $3 billion worth of investment would be spent on upstream gas development to meet the expected demands of the new capacity. It stated that after about 12 years of delay, it would finally start the expansion drive for its LNG plant from 22MTPA to 30MTPA, adding that Saipem, Chiyoda and Daewoo, which formed the consortium called the SCD consortium would build the plant.

The Federal Government through the Ministry of Communications, has stressed the need for all government officials to take the issue of e-Government initiative from theoretical to practical approach, in order to ensure strategic implementation of all government online processes. This, the government explained, would be in tandem with the agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. The Minister of Communications, Dr. Isa Pantami, who gave the order during the recent meeting with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), led by its Country Director, Mr. Woochan Chang, at Abuja, said the federal government recognised the support, collaboration and trainings facilitated for many public servants in Nigeria by KOICA, noting that government was ready to continue to partner and work with them to move the e-Government implementation to the next level. According the minister, “We must sit down and take the issue of e-Government from theoretical to practical approach. I am glad we already have e-Government Master Plan in place but I always challenge my colleagues that producing master plan, blue print or strategies is not enough until we do what we can to translate it into action.” This Day reports.

As part of its plans to revitalise the Nigeria’s health sector, the federal government said it has commenced an assessment tour of all federal teaching hospitals and other tertiary health institutions in the country. ThisDay reports that it said the aim was to know their current status in terms of facilities and healthcare delivery capacity with a view to improving on their performances. Speaking in an exclusive interview with THISDAY, a member of the Health Sector Reform Committee and Director of Health Planning, Research and Statistics in the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Emmanuel Meribole said the government has embarked on the programme of reforms in order to correct wrongs in the health sector and to restore and refocus the country’s public hospitals so that they can deliver quality healthcare services to Nigerians. Meribole said a situation whereby some public hospitals lack basic operational tools like drugs, the right quality of staff and even buildings was becoming worrisome. “You will hear that Nigeria has the highest rate of maternal deaths, children under five years most often die of vaccine preventable diseases. This is why reform has become very necessary,” he said.

According to Bloomberg, Nigeria’s FMDQ Securities Exchange Plc is working on a plan to kick-start mortgages to boost trading on the nation’s capital markets. “The lack of housing finance is one of the reasons why our capital market has not grown as it should,” Chief Executive Officer Bola “Koko” Onadele said in an interview. “We should be talking of 30-year mortgages for Nigerians. If you want 70% of the people to own their own houses, they can’t borrow at 20%.” Most people save all their working lives to be able to buy or build a home, leaving them with little savings to invest in financial markets. On the other side of the spectrum, lenders in the country rely on short-term deposits when mortgages require long-term financing. There are only about 50,000 homeloans in Africa’s most populous country of 200 million where poverty and the lack of a formalized title-deeds registry has led to a shortage of at least 17 million houses. Rapid urbanization is also causing a proliferation of slums and shanty towns, while most homes consist of informal structures on land passed down through generations.

O&G reports that the Federal Government has revealed plans to deliver Final Investment Decisions (FIDs) on at least four key projects within the nation’s oil and gas industry by the end of last quarter this year. Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipreye Sylva, who represented the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, disclosed this while speaking at the ongoing 24th World Energy Congress (WEC) in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Tuesday. Ndu Ughamadu, NNPC’s spokesman, who made this known in a statement, added that Sylva said his vision was to bequeath a vibrant petroleum industry, which would guarantee long-term strategic investments and prosperity for Nigerians. “My plan is to ensure that during my tenure, four Final Investment Decisions (FIDs) are taken. I am sure that within the next quarter, we should be able to conclude on some of these FIDs so as to grow the industry,” the Minister stated. The Minister also highlighted gas development as part of government priority to fast track the industrialization drive of the country. “As you are aware, we are focusing on the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project, which will address some of our power issues and encourage the setting up of local industries and businesses along different areas in Nigeria,” he said.

The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to foster a mutually beneficial engagement and seamless operation of the mandates of both organisations.With the MoU, the parties have agreed to cooperate and collaborate to perform their individual duties, particularly in information sharing, consumer complaints in the capital market, investigations, enforcement and compliance, including capacity building. This is also in compliance with Section 105 of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (FCCPA) 2018, signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, on January 30, 2019, which requires the agency to negotiate MoUs with relevant regulators.Recall that on May 3, 2019, FCCPC and SEC established a joint review desk, as an interim measures to ensure continued processing of pending and emerging transactions. Guardian reports.