Aso Villa Reads for 7/5/2019

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

According to Punch “the Federal Government on Monday extended by three months the 50 per cent discount it offered operators of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises to register their company names. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo announced this during the first quarter MSMEs stakeholders’ meeting, which was held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. He explained that the government’s action was informed by the success so far recorded in the 50 per cent discount window. For instance, reports showed that small business registration grew from “54,000 to 163,000 within six months” of approving the discount. The government, through the Corporate Affairs Commission, started applying the discount since in October 2018. It involved reducing the fee for the registration of a business name from N10,000 to N5,000 to help MSMEs formalise their operations. Osinbajo at the event also asked both the Standard Organisation of Nigeria and National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control to quickly resolve issues relating to the overlapping of their functions to ease business operations.”

“The Federal Government of Nigeria on Monday opened the May savings bonds for subscription. An FGN savings bond is a bond issued by the Debt Management Office on behalf of the Nigerian government. The bond is targeted at retail investors and includes a guaranteed interest payment and repayment of the principal.” Punch reports that “the Director-General, DMO, Ms Patience Oniha, said the FGN savings bond was introduced to promote financial inclusion and attract small investors into the capital market. The minimum subscription for the FGN savings bond is N5,000 with a maximum of N50m. In a notice issued by the DMO, the Federal Government said the savings bonds up for subscription were a two-year bond due May 2021 at 11.745 per cent per annum and a three-year bond due May 2022 at 12.745 per cent per annum. The DMO said it was authorised by the Federal Government to receive applications for subscription of the savings bond. It said the offer was open from May 6 to May 10 with the settlement date being May 15. It added that the coupon payments would be made on August 15, 2019, November 15, 2019, February 15, 2020 and May 15, 2020. The statement read in part, “The bonds are offered at N1,000 per unit, subject to a minimum subscription of N5,000 and in multiples of N1,000 and a maximum subscription of N50m. “The bonds, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the Federal Government of Nigeria and charged upon the general assets of the country, qualify as securities in which trustees can invest under the Trustee Investment Act. Interest is payable quarterly and the bullet repayment is on the maturity date.”

“Respite is coming the way of operators in Nigeria’s creative industry as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday released the Creative Industry Financing Initiative (CIFI), calling on youths into creative business to go to their bank of choice to access funds up to N533 million at 9 percent interest rate. The CIFI, which is part of efforts to boost job creation in Nigeria, particularly among the youths, was developed by CBN in collaboration with the Bankers Committee. The initiative, targeted at providing funds for the creative art industry, according to the apex bank, comes in four pillars — fashion, information technology, movie and music. ”interested applicants in the creative industry are hereby advised to submit applications to their banks for approval and disbursement,” the CBN said on its website on Monday. Business Day reported this.

“The Federal Executive Council has approved the award of N169.74bn contracts for the construction and rehabilitation of 10 roads across the country. According to the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, the projects would enhance the Federal Government’s objective of improving transportation infrastructure and restoring the nation’s road network as part of the implementation of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.” Punch reports that “the approval, which was sequel to a memorandum presented to FEC by the minister on May 2, 2019, covers the rehabilitation of the Umuahia(Ikwuano)-Ikot Ekpene Road, Umuahia, Umudike in Abia State; rehabilitation of Calabar-Oban-Ekang Road (Section1) in Cross River State; construction of Yola-Fufore-Gurin Road in Adamawa State; rehabilitation of Ado-Ekiti–Igede-Aramoko-Itawure Road in Ekiti State; and rehabilitation of Funtua-Dandume-Kaduna state border road in Katsina State. Others, according to the memorandum, include the rehabilitation of Makurdi-Gboko-Katsina-Ala Road (Yandev-Katsina-Ala Section) in Benue State; rehabilitation of Old Enugu-Onitsha Road (Opi Junction-Ukehe-Okpatu-Aboh Udi-Oji to Anambra border): rehabilitation and dualisation of the 74km Aba-Ikot Ekpene Road in Abia/Akwa Ibom states; construction of 4km Township Road in Gaya Local Government Area of Kano State; and rehabilitation of Billiri-Filiya-Taraba state border road in Gombe State.”

“About 851 farmers in Ewekoro, Yewa North and Ogun Waterside local government areas of Ogun State will henceforth have better bankable opportunities for their agricultural business activities. This development comes to reality as the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL) has organised 851 maize, rice and cassava farmers in these areas into financeable geo-cooperatives for participation in the 2019 wet season farming under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme (ABP).” According to Business Day, “the ABP, Anne Ihugba, head, corporate communication‎ at NIRSAL, said in a statement on Sunday that an agricultural input loan scheme of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in which smallholder farmers receive single-digit interest rate loans in the form of inputs and pay back with portions of their produce. As a participating financial institution in the programme, NIRSAL administers the ABP on behalf of the apex bank. At a ceremony held in the premises of the Ogun State Agricultural Development Project Office, NIRSAL flagged off the distribution of inputs to the farmers in the presence of several dignitaries. During the exercise, farmers under Ode-Omi Rice Association, Ogun State chapter of the Nigeria Cassava Growers’ Association (NCGA), and Business Support Academy (BSA) farmers received pre-emergence herbicides, certified seeds, crop protection products, NPK and Urea. Also, mechanisation service is cued for land preparation.”

“The federal government and Procter and Gamble (P&G) Nigeria have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate on a public-private partnership initiative to launch the SME Development Academy”. This Day reports that “the agreement was signed between the Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Hajiya Aisha Abubakar, on behalf of the Federal Government while P&G Director, Government Relations, Africa, Temitope Iluyemi signed on behalf of the company. The strategic partnership was expected to leverage the ministry’s SME Academy Programme, which aims at delivering structured skills training, advisory and mentoring activities and services for selected Nigerian owned SMEs within the academy scheme in order to enable better outcomes for communities, households and the country in general. The minister said: “Today is an important day for us and for SMEs across the country. Today we signed an MoU with Procter and Gamble who has shown a lot of interest in giving back to society especially the Nigeria society. And they have been in Nigeria for over twenty years and they felt it necessary to support SMEs because they believe these are the people who are also their vital customers. “For us on the side of government, of course we have over 38 million SMEs and the number is growing everyday as our children are graduating from universities looking for jobs that we are not able to provide: the best thing to do is to develop SMEs by giving them enabling environment and of course, to expand our private sector.”

“Beginning from today (Tuesday) containers and oil tankers would start moving goods from Lagos ports through the newly acquired Railway wagons to the north. The goods would move to the dry port in Kaduna in the North. The transport minister Rotimi Amaechi had ordered some wagons for the Lagos-Ibadan railway for the purpose. This measure was designed to ease traffic and gridlocks caused by heavy-duty vehicles from Lagos and roads. The move to curb the perennial traffic jam in Apapa axis, the Nigeria Railway Corporation resolved to deploy the eighteen newly imported wagons for haulage from Apapa seaport. The Managing Director, Nigeria Railway Corporation, NRC, Engineer Fidet Okhiria, disclosed that the newly acquired 18 wagons are to boost the inland container dry port business by moving cargos from Apapa seaport to dry ports in Kaduna and other states. The NRC has the capacity to evacuate 20 footer and 40 footer containers from Apapa port to, Ijoko and Abeokuta, both in Ogun state and Omi-Adio railway depots, in Oyo state, for onward transfer by parked trucks. The trucks would evacuate the containers by road to their various destinations which most often is either the inland dry port in Kaduna or Kano.” This is according to Sun News.

Peoples Daily reported that “the Federal government will put in place measures to stop the problem of building collapse in the country. The Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu disclosed this when he received the recommendation of the Inter-Ministerial committee on collapse building at the weekend in Abuja. According to the Minster, it is the responsibility of the government to ensure that human lives are secured, adding that the anguish and sorrow experienced by Nigerians due to building collapse should not be allowed to continue. Dr. Onu further said that the recommendations of the committee will be faithfully utilized by the government so that recurring problem of building collapse will have been nipped in the bud. He expressed his appreciation of the committee for doing excellent job and coming up with viable recommendations to ensure safety of our building and human life’s. Earlier the Chairman of the Committee, Prof. Samson Duna said that frequent re-occurrence of collapse building in the country has become a worrisome issue and menace, causing national embarrassment, claiming lives, destroying valuables properties and huge investments. This ugly incidence, according to Prof. Duna, have rendered many families homeless, individuals injured and causing psychological trauma to the affected families members, friends, neighbors and other stakeholders and of deep concern to Government at all levels. The Committee, among other recommendations calls for the establishment a functional Urban and Regional Planning Tribunal that is fully empowered to deal with all forms of violation in our Building Environment in every state in Nigeria.”