Business

The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), yesterday, destroyed fake and substandard products worth several billions of naira in Lagos.

Products destroyed are engine oil, electrical cables and substandard tyres.

However, speaking during the destruction of the products seized by the organisation, the director general of SON, Mallam Farouk Salim, disclosed that the organisation was reviewing its Act to ensure importers of life threatening materials are jailed and not fined.

According to Salim, peddlers of these items are economic saboteurs and their activities sabotage our industry, people and cause loss for individuals who are innocently buying these products.

“This is one of the reasons why in the last National Assembly, we went to them to review our act to make sure that importers of life threatening materials are jailed not just fined. Thankfully they passed the law but unfortunately when the government was settling down, they did not get the opportunity for the president to sign the law.”

“So it is back in the national assembly for concurrence and hopefully very soon it will be with the president and I am sure the president will sign that amendment and those individuals selling threatening items will be jailed immediately they are caught,” he said.

The SON boss noted that some of the products to be destroyed today had gotten a court order to that effect.

On the seized tyres, he said that some of them are new tyres but unfortunately when the importer brought them in, other tyres were stuffed inside them.

“Due to this, these tyres lose their integrity and they become dangerous to society. The ones looking new are used tyres, they are pressed and polished to look new.

“The fakers of the motor oil lubricants intercepted in Calabar, use popular products so our Nigerian lubricant manufacturers that are successful have to deal with individuals trying to copy their product.

“Nobody copies a product that is not successful, the only problem is the copying is a bad one. The product you are seeing behind does not belong to that popular company, it was being copied and they have been taken to court, convicted and the court gave us the permission to confiscate the product and destroy them,” he said.

Salim pointed out that the Nigerian cable industry is successful and good and they key into associations to help identify these fake ones.

He noted that SON sometimes used their intelligence to fish these people out because their activities were affecting the economy of the country. Due to the policy on local content, we need to make sure that our indigenous companies are protected.

“These cables are supposed to be copper but they are either iron or copper coated, when used in a building, it gets hot and this leads to fire,” he said.

On the value of these products, the SON director general said that it ran into billions of naira, adding that they would keep seizing the products to force the perpetrators to stop.

“To your eyes these products don’t look nice but an unscrupulous person can take these, clean it up and send it to the market and make billions of naira from it.

“As regards this environment, the seized items are safe here as the place is twenty-four hours monitored by police, civil defence,” he said.

Nigeria’s external reserves fell by $841.75m between July and September, figures obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria revealed.

The CBN revealed in its report on the movement of external reserves that the reserves, which stood at $34.07bn as of July 7, 2023, fell to $33.23bn as of October 5, 2023.

External reserves fell by $2.85bn in the first half of 2023 due to external debt finance among other challenges, figures obtained from the CBN showed.

The CBN had earlier revealed that the reserves which commenced January 3, 2023, at $37.07bn fell to $34.22bn as of the end of June 26, 2023.

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According to personal statements released by the CBN by Monetary Policy Committee members, as of July, accretion to external reserves remained weak while foreign exchange demand pressures persisted.

Former acting Governor, CBN, Folashodun Shonubi, had stated that, “Eventual stability of the foreign exchange market over the medium-term, will further help to achieve price stability.

“Besides, the recent removal of subsidy could have a favourable effect on price stability as increased crude oil receipts by the government will bolster reserves, engender exchange rate stability, and help to moderate inflation.”

The Senate has confirmed the nomination of Dr Olayemi Cardoso as governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Cardoso’s confirmation was announced after his screening by the Senate on Tuesday, September 27.

Cardoso was screened alongside four nominees for the positions of CBN Deputy Governors, to steer affairs of the apex bank in the next five years.

The deputy governors include: Mrs. Emem Nnana Usoro, Mr. Muhammad Sani Abdullahi Dattijo, Mr. Philip Ikeazor, and Dr. Bala M. Bello.

It would be recall that last week, Cardoso resumed as the CBN governor in an acting capacity pending his screening and expected confirmation by the Senate.

Dangote Group has denied claims making the round of reducing the price of Cement to N2,700 per 50-kilogramme bag from N5,500.

Anthony Chiejine, Spokesperson for Dangote Group, disclosed this on Monday.

Chiejine described the claim as fake news.

“It is fake news”, he said in a terse reply.

His reaction comes amid speculation that the Dangote group crashed the cement price by 50 per cent with effect from October 1st, 2023.

Earlier, Bahir Ahmad, media aide to former president Muhammadu Buhari, had commented that the report was fake.

Ahmad made this known through his official X handle on Sunday.

“The Dangote Group has denied the trending reports that it has reduced the price of cement from N5,500 to N2,700 effective October 1st”, he wrote.

The price of a 50kg bag of cement is sold between N4,600 to N6,000 in Lagos, Ogun, Ondo and Abuja.

However, barely two weeks ago, BUA Cement had hinted at plans to reduce the price of a 50kg bag of cement to between N3,000 and N3,500.

BUA chairman, Abdul Samad Rabiu disclosed this after meeting with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has postponed the 293rd meeting of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC).

No reason was given by the apex bank which made the announcement in a release by the CBN spokesman, Abdulmumin Isa.

Isa said a new date will be communicated.

The MPC, which was scheduled for Monday and Tuesday next week, would have afforded the committee to opportunity to review the hawkwish interest rate position of the CBN amidst growing inflation concern.

Analyst expect the meeting to also serve as a validation session as President Bola Tinubu has named new governor and deputy governors for the bank, awaiting confirmation by the Senate.

It is unclear if the leadership change at the bank is the cause of the postponement.

Last week Tinubu named Yemi Cardoso as the new CBN governor and Sani Ahmad Dattijo, Mrs. Emem Nnana Usoro, Mr. Philip Ikeazor, and Dr. Bala M. Bello as deputy governors.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, on the sideline of the G-20 summit in India, met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to boost Nigeria’s car manufacturing sector.

Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the President, disclosed this in a statement on Sunday.

Tinubu noted that expanding Nigeria’s economic partnership is vital to his administration.

He called on the German government to explore new incentives for foreign investments in Nigeria.

“It is not, for us, only a matter of designing the financial architecture for an expanded economic partnership. It is also about the practicality of aligning the perspectives of your large-scale manufacturers, such as Volkswagen and others, with the reality of the new incentives my government is putting in place for them to come and prosper across multiple value chains and sectors inside our country”.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz acknowledged the mutually beneficial nature of an escalation in the scale of economic ties with Nigeria.

“Thank you for this important discussion, Mr. President. I appreciate this opportunity to advance our economic relations. Your market is unique, and our companies have a history in Nigeria. We acknowledge the business-friendly reforms you have put in place. I am happy to inform you of my desire to visit you in Nigeria in October, which will allow us to carry forward these initiatives,” the German leader stated.

arravo and aws has implored the use of cloud as a digital transformation tool to ensure data safety and cyber security in Nigeria.

Group Chief Executive Officer, arravo, Dr. Ayo Adegboye while speaking in Abuja on Wednesday at a meeting in partnership with AWS on driving innovation with the cloud stated that cloud adoption is a leap into technological future which has come to stay hence should be embraced.

Adegboye explained that securing data with the cloud ensures significant reduction in cost with little or no barriers with IT infrastructure more scaleable, modular and secure.

“Security to a large extent is inevitable but then what Amazon has done is to give you multiple layer of security in the cloud, have never heard of any major compromise when data seats in the cloud which is what we are bringing to this part of the world.

“Cloud is ready and available as long as you have access to it, it is much available and when we talk about moving fast, scaling up fast in any sector of the economy, there is no point reinventing the wheel, the only way we can take the leap step is to leap forward and advance, what ever we are doing today is to consider going into the cloud, with cloud adoption, it is just taking a leap into the future so cloud has come to stay and the future of technology is the cloud.”

Meanwhile, Adegboye affirm that though there are lots of threats in cyber-security but with the adoption of cloud, there are different people with skill capacity who manages and secure the cloud especially with a cloud platform like AWS, data safety is guaranteed.

Also speaking at the event, Regional Lead (PS), West, East and Central Africa for AWS, Robin Njiru
noted that as a result of cloud computing through the partnership with arravo there has been exponential growth in business across public and private sector.

“As we engage with them today our vision as an organization is to become the utmost customer-centric organization, also this partnership is really to enhance and improve the overall experience of the customers which is the citizen, it also to improve the government-employee relationships as they service their physician, clinician or educator by making available tool that enable them to make them achieve larger impact as they interact.”

Njiru explained that the cloud is an infrastructure in Nigeria that allows the citizens to enjoy cloud computing with Infrastructure that is already sitting in Nigeria, while enhancing their overall experience of businesses which makes them to access cloud computing on whatever business they are doing in a faster, cost-efficient manner and in a way that allows there business experience to expand.

Assistant Director, Policy and Planning, of the ICT department of Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, Atim Isong (Mrs) on her part stated that cloud computing is an eye-opener that the youth can leverage on to enhance their capacity building mechanism and if well harnessed will duly engage them.

Lagos, Nigeria, September 3, 2023: Leading financial institution, Fidelity Bank Plc has recorded an impressive 204.4% growth in Profit Before Tax for the first half of 2023 to N76.3bn according to the bank’s recently issued financial result.

A review of the results published on the Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) on Friday, 1 September 2023, showed a positive performance across all financial indices, reaffirming the Bank’s position as one of the fastest-growing and well-managed financial institutions in Nigeria.

Gross earnings for the period grew by 59.6% to ₦247.1billion from ₦154.8billion reported in June 2022. Profit After tax stood at ₦61.9billion representing a growth of 166.0% over ₦23.3billion recorded in the corresponding period.

This translates to an Earning per Share of 194kobo. The Bank’s Net Loans & Advances grew by 25.1% from ₦2.1trillion recorded as of December 2022 to ₦2.6trillion in June 2023 with corresponding growth in Customer Deposits which increased by 23.2% to ₦3.2trillion from ₦2.6trillion in December 2022.

The Bank’s balance sheet remained strong with a 27.4% growth in Total Assets from ₦3.9trillion in December 2022 to ₦5.1trillion. The Bank’s non-performing loans remained low and within regulatory threshold at 3.24% with adequate coverage of 111%. Return on Equity (ROE) and Return on Assets (ROA) closed at 34.9% and 2.8% respectively.

On the back of the strong H1 2023 performance, the board of the bank approved an interim dividend of 25k per share making it the second consecutive year the bank would be paying interim dividends and another demonstration of its capacity to provide shareholders with sustainable value.
Commenting on the Bank’s laudable performance, Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe, MD/CEO, Fidelity Bank Plc noted, “We are pleased to report on another period of quality growth across all financial and non-financial indices. Our performance during the first half of the year reflects the resilience of our bank and the fundamental strength of our business to deliver long-term sustainable value at a time that has been characterized by global economic headwinds. As a bank, we remain committed to our goal of helping individuals to grow, inspiring businesses to thrive and empowering economies to prosper.

The Bank’s impressive H1 2023 results comes to join a string of recent achievements by Fidelity Bank. It would be recalled that the Bank’s stock was reclassified from small-price stock to medium-price stock by the NGX in July 2023 on the back of a consistent impressive performance.

Similarly, the bank recently emerged the company with the highest earnings per share on the NGX based on half year financial figures for the second year running.

To sustain this sterling performance, the bank’s shareholders, at an Extra-Ordinary General Meeting held on 11 August 2023, unanimously approved a capital raising exercise via a Public Offer and Rights Issue.

“We will continue to monitor and proactively manage the evolving risks in the economy while ensuring our commitments to our customers and shareholders are fulfilled. The interim dividend of 25kobo per share, a 150% increase compared to the 10kobo interim dividend in 2022FY, attests to the value we place on the unwavering support from our shareholders”, stated Onyeali-Ikpe.

Fidelity Bank is a full-fledged commercial bank operating in Nigeria with over 8 million customers serviced across its 250 business offices and digital banking channels. The bank was recently recognized as the Best SME Bank Nigeria at the 28th annual Euromoney Awards for Excellence 2023; and the Best SME Bank Nigeria 2022 by the Global Banking & Finance Awards. The bank has also won awards for the “Fastest Growing Bank” and “MSME & Entrepreneurship Financing Bank of the Year” at the 2021 BusinessDay Banks and Other Financial Institutions (BAFI) Awards.