Dangote
commences work on Okpella cement plant
11/04/2016
Dangote
Cement Plc on Saturday began the construction of a new cement plant in Okpella,
Edo State. The new cement plant and others in the pipeline, estimated to cost
$1bn, are expected to increase the $3bn the country has been saving from import
substitution in cement yearly. The new six million metric tonnes per annum
capacity plant in Okpella is coming on the heels of a similar arrangement for
another six million mtpa plant in Itori, in Ogun State. According to a
statement by the firm on Sunday, by this investment, Dangote’s production
capacity in Nigeria alone will go up to 41 million mtpa. The Minister of Solid
Minerals Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, and his counterpart in Trade and
Investment, Dr. Okechukwu Enelamah, said the government was pleased with the
exploits of Dangote Cement in ensuring that the nation freed itself from the shackles
of endless importation and become a net exporter of the product.
Unilever
to build another factory in Ogun
08/04/2016
The
Managing Director, Unilever Nigeria Plc, Mr. Yaw Nsarkoh, has said the company
will step up its capital investment in the country by building another factory
in Ogun State. He said this on Wednesday when he led the management team of the
company on a courtesy visit to the state governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, in
his Oke Mosan office in Abeokuta. The MD said the company, which had been in
the state since the 80s, had resolved to expand its business base in the
country, despite the current economic challenges. He noted that Unilever
Nigeria Plc was not a flight by night business entity but a company which had
made 75 per cent of its turnover annually from Nigeria from products in its
Ogun state factory.
Lafarge
Africa Falls Short of Expectations
30/03/2016
The
financial results of companies for the year ended December 2015 being released
confirmed the challenging environment in which they operated during the year
under review. While some announced improved performance, some recorded decline
in their bottom-lines. Some ended the year with losses, while others have sent
profit warnings that investors should expect weaker performance for 2015
financial year.
Lafarge
Africa Plc, which is a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, the world’s largest
building materials company, falls into the category of those that
recorded a decline in their operations for 2015. The company recorded a decline
of 20 per cent profit after tax (PAT) due to the one-off restructuring costs
and the unrealised exchange impact on the foreign currency borrowings from the
parent group. However, the company is rewarding shareholders with a cash
dividend of 300 kobo per share and a bonus of one new share for every 10 shares
already held.
FG
Resuscitates Sunti Sugar Company with N26bn
12/04/2016
The
Sunti Sugar Company in Mokwa town of Niger state, which has been comatose for
over two decades has received a bailout fund of N26 billion from the federal
government. The Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, who
announced this while on an inspection visit to the Sugar Company along with
Niger state, Governor Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, said the federal government’s
gesture was to assist the resuscitation drive of the company. Emefiele said
that the amount given to the company would be repaid with a single digit
interest rate of seven per cent.
Olam
invests N30bn in integrated animal farms
10/04/2016
Olam
International, a leading agribusiness operating across the value chain in 70
countries, says it is setting up Nigeria’s largest integrated animal feed
mills, breeding farms and hatchery with an investment of $150m (N30bn). The
ground-breaking programme was attended by Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna
State; and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh,
who represented President Muhammadu Buhari, a statement by the company said.
The Chief Executive Officer, Olam Africa, Mr. Venkataramani Srivathsan, was
quoted as saying, “This is the latest investment by Olam in Nigeria’s domestic
food and agricultural production sector after our recent investments in wheat
milling assets and the ongoing development of our 10,000-hectare rice farm and
mill in Nasarawa State.”
May
& Baker to Pay N59 Million in Dividends
07/04/2016
The
board of directors of May & Baker Nigeria has recommended a dividend of
N58.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2015. The dividend, which is 20 per
cent higher than what was paid the previous year, was recommended following an
increase in the bottom-line of the company despite the challenging operating
environment.
According
to the audited results of the company, profit before tax rose by 41 per cent
from N101.2 million in 2014 to N142.4 million in 2015. Net profit growth was,
however, constrained by a total tax burden of N74 million comprising regular
and deferred taxes. As a result, profit after tax increased by 7.4 per cent
from N63.34 million to N68.03 million.
Telecoms
firms spend N730bn to generate electricity
11/04/2016
The amount
of money that telecommunications companies spend to power their Base
Transceiver Stations nationwide will rise from N540bn in 2014 to at least
N730bn when their operating results for 2015 are released in the coming weeks,
it has been learnt. Top industry executives working on an industry data, which
is expected to be released before the end of the second quarter of this year,
said the amount that the telecoms firms spent on buying diesel to power about
30,000 BTS across the country would rise by at least 35 per cent. They linked
the increase to the rise in electricity tariff, cost of diesel, and telcos’
expansion drive, leading to increase in the number of the BTS across the
country.
Telecoms,
others contribute 8.7% to Nigeria’s GDP
12/04/2016
The
telecommunication and other services sectors have contributed 8.7 percent to
Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP in 2015, with the country’s main economic
stay, oil, accounting for 6.4 percent. Dr. Doyin Salami, a lecturer at Lagos
Business School, LBS, who was a keynote speaker at the unveiling of Fleet
Technology Limited’s name change to Vatebra Technology, in a paper titled;
“Beyond Now, A Nigeria without Oil: Prospects For Technology and Innovation”, in
Lagos, said the telecommunications sector grew Nigeria’s GDP by 8.7 percent in
2015, generating spillovers with uptakes in financial transactions technology
and payments systems, E-commerce facilitation and proliferation of transport
services, while making the offerings of the burgeoning entertainment industry
ubiquitous, and indeed all services offerings that can be digitalized.
ntel Begins Commercial Rollout, Partners OEM on 4G Devices
11/04/2016
ntel, which acquired NITEL and MTel, to become Nigeria’s fifth
GSM mobile network operator, on Friday, commenced its phased commercial rollout
of telecoms services in Lagos and Abuja, on its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE)
advanced network. The rollout, which comes with bumper offers for pioneer
customers and data users, is offering the first one hundred thousand customers
that will redeem and activate their ntel SIMs by the end of April, a free
on-net calls for life, while data subscribers will get three months unlimited
data usage. What this means is that the first one hundred thousand customers on
the ntel network that are enlisted into the ntel pioneer club, will have the
opportunity to make free calls for as long as the ntel network exists, but the
free call will be restricted to the pioneer members only, who could call
themselves for free, using ntel to ntel line only. Announcing the phased
rollout in Lagos at the weekend, the Chief Executive Officer of ntel, Mr. Kamar
Abass, said because the network operates Voice over LTE (VoLTE), driven by the
resuscitated Sat-3 submarine cable now owned by ntel, it would be able to cover
the entire Lagos and Abuja in the next four to six weeks, before extending its
rollout plans to Port Harcourt and other cities of the country.
GSMA, others
reject Nigeria’s 9% electronic tax bill
10/04/2016
The Global System for Mobile Communication Association (GSMA),
Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators ofNigeria (ALTON), the
Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), and the
National Associations of Telecommunications Subscribers (NATCOMS) have rejected
the bill for the establishment of a Tax on Electronic Communication Service in
Nigeria currently before the National Assembly. The bill which is seeking to
establish a 9% Communication Service Tax to be levied on charges payable by any
user of an electronic communication service such ad short message service
(SMS), voice calls, multimedia service (MMS), and data usage supplied by
service providers in the country, they warned will result in an increase in prices
for customers and have adverse impacts on the adoption of mobile services and
industry investment, and be counter-productive to the longer term national
digital strategy objectives set by the Federal Government. The bill has passed
through First Reading in both the Senate and House of Representatives.
ICT accounts for
10% of Nigeria’s revenue –Don
12/04/2016
An academic at the Lagos Business School, Dr. Doyin Salami, has
said that in 2016 alone, “Information and Communications Technology accounted
for 10 per cent of the total Nigerian revenue, the highest in a decade and
half.” He stated this in Lagos, while speaking as a guest speaker at the
unveiling of Vatebra, a new technology company positioned as the backbone of
major industries in Nigeria and beyond. The company was known as Fleet
Technologies Limited. In a lecture entitled, ‘Beyond now-Nigeria without oil;
Prospect for technology and innovation’, Salami said that Nigeria needed ICT to
drive the much-desired national development the citizens craved. The scholar
said that Nigeria ranked 121 out of 148 in the Global Innovation Index. With
this in mind, he added, “Nigeria needs to create necessary infrastructure to
accelerate technological innovations if truly the country is serious about
matching up with the pace of growth and development around the world.”
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