BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Nigeria spends N18.3bn daily on fuel subsidy. Emirates suspends flights to Nigeria. Other stories

Hello, and welcome to the Business Roundup this week. Here, we bring you highlights of events that happened during the week -from the capital market to the mainstream business activities, while not forgetting the tech/economy build up.

Here are the Headlines:

• PenCom recovers N721.12m from defaulting employers
• Govt orders MTN, Flutterwave to block access to Sokoloan, other lending apps
• Emirates suspends flights to Nigeria over trapped revenue
• eNaira has recorded 840,000 downloads, N4bn transactions – Emefiele
• Nigeria spends N18.3bn daily on fuel subsidy – Finance minister

Summary:

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) said it recovered N721.12 million from employers who failed to remit pension contributions for their employees to respective pension fund administrators (PFAs).

According to the Commission, the amount comprises N721.12 million principal contribution and N211,46 million penalty.

Pencom added that the sum was recovered from 20 defaulting employers during the second quarter of 2022.

PenCom further stated in its 2022 second Quarter report that seven defaulting employers have been recommended for appropriate legal action after all administrative steps taken to make them comply failed.

Internet service providers, payment system operators and telecommunications companies have been directed not to provide their services to Sokoloan, and other loan apps under investigation.

In a statement released on Thursday, the Federal Competition and Consumers Protection Commission (FCCPC) mentioned Flutterwave, Opay, Paystack and Monify as some of the payment operators ordered to cease operation with the loan apps.

According to FCCPC Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Babatunde Irukera, MTN, Airtel and other network providers, ISP, as well as PSOs were also directed to not provide service to lending apps operating without regulatory license.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, said on Thursday the Federal Government spends N18.3 billion daily on fuel subsidy.

The minister stated this when she appeared before the House of Representatives Ad hoc Committee probing the fuel subsidy regime in the country.

The committee which is probing the country’s fuel subsidy regime from 2013 to this year on August 9 invited Ahmed and other agencies including the Nigeria Police Force, the Department of State Services (DSS), Office of the Accountant-General of the Federation and Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) for questioning on the matter.

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele, said on Thursday the digital currency, eNaira, has recorded N4 billion transactions since its launch last year.

Emefiele disclosed this at the grand finale of the “eNaira Hackathon” held in Abuja.

The hackathon is a CBN’s collaborative initiative with the African Fintec Foundry (AFF).

Read also: BUSINESS ROUNDUP: Naira falls heavily against dollar; South African Airways rejects Naira for payment; and other stories

It is aimed at bringing together teams of talented entrepreneurs, developers, designers, solution developers, problem-solvers and coding experts from Africa to develop innovative solutions for improved adoption of the eNaira.

To reduce its losses from Nigeria, Emirates Airlines on Thursday announced that it was suspending all its flights in and out of the country.

The suspension by the flag carrier of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) which begins September 1, 2022, was made known by the company in a statement.

The planned flights suspension in Nigeria is over the company’s inability to access its $85 million revenue locked away by the Nigerian government.

The airline is one of many foreign companies in the aviation sector that are unable to obtain or repatriate their foreign exchange of about $600 million due to the low forex reserve of the country – making it difficult for airlines to fund their operations.

On NSE ROUND UP: Investment into Nigerian stock market falls, as investors sell off shares in Japaul Gold, PZ

Over 823.005 million shares were traded in 17,482 deals worth N12.228 billion this week, against the 1.511 billion shares that exchanged hands last week in 20,074 deals, valued at N13.547 billion.

Top NGX performing sector

The best performing sector for the week is Financial Services Industry, by measure of volume, as investors traded 561.683 million shares valued at N5.576 billion traded in 8,388 deals.

ICT Industry was next, with investors exchanging 91.819 million shares worth N1.478 billion in 1,532 deals, while Consumer Goods Industry reported over 42.546 million shares worth N3.396 billion were traded in 2,639 deals.

Top three equities

By measure of volume, FBN Holdings Plc, E-Tranzact International Plc and United Bank for Africa Plc are the top three equities, contributing 39.30% and 20.61% to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively.

On the floor exchange of the FBN Holdings, E-Tranzact and UBA, the three companies recorded over 323.474 million shares worth N2.520 billion in 1,457 deals this week.

On the tech scene, Omnibiz, B.TECH, Koolboks, UNDP, iProcure, Remitly Global, Pastel, Homefarm were some of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

Omnibiz, a Lagos-based B2B e-commerce and retail platform, on Friday closed a $15 million pre-Series A round in debt and equity funding.

Also, a Nigerian bookkeeping and digital platform for merchants, Pastel, during the week, secured a seed raise of $5.5M led by pan-African venture capital firm TLcom Capital.

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