BUSINESS ROUNDUP: NNPC fails to sell enough crude oil; Kenyan court blocks Flutterwave’s accounts holding $3.3m; and 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:

· Nigeria generates N600.1bn from VAT in Q2

· DMO raises concern over Nigerian govt’s debt service-to-revenue ration

· Kenyan court blocks Flutterwave’s accounts holding $3.3m

· NNPC fails to sell enough crude oil to pay for fuel subsidy

Summary:

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has failed to sell enough crude oil to offset its petrol subsidy debt to oil marketers in Nigeria.

Data obtained from NNPC’s presentation to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) for July showed that NNPC incurred a petrol subsidy payment of N448.7 billion in July.

The subsidy payment in July is a record high since the re-emergence of subsidy payment early last year.

The Federal Government generated N600.15 billion as Value Added Tax (VAT) in the second quarter of this year.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) disclosed this in its VAT Q2 2022 Report released on Saturday in Abuja.

The figure, according to the bureau, was 1.96 percent higher than the N588.59 billion recorded in Q1 2022.

The Debt Management Office (DMO) has said it is concerned about the Federal Government’s debt service-to-revenue ratio.

The federal government’s projected deficit for the 2023 budget stands at N11.30 trillion, 54 percent higher than the previous budget’s estimated deficit.

Patience Oniha, director general of DMO, adduced the reasons for the high debt profile when she appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Finance for interaction on Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) 2023-2025 on Thursday.

The Kenyan High Court on Tuesday ordered the seizure of $3.3 million belonging to Nigerian financial technology company, Flutterwave.

Read also: BUSINESS ROUNDUP: China to forgive loans to 17 African countries; Nigeria needs $410bn for energy transition; other stories

Justice Grace Nzioka gave the order while ruling on an application filed by Kenya’s Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) against the Nigerian fintech company.

ARA had approached the court to prevent Flutterwave from transferring or withdrawing the funds in the accounts until the conclusion of an investigation into the company’s operation.

On NSE ROUND UP: Investors trade N12.9bn stocks as Unilever leads losers

Investors traded 1.195 billion shares worth N12.924 billion in 19,305 deals as investment grew this week.

This week’s total investment surpassed the 914.443 million shares valued at N15.163 billion traded by investors in 18,021 deals last week.

Top NGX performing sector

The Financial Services Industry was the best performing stock by measure of volume after shareholders traded 1.017 billion shares valued at N5.685 billion in 10,107 deals.

The ICT Industry followed with 37.063 million shares worth N4.575 billion traded by investors in 1,996 deals.

On the tech scene, Shezlong, Octiv, C. Moore Media, RiseBack, Eyowo, Duplo, Grey, Pezesha, Sony, Anchor weresome of the names that made the headlines in the tech ecosystem this week.

A Nigerian payment solution startup, Eyowo, during the week, launched its payment offering, Better Card, after fulfilling certification requirements by Mastercard.

Also, a Nigerian B2B payment platform, Duplo, secured $4.3 million in seed funding to launch new products and expand into new business verticals in Nigeria.

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