Finance

What to Know About the African Continental Free Trade Area

Published

3 weeks ago

December 31, 2020

Onyebuchi Aniekeyi

About AfCFTA BY HASSANAH AHMED

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a free trade area, outlined in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations (except Eritrea). AfCFTA is the largest in the world in terms of participating countries since the formation of the World Trade Organization.
It would create the world’s largest single market of about 1.2billion consumers and workers, thereby increasing opportunities for African manufacturers and businesses, especially those constrained by the size of their domestic markets.
It aims to reduce and eventually eliminate customs duties and non-tariff barriers on goods and allow free provision of services.
AfCFTA And Trade Benefits To Nigeria:
• Increased Job Opportunities
Nigeria which have an abundant supply of professionals in various services industries such as construction, engineering, technology, and financial services would see increased movement of such professionals to countries with a demand for their services.
• Size of the Nigerian Market:
Nigeria has the largest economy and population in Africa with more than $500 billion in GDP and a population of 200 million. This market size allows manufacturers to increase capacity and expand into other African countries. This enables investors benefit not only from the Nigerian market but from other countries on the continent as well.
• Dispute Settlement Mechanism:
It will provide a Dispute Settlement Mechanism for stopping the hostile and treatment directed against Nigerian business persons in other African countries.
Implementing AfCFTA would:
• Lift 30 million Africans out of extreme poverty and boost the incomes of nearly 68 million others who live on less than $5.50 a day.
• Boost Africa’s income by $450 billion by 2035 (a gain of 7 percent) while adding $76 billion to the income of the rest of the world. It would also Increase Africa’s exports by $560 billion, mostly in manufacturing.
• Spur larger wage gains for women (10.5 percent) than for men (9.9 percent). Boost wages for both skilled and unskilled workers.
• The African Continental Free Trade Area is expected to commence in January 2021.
• Visit their website for more details: https://www.africancfta.org/

Finance

Finance Act 2020: Unclaimed Dividends & Dormant Bank Accounts

Published

7 days ago

January 11, 2021

Onyebuchi Aniekeyi

Finance Act 2020: Unclaimed Dividends & Dormant Bank Accounts

According to the Finance Act 2020 recently signed into law by President Buhari, the unclaimed dividends and deposits in dormant bank accounts will be available as special credit to the Nigerian government through the Unclaimed Funds Trust Fund
The trust fund will be a sub-fund of the Crisis Intervention Fund.
The trust fund will be managed by the Debt Management Office (DMO).
The DMO’s responsibility also includes payment of claims for such dividend and the accompanying compensation for accrued interest.

The Act states that the monies transferred to the trust fund will be a “special debt owed by the Federal Government to shareholders and dormant bank account holders”.

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It also said that the original owners of the money can claim it at any time.
Major Reason for FG’s decision:
To mitigate Nigeria’s fiscal frailties (weakness) and the economic crunch caused by the emergence of Covid-19.
In 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued a rule which stated that:
“Companies and Registrars in custody of dividends which remain unclaimed by shareholders 12 years after the date of declaration or subsequently attain the 12 years threshold shall upon the coming into effect of this Rule transfer such monies into the Nigerian Capital Market Development Fund (NCMDF)”.

As at the end of 2019 from 2002, the total value of unclaimed dividends stood at 158.44bn.
What this means that,
• Importantly, with these funds, it is expected that the government would have more financial capacity to handle cost-intensive projects and infrastructural developments that would directly impact the well beings of Nigerians if the funds are well utilized.
• The era of unclaimed dividends and dormant bank account balances is over.

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Finance

Elon Musk Becomes Richest Person in the World

Published

2 weeks ago

January 7, 2021

Onyebuchi Aniekeyi

Elon Musk just became the richest person in the world, with a net worth of more than $185 billion.

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On Thursday, Tesla’s share price increased and it pushed Musk past former richest person, Jeff Bezos.
Musk started 2020 worth about $27 billion.

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Customs Corner

CBN Supports Customs with 4 Scanners to Boost Revenue Generation

Published

2 weeks ago

January 7, 2021

Onyebuchi Aniekeyi

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has made commitment to support Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to promote technology driven service to boost the nation’s economy

The NCS Public Relations Officer, Mr Joseph Attah made this known in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday.

Attah said the CBN also pledged to establish the control centre for monitoring all scanning sites in its bid to boost national economy, especially agricultural sector.

He disclosed that already Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning had purchased three new scanners to enhance the proposed E-customs operations.

He said this means that within the next six months, NCS would have about seven functional scanners to be mounted at strategic entry points even before the full deployment of e-Customs components which would guarantee the deployment of 135 modern scanners.

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Attah however expressed appreciation of the service and commended the leadership of CBN for this strategic intervention in the interest of the nation.

Meanwhile, the spokesperson added that in the service’s efforts to prevent the entry of items that could compromise the security of the citizens, economy and the well being of people, it had seized 4,304 assorted items with a duty paid value of N28.2 billion.

He said the seizures included arms, ammunitions, illicit drugs, used clothing, vegetable oil, frozen poultry and foreign rice among others.

He assured Nigerians on the total commitment of the customs to the course of protecting national security and economy.

“We call on Nigerians, especially the business community to support the NCS as our borders open to African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) in order to benefit from the trade agreement and other cross border activities” he stated.

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