Daily Watch – Electricity generation drops further, Used car dealers feel the pain

1st March 2016

  • Inadequate supply of gas to the power station and explosions at transmission lines in the Lagos area and Jebba have resulted in a drop in electricity generation to 2,665MW. With this development, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has directed the 11 distribution companies (Discos) nationwide “not to pick loads to avoid a system collapse”. Data obtained from a source at TCN on the “Daily Load Analysis and Day Ahead Consumption” for yesterday showed that between 1 am and 6 am on Saturday, generation fell to 2,500MW. However, between 6 am and 11.59 pm, the hourly dispatch to the Discos rose to 2,721.20MW, thus averaging 2,665.90MW for the whole day.
  • The NCC has fined MTN Nigeria and Globacom Ltd a total of N34 million for breach of the Mobile Number Portability business rules and regulations. The regulatory body made this known in its “2015 Q4 Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Reports’’ obtained by the News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Lagos. In the report, NCC noted that of the N34 million sanction for number porting breach, Globacom was fined N22 million, while MTN was fined N12 million.
  • The market in second-hand vehicles is feeling the strain as a result of low patronage occasioned by the continuing fall in the value of the naira against the US dollar. As a result, car dealers at the market are turning to other things to eke out a living. The President, Berger Car Dealers Association, Mr. Metche Nnadiekwe, lamented that dealers at the auto mart were being forced to sell their vehicles at a loss in order to avoid tying down capital. He said the car dealers were diverting their capital to other businesses other than vehicle importation and sales.
  • Bank returns on the utilisation of foreign exchange bought by commercial banks from the CBN last week have shown that Zenith Bank with $23,006,130.65 reported the highest amount of forex purchased for its customers. The CBN had stated that the publications were meant to improve transparency in the allocation of forex to the banks, adding that it was agreed that banks would be publishing their returns weekly. Zenith Bank displaced First Bank with an allocation of $19,592,883.79. First Bank the week before posted the highest returns on utilisation of forex bought from the CBN.