Daily Watch – Banks accelerate layoffs in Q2, NCAA to register drones online
23rd August 2017
- The revenue accruing to the Federation Account from oil and non-oil sources recorded a decline of ₦183.26 billion from ₦570.58 billion received in the month of June to ₦387.31 billion in July. The figures were revealed in a communiqué issued on Tuesday by FAAC at the end of its meeting. The Permanent Secretary at the finance ministry, Mahmoud Dutse said the decline in revenue was caused by a drastic fall in receipts from Companies Income Tax due to the expiration of the deadline for filing tax returns. He said while oil revenue recorded increases due to the rise in export sales for the federation by $62 million, non-oil revenues stagnated. In July, the federal government received ₦193.04 billion; states ₦130.69 billion; local governments ₦98.01 billion; while ₦31.59 billion was given to the nine oil-producing states based on 13 percent derivation principle. Dutse put the balance in the Excess Crude Account at $2.3 billion.
- Nigeria’s banking sector shed 1,487 workers in Q2 of 2017 from Q1. NBS data released on Tuesday showed that the total number of banks’ staff decreased from 77,096 in Q1 2017 to 75,607 in Q2 2017. The NBS stated that the CBN administratively supplied the data while the NBS verified and validated it. The executive staff population declined by 7.47 percent, falling from 174 in Q1 to 161 in Q2. The data showed that senior staff population in banks fell by 3.21 percent in the period from 20,483 in Q1 to 19,826 in Q2. Similarly, the junior staff population also plunged by 6.68 percent from 36,237 in Q1 to 33,783 in Q2. It appears that the shedding may be deliberate as the banks increased their contract staff by 7.91 percent from 20,237 to 21,837 during the period. A total of 327,366,042 transactions valued at ₦19.78 trillion was recorded in the second quarter of 2017 as data on electronic payment channels in the Nigeria banking sector showed. ATM transactions dominated the volume of transactions recorded; 187,805,431 ATM transactions valued at ₦1.54 trillion were recorded in Q2.
- The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority has commenced the procurement process to build an online portal for the registration of all remote piloting aircraft system (drone) users in Nigeria. The NCAA General Manager (Procurement), Diyajo Yahya Ahmed, who moderated the opening of the bid process, said the capital projects to be procured were safety critical and the response was impressive. “We also opened bidding for the Remotely Piloting Aircraft System (RPAS), or drones, which is a new phenomenon in the Nigerian aviation industry. On the RPAS we advised for technical experts to design the portal for us so we can register all drone users in Nigeria,” Ahmed was quoted as saying by the Daily Trust.
- The SEC and the NSE say legal firms should consider the option of listing their shares on the local bourse. The SEC’s Director-General, Mounir Gwarzo and the NSE’s CEO, Oscar Onyema, said this while discussing a breakout session on ‘creating a secondary market for investors’ at the annual general conference of the Nigerian Bar Association. Gwarzo said law firms should consider mergers into large enterprises that would possess the capacity to be listed on the floor of a securities exchange. He said investing in the Nigerian capital market was a natural fit for legal practitioners. The SEC DG also urged legal practitioners to refrain from instituting unnecessary litigation at the instance of their clients involved in enforcement actions by the commission.
- South Africa-based Shoprite matched estimates with a 12 percent rise in annual profit on Tuesday, as consumers battling recession and job losses turned to its non-frills outlets. Africa’s biggest grocer said diluted headline earnings per share (EPS) totalled 1,007 cents in the year ended June, compared with the average forecast of 1,002 cents from a poll of 11 analysts by Thomson Reuters. South African retailers have struggled to lift earnings as a weak economy and jobs losses squeeze consumer income, but Shoprite has fared better than others with its focus on budget-conscious consumers, including more than 11 million South Africans on welfare grants. Shoprite, which vies in South Africa with Pick n Pay and Wal-Mart’s South African unit Massmart, said sales increased 8.4 percent to 141 billion rand ($10.73 billion). The firm also has outlets elsewhere in Africa, including Angola and Nigeria.