Daily Watch – CBN argues case against MTN, Floods may cause rice shortage

5th October 2018

  • The Federal Inland Revenue Services says it has recovered about ₦3.63 billion by curbing Illicit Financial Flows between January 2017 and August 2018. Tunde Fowler, the FIRS chairman, told the Inter-Ministerial African Union High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows that the FIRS had made positive strides in curbing IFFs such as illegal tax evasion and abusive transfer mispricing by companies operating in the country. “Total tax debt recovered from January 2017 to 31st August 2018 is ₦3.63 billion. From November 2016 to December 2017, we also recovered ₦1.9 billion,” he said. Fowler also said the FIRS had uncovered 114 companies that claimed that they were not aware of lands worth billions of Naira allocated to them in Abuja.
  • The CBN has told a court that MTN should not be given an injunction that would stop the wireless carrier having to transfer $8.1 billion back to the country. The regulator is demanding that company pay 15 per cent annualised interest on the sum until the courts make a judgement, and 10 per cent from then until the whole amount is paid, according to documents filed with the Federal High Court in Lagos. The transfers “may have been premeditated and contrived as a scam to make and maximise profits, defraud the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to enjoy unlimited foreign-exchange income perpetually from a single investment without complying with the foreign-exchange laws and regulations of Nigeria,” CBN said in the documents. The court filings suggest the regulator is not prepared to back down over its allegations, despite Governor Godwin Emefiele saying last week that the dispute would be resolved soon and that “everyone will be happy.”
  • The continued closure of the National Assembly, and subsequent delay in approving non-oil export incentives under the revised Export Expansion Grant scheme has increased the backlog of unpaid incentives to at least ₦1.2 trillion. Speaking with The Guardian, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council’s CEO, Segun Awolowo, appealed to the non-oil exporters for patience, noting that government has done the necessary things for the implementation and payment of outstanding debts. According to him, there were expectations earlier in the year that some of the backlogs would be cleared before the end of third quarter, the delayed implementation of the 2018 budget, under which provisions were made for some debt payments, may further prolong the issuance of promissory notes to the beneficiaries.
  • The minister for agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, has said that the country may experience a rice shortage if appropriate measures are not taken to replant after the recent floods. Speaking at the inauguration of National Agricultural Seed Council Molecular Facility and the 2018 seed fair and Farmer’s field day in Abuja, Ogbeh said that the flood had affected some major rice producing states. “We have to find out a way to assist farmers, who were affected by the flood; places like Jigawa, Kebbi, Anambra and Kogi were majorly affected. Farmers lost everything they planted,” Ogbeh said. “We are encouraging farmers to replant as soon as the rain ceases so that the residual moisture on the soil plus irrigation can give us another crop by the end of December or early January. Otherwise, we will be in serious trouble for rice, millet, sorghum and maize next year.”