Daily Watch – Airtel to go into mobile money, Court restrains LADOL over Samsung

7th December 2018

  • Airtel Nigeria has announced plans to set up a payment service bank in the country. This announcement is coming a few weeks after MTN Nigeria revealed its intention to get a payment banking licence for the PSB. Segun Ogunsanya, managing director, Airtel Nigeria, said the telecommunication company would apply for the PSB licence through a subsidiary as directed in the CBN’s guidelines, adding that it had a vision of becoming the largest and most secured PSB in Nigeria.
  • The High Court in Lagos has granted an interim order restraining Global Resources Management and Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics from ejecting Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria and its subsidiary, SHI-MCI FZE, from the LADOL free zone in Lagos. The spokesman and COO of SHIN, Frank Ejizu, siad that the court order restrains LADOL from further unlawful interference with Samsung’s use of its fabrication and integration yard within the LADOL Free Zone Area. Last month, LADOL terminated the services agreement it signed with Africoat Nigeria barely two months after terminating the operating licence of SHIN.
  • According to data on payment of the ECOWAS community levy, Nigeria has contributed more funds to ECOWAS than 13 other members put together in the last 12 years. A document presented as part of the Status of the Community report during an Extra-Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Parliament, showed that between 2003 and 2015, Nigeria paid $710,497,352, equivalent to 480,355,205 West Africa Units of Account, the official nominal monetary unit of measure or currency used to represent the real value. In the same period, 13 other countries contributed a cumulative amount of $697,947 million as the highest paying country after Nigeria is Ghana with $327,976 million within the same period. A total of $1,736 billion was contributed within the period by all 15 member states, with Nigeria responsible for 40.9 percent of the money.
  • OPEC is trying to persuade Libya and Nigeria to join cuts if the cartel agrees to reduce production. Libya and Nigeria, exempted from the deal forged in November 2016 because of violence that had severely disrupted their respective production, have recovered their output and have been raising production in recent months. The two countries are seen reluctant to cut because of a still fragile security situation, but this time around, the other OPEC members may not listen to any excuses. As of two weeks ago, Libya was pumping close to 1.3 million bpd, and NOC’s chairman Mustafa Sanalla said that he hoped Libya would be exempted, again, from any new OPEC-wide production cuts. Nigeria is also boosting oil production, which is set to further rise with the imminent start-up of the Total-operated Egina oil field. However, the NNPC warned last month that sabotage attacks on oil pipelines were on the rise, while analysts also warn that violence may return in Nigeria’s oil industry ahead of the general elections in February.