The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has warned steel manufacturers to calibrate their equipment used for the production of steel rods and reinforcement bars or be forced out of business. The Director General, SON, Mallam Farouk Salim, said it is not business as usual, as the agency will ensure that all equipment used in measuring various parameters are calibrated in the country. The SON boss stated this at a stakeholders’ forum with Steel Manufacturers Association of Nigeria recently. He stated that SON has acquired the latest measuring instruments to ensure compliance with standards, pointing out that the standards body is…
Author: Temitope N.
Uber on Wednesday reported a profit in the second quarter on one-time gains and said its pandemic-stalled ride-hailing business was showing signs of recovering. The San Francisco-based company reported a profit of $1.1 billion. Revenue rose to $3.9 billion in the recently ended quarter, more than double what it took in during the same period last year. The net income for the quarter included gains of $1.4 billion from the revaluation of its investment in Chinese ride-share firm Didi and another $272 million from its stake in the autonomous technology firm Aurora, according to Uber. Uber made strong progress in…
The National Association of Government Approved Freight Forwarders (NAGAFF) has tasked freight forwarders on the need for a genuine declaration of goods imported. Coordinator, NAGAFF, 100 per cent compliance team, Ibrahim Tanko, who appealed in a statement, said freight forwarders making genuine declarations would help government to realise its revenue target. The NAGAFF 100 per cent compliance team was established to ensure compliance with government regulations in the port. Tanko said it would not be business as usual for terminal operators, shipping companies and freight forwarders who fail to abide by government directives on ease of doing business policy. “We…
The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has promised to enthrone international standards and best practice in the handling of ships and cargo in all seaports in the country. The acting Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Mohammed Bello Koko made the remark while addressing members of the Senate Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation led by Senator Theodore Orji, during an oversight visit to NPA. According to him, the authority has created the enabling environment for a well-structured inter-modal system for seamless connectivity of the water ways, rail and road transportation, to foster improved service delivery as well as increase…
The Port General Manager of Kaduna Inland Dry Port (KIDP), Rotimi Raimi-Hassan, has disclosed that rail access to the port, which has stopped working for some time, has increased the cost of doing business in the state. He said it was not only affecting the dry port, but also a huge cost to importers and exporters as they spent more on cargo haulage. Raimi-Hassan said the cost of moving cargo from Lagos to Kaduna was about N1 million or more, depending on market demand. He stressed that rail would reduce the cost by half. “You can now imagine less than…
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is marking a decade of action on cutting greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. The first set of international mandatory measures to improve ships’ energy efficiency was adopted on 15 July 2011 as part of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL). To support the implementation of the measures and encourage innovation, IMO has been implementing a comprehensive capacity building and technical assistance programme, including a range of global projects. These include the GEF-UNP-IMO GloMEEP Project (now concluded), the European Union-funded global network of maritime technology cooperation centres (GMN project), the IMO-Norway…
A Joint Committee of the ECOWAS Parliament has issued some recommendations asking Member States to develop legislation to fight cybercrimes in their jurisdictions as well as implement effectively, the elimination of roaming charges in the region. These were part of recommendations contained in the draft report of the delocalised meeting of the Joint Committee on Political Affairs, Peace, Security and African Peer Review Mechanism/Legal Affairs and Human Rights/Telecommunications and Information Technology (TIT), held at Winneba, Ghana from 27 – 31 July, 2021. According to the Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, Dr. Sidie Mohamed Tunis, the draft report may be considered…
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has unveiled guidelines for licensing and regulation of payments system holding companies (PSHC), stressing that companies must exist as non-operating entities in the ecosystem. The guideline is a follow-up to an earlier template on new license categorisation, which required companies with an interest in switching/processing and mobile money service to set up holding structures. In an accompanying circular issued yesterday and signed by the Director, Payments System Management Department, Musa Jimoh, the CBN insisted that PSHC must maintain a minimum of two subsidiaries with a focus on switching and mobile money services. The guideline…
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has said it is formulating a Maximum Economic Recovery (MER) strategy for Nigeria to attain maximum value from its oil and gas resources. The Director, DPR, Sarki Auwalu, during a keynote address at the 2021 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria yearly International Conference and Exhibition (NAICE) yesterday, in Lagos, said the decision was taken to ensure an in-depth assessment of the status of the industry. Auwalu said the industry initiative was one of the outcomes of the work of the National Oil and Gas Excellence Centre (NOGEC), Lagos inaugurated in January by President…
With profit before deferred tax (PBT) of $62.1million, representing an increase of 142.7 per cent in the first half of 2021 as against H1’20, Seplat Energy Plc, is proposing to pay shareholders an interim dividend per share of 2.5 cents to holders of its shares listed on the Nigerian Exchange and the London Stock Exchange. Highlights of the company’s financial further showed that revenue went up 32 per cent to $308.8 million in H1’21, from $233.5million in H1’20; earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $178.9 million; cash generated from operations ($125.8 million); cash at bank ($298.8 million)…