The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has reviewed the guidelines for the N220billion Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Fund to allow new businesses (start-ups) borrow from the fund. Previously, only existing businesses can borrow from the fund through their banks. The new guidelines, however, removed this limitation stating, “Participating Financial Institutions (PFIs) are required to fund start-up projects under the MSMEDF. To encourage Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), some incentives shall apply. “PFIs are expected to accept charge on fixed and floating assets of the financed projects as collateral for start-ups. Collateral requirement from start-ups…
Author: Wale Adebayo
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has blamed the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan for the fuel scarcity currently being experienced in Nigeria. “One of the reasons for the fuel scarcity was the inability of the last government to make adequate provision for fuel subsidy,” Lai Mohammed, told State House Correspondents, yesterday after the rescheduled emergency Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari. “We do face some other logistic problems but majorly, we are paying for the sins of the last administration. “What I will be telling Nigerians is that what we met…
Dr Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has expressed regret at the current fuel scarcity in the country. In a series of tweets marking his arrival on microblogging site Twitter, the minister said actions are already been taken to assuage the suffering of the people. “The recent challenge in easy access to PMS is deeply regretted but I assure that heightened actions are underway to solve this,” he tweeted. “I have directed the duo of PPMC and PPPRA to embark on renewed special supply intervention…
Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture, has urged Nigerians to disregard the propaganda of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) against the people of Nigeria. He gave the advice in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr Segun Adeyemi, where he described the purported figures being bandied by ISIL as the number of attacks and people killed by the Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria in the last two months. “The imaginary figures were part of ISIL strategy to shore up the morale of its dispersed and defeated fellow terrorists in…
President Muhammadu Buhari has sacked the Chairman of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Bassey Dan Abia and replaced him with Ibim Seminitari Ibim Seminitari, who served as Commissioner of Information in the administration of Rotimi Amaechi, former governor of Rivers state has been appointed the acting head of the commission. Dan Abia, who hails from Akwa Ibom State, was appointed by former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013. Seminitari’s appointment has been described in some quarters as Buhari’s way of appreciating Amaechi for his efforts during his electioneering campaign. The former commissioner was very active during Amaechi’s time as Rivers governor. [NDDC]
President Muhammadu Buhari, on Monday said that his administration was taking urgent steps to restore order, due process and probity to the procurement processes of the nation’s Armed Forces. The President stated this when the British Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Michael Fallon, visited him at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. He lamented that the procurement of equipment for Nigeria’s Armed Forces, which followed due process in the past, had become open to corruption under the last administration. “They just put foreign exchange in a briefcase and travelled to procure equipment for the military. “That is why we have found…
President Muhammadu Buhari will today, December 22, present the 2016 Appropriation Bill to the joint session of the National Assembly comprising the Senate and the House of Representatives. Ahead of today’s budget presentation, the Senate had last week approved the Medium Term and Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) submitted by the Federal Government, approving Crude Oil Benchmark price of $38 per barrel for 2016 despite the global dwindling crude oil price to $36 per barrel as at Monday. In the documents, the Senate also approved that the Federal Government should in 2016 establish a database and possibly…
A moving train in Kwara State’s capital Ilorin has crushed three people riding in a car to death on Sunday, December 20. The victims, two young men and a lady, were inside a Toyota Camry car with all four windows wound up when they were crushed by the moving train said to be coming from the north to Offa. The car was said to have been unknowingly parked on the railway line at Kulende area of Ilorin. “As the train was fast approaching, several shouts and alerts by the passers by to the three occupants inside the Toyota Camry car to drive…
Following the Federal Government’s directive to Vice-Chancellors of universities to remove the names of staff of their secondary schools from their pay-roll, Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU) has directed its members to embark on indefinite strike from December 24. The National Executive Council of SSANU took the decision after its meeting in Abuja. Addressing journalists on the outcome of its meeting, SSANU National President, Comrade Samson Ugwoke, said the action of the government to retrench over 2,000 staff was contrary to the Federal Government and SSANU agreement of 2009. Ugwoke said that SSANU had written the Minister of…
The acting national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, on Saturday condemned the recent comments attributed to the national chairman of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, on plans to “take over” PDP states in the South South. He described the comment as “unfortunate and disappointing”. The acting PDP chairman said Mr. Oyegun’s “boast” while reacting to the ruling of the Court of Appeal judgment on Rivers State governorship petition, in which he said; “I am more confident of winning Akwa-Ibom than any other state in the South-South…we are going to win; that is…