6 BUSINESS DAY NEWS FEC directs Education Ministry to enforce ban on school fees in universities TONY AILEMEN, ABUJA
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ederal Executive Council (FEC) has directed all heads of Federal Universities to enforce ban on collection of school fees, saying that the law banning payment of fees was still in force. Minister of state for education, Anthony Anwuka, disclosed this Wednesday while briefing State House correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo This is as FEC also approved the issuance of provisional licence for the establishment of Skyline University in Kano State. Anwuka disclosed that the application for the establishment of the university had been on since last year, adding, “The National Universities Commission (NUC), after going through the rigorous verification of the claims as to the application, sent a recommendation to the Ministry of Education, which in turn presented in the request to FEC and it approved. “They wanted the NUC through the ministry to provide a status report to FEC on all the nation’s universities in terms of their performance, be they private, state or federal. We stressed on quality of staff on the various universities.” According to Anwuka, “ FEC also discussed the issue of school fees in the various universities and noted that as of law, no federal university should charge tuition fees. And, we understand some universities now charge fees per course unit and we are going to make sure that we investigate that properly and stop it.’
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Ebola outbreak to take $1m from WHO’s emergency fund … as 17 deaths confirmed in DRC ANTHONIA OBOKOH
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he new Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is to take $1 million from the World Health Organisation (WHO) emergency fund in order to curtail and prevent it from spreading to other countries. Two confirmed cases of the virus and 17 deaths have been reported in the northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the health ministry said on Tuesday. The last Ebola outbreak in the DRC was in 2017, and killed four people. The WHO says it has released an emergency fund of $1 million from its contingency fund to support the response activities for the next three months, and has deployed more than 50
experts to work with the goal of stopping the spread to surrounding provinces and countries. The outbreak declaration was made after laboratory results confirmed two cases of Ebola out of a sample of five suspected patients, the WHO says. “Our top priority is to get to Bikoro to work alongside the government to reduce the loss of life and suffering related to this new Ebola virus disease outbreak,” Peter Salama, WHO deputy director-general, Emergency Preparedness and Response, said. “Working with partners and responding early and in a co-ordinated way will be vital to containing this deadly disease,” he said. The latest outbreak is the ninth time an Ebola outbreak has been recorded in the DRC, since the discovery
of the virus in the country in 1976. More than 11,000 dead have been recorded across six countries in West Africa including Nigeria, Liberia and Sierra Leone. “We know that addressing this outbreak will require a comprehensive and coordinated response,” Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said. “We will gather more samples, conduct contact tracing, engage the communities with messages on prevention and control, and put in place methods for improving data collection and sharing,” Moeti said. The Ebola virus causes an acute, serious illness that is often fatal if untreated; the virus is transmitted to people from wild animals and spreads in the human population through human-tohuman transmission.
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… says agency to work with CITN to get more people into tax net HARRISON EDEH, Abuja
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ederal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has decried tax filling by ‘businessmen’ taxconsultants,sayinghenceforth non-professionals should not be allowed to embark on professional duties such as filling in of tax returns, among others. Babatunde Fowler, executive chairman, FIRS, while speaking at the ongoing Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) annual conference, as he delivered a paper titled: “Institutionalising a Tax Paying Culture in a Developing Economy,” said effective January 2019, the FIRS will not accept any tax returns prepared by non-member of CITN. This, he said, would ensure FIRS deepen its operations with the professional body and reach its target of improving tax-toGDP ratio that would ensure government got more fund for its developmental projects. “We must be engaging professionals and members of CITN to improve our revenue targets and give a professional outlook to what we have been doing to improve taxation in Nigeria. We are currently leveraging on technology to ensure proper tracking and expanding of our tax returns,” Fowler said. Fowler also informed that the agency had been leveraging technology to facilitate easy filling of returns in its operations, saying,
HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE
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Over 4m people to benefit from ExxonMobil N13bn investment in community projects ver 4 million citizens of Akwa ibom State will be beneficiaries of N13 billion investment geared towards uplifting the lives of the people through human capital development, education, skill acquisitions and three health centres within the next 18 month. Three majors project that will help to achieve these objectives will include a technical skills centre in Ikot Akata, a trauma centre at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, and an engineering complex at the University of Uyo. E x xonMobil affiliate, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, operator of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation/Mobil Producing Nigeria Joint Venture, is to invest this amount in one of the largest community
FIRS decries non-professional handling tax filing “On e-services, we have perfected the ability to upload returns and assessment notices together with assessment calculations to the tune of 97 percent completed nationwide.” This,accordingtoFowler,consisted of, “e-registration, e-filling, e-taxation, e-stamp duty, e-WHT credit notes, e-reciepts, e-TCC,” Hesaidfurtherinhispresentation that, “The extent to which an economy is able to grow sustainably depends largely on its ability to generate tax revenue to finance it’s expenditure and the efficiency of its tax system.” It would be noted that ACCA global suggests that the IMF recommended minimum threshold of Tax-to-GDP ratio of 15 percent. As confirmed by the Ministry of Finance, Nigeria falls far below this threshold and is low compared with other countries. As a result of this development, he said the Federal Government was doing everything possible to improve its projects and development through improved taxation. “A look at the World’s most development economies and societies dhows that there is clearly a relationship between tax and development as these are countries with established tax system where public infrastructure, institutions and systems can be sustainably developed and maintained from tax revenue,” he said.
Naira weakens to N361.14k after 5 months
L-R: Abiola Ajimobi, governor, Oyo State, with Tomiwa Idowu, director, Gilead Capital, during an agricultural trade mission to the UK recently.
OLUSOLA BELLO
Thursday 10 May 2018
investments by any company in Nigeria. “These investments will provide long-term health, education and economic benefits to many in our communities,” Paul McGrath, chairman and managing director of Mobil Producing Nigeria, said, saying, “We continue to work closely with the government of the AkwaI bom State as part of our commitment to communities where we operate and helping to improve quality of life.” The technical skills centre will consist of a threeblock training complex for critical skills required in oil and gas careers, such as pipeline fabrication, welding, electrical works, chemical lab works, civil works and engineering design. The centre is expected to train more than one hundred students annually.
Again, Reps ask FG to halt planned sale of NLNG KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja
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ouse of Representatives on Wednesday urged President Muhammadu Buhari to halt the proposed sale of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG). The resolution was passed sequel to the adoption of a motion sponsored by Brown Randolph, who expressed concern that the planned sale of the asset for an ambitious fiscal stimulus plan involving the generation and injection of massive foreign capital is not a step in the right direction. Randolph noted that the sale of NLNG would affect Nigerian workers and the country at large. “The House notes of a proposal by the Federal Government to sell the multi-billion dollar Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) to raise funds to reflate the Nigerian economy. “The House further notes
that the proposal was as a result of the recommendation of a Ministerial Retreat in 2016 for an ambitious fiscal stimulus plan involving the generation and injection of massive foreign capital, estimated at between $10 and $15 billion (about N4.72trn) into the economy to help the recession recovery process. “The House is aware that the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma, stated that one of the ways to fund the plan would be through the sale of some national assets and the proceeds reinvested in the economy to raise the needed capital for infrastructural development. “The House is also aware that the NLNG is one of the most successful ventures that Nigeria has embarked upon when it’s started from train one through to the sixth train and now the seventh train in the offing,” the River State lawmaker noted.
oreign exchange market on Wednesday witnessed 0.14 percent depreciation in naira/dollar exchange to N361.14k, after five months of trading around N360 per dollar. Naira was quoted at N361.14k to the dollar on Wednesday, showing exactly the same rate traded on January 8, 2018, at the investors and exporters forex window, data from the FMDQ and compiled by BusinessDay revealed. At the Nigerian Autonomous Foreign Exchange Fixing (NAFEX), naira weakened marginally by 0.03 percent to close at N360.87k on Wednesday from N360.77k on Tuesday. The local currency also lost N1 at the Bureau De Change (BDC) segment as it closed at N363 per dollar on Wednesday as against N362/$ traded the previous day, data from Naijabdc showed. Naira traded at the same level of N305.75k at the Central Bank’s official window. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) continues its interventions, injected $210 million on Tuesday to enhance liquidity in the forex market. The bank again offered
the sum of $100 million to authorised dealers in the wholesale segment of the market. The Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) segment received the sum of $55 million while the sum of $55 million was apportioned to invisibles such as tuition fees, medical payments and Basic Travel Allowance (BTA). The CBN’s first half 2017 economic report revealed that Aggregate foreign exchange inflow into the economy in the first half of 2017 was $34.82 billion, indicating an increase of 3.7 and 20 percent above the levels in the second and first halves of 2016, respectively. O f t h e t o t a l , i n f l ow through autonomous sources at $18.95 billion accounted for 54.4 percent, while inflow through the CBN was $15.87 billion and accounted for 45.6 percent. Aggregate foreign exchange outflow from the economy rose by 1.5 and 16.7 percent to $13.88 billion above the levels in the second and first halves of 2016, respectively. Consequently, the net foreign exchange flow to the economy was $20.94 billion, as against $19.90 billion and $17.12 billion, in the second and first halves of 2016, respectively.