Stock Watch

Federal government sets up new phone call tax

The federal government has introduced a new tax on phone calls to fund the provision of healthcare to vulnerable Nigerians who cannot afford the cost of medical care.

President Muhammadu Buhari said the National Health Insurance Authority Bill 2022 will ensure coverage of 83 million poor Nigerians who cannot afford to pay premiums.

About eight out of 10 Nigerians do not have health insurance cover, according to a survey by NOI Polls, and most Nigerians pay cash when they have to visit a hospital for treatment.

The new law creates a vulnerable group fund that will be financed through a new telecommunications tax charged on phone calls at not less than one kobo per second of GSM calls.

It will also be funded through a basic health care provision fund, health insurance levy, special intervention fund, as well as any investment proceeds, donations and gifts to the authority.

With an average call rate of 11 Kobo per second, the new law implies at least nine per cent charge on every second of phone calls in the country.

The vulnerable group comprises children under five, pregnant women, aged, physically and mentally challenged persons, and indigent people as may be defined from time to time.

Section 26 of the bill states that the government will raise the funds for groups through various measures but the sources can be reviewed by the Council.

The new act requires every resident in Nigeria to obtain health insurance.

The implementation of the law will likely see an increase in call tariffs as phone companies are likely to transfer to cost on users.

Telecoms operators had in April proposed a 40 per cent increase in call and SMS tariffs, citing rising cost of operations and inflation as major drivers for the hike.

The group said the fee for calls would increase from N6.4 to N8.95 while the price cap for SMS will increase from N4 to N5.61.

The Nigerian Communications Commission said it did not approve any hike in call fees and would only take a decision after reviewing the prevailing cost of operations in the industry.

FG warns architects’ council committee against performing statutory functions

By Abubakar Yunusa, Abuja

The federal ministry of works and housing has cautioned the management committee in charge of the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON) to desist from carrying out statutory functions reserved for a full composition of the council.

The warning was contained in a statement issued by Bashir Alkali, permanent secretary in the ministry of works and housing.

The inauguration of a new council for ARCON scheduled for December 2021 was postponed over a court case involving the council and the Nigeria Institute of Architects, over the membership composition and functions of the association of architects in the country.

Amid the ongoing case, ARCON has scheduled a colloquium expected to hold from May 23 to May 26, 2022.

Speaking on the development, the ministry said such activities cannot be carried out by the management committee, but by a quorum of the statutory council.

“In spite of presidential approval for the inauguration of a new council, it has not been possible to inaugurate the council as a result of litigation instituted by members of the Architecture Profession seeking to stop the inauguration,” the statement reads.

“In the face of this selfinduced stalemate, the Management Committee is purporting to exercise powers which only a full committee is permitted by law to exercise.

“Such conducts are clearly not only in violation of their enabling statute but could also attract criminal sanctions. These activities include: a plan to organise the 2022 Colloquium for architects in Nigeria from Monday 23rd –Thursday 26th May, 2022 and a plan to undertake Architects Professional Competency Evaluation (APCE) Exercise. These are core functions of the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria and not that of the Management Committee.”

Alkali said while the composition of ARCON is spelt out in the Architects Registration Council of Nigeria Act, Cap A19 L.F.N 2004 “which provides for the constitution of a 49-member Council of ARCON”, such functions as proposed by the management committee can only be carried out by a “quorum” of the council, which involves 10 members with “at least one of the persons appointed by the Institute”, as well as five of the representatives from states.

“A compound reading of the provisions of Section 4 (on the Quorum of the Council), Clause 1(5) of the First Schedule to the Act and Section 27 of the Interpretation Act clearly indicates that, the President, Vice-President and Treasurer of ARCON do not constitute a quorum for the purpose of carrying out the core functions of the Council,” the statement reads.

“It therefore, follows that the President, Vice-President or Treasurer who now constitute Management Committee can only oversee the routine management of the Council. Moreover, Section 7(3) of the First schedule to the Act further provides that: A decision of the Committee shall be of no effect until it is confirmed by the Council.”

The ministry also cited the plan by the council committee to organise an evaluation exercise, adding that such activity falls under the “core statutory functions of the Council when properly constituted and therefore ultra vires the functions of a Management Committee to act upon”.

As such, the ministry directed the committee to “refrain forthwith from all activities which constitute statutory functions of the Council as enumerated in Section 2 (1) (a- c) of the Act until a new properly constituted Council is in place; only oversee the routine administrative management of the Council until a new properly constituted Council is in place; retract recent statement in the advert by the Committee on the Architects Professional Competency Evaluation (APCE)”.

The ARCON management committee has also been directed to “intensify efforts to reconcile the warring factions to embrace dialogue in resolving issues leading to the stagnation of the profession, rather than engage in needless litigation that created the current impasse; and ensure that the issues that led to the litigation that created the current impasse are speedily and amicably resolved in the best interest of the architecture profession and the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

Cyber-attack: Enable automatic updates on anti-virus products to prevent vulnerabilities, says NCC

By Abubakar Yunusa Abuja

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) says enabling automatic update features for AVAST and AVG anti-virus applications could prevent cyber vulnerabilities.

The commission’s computer security incident response team (CSIRT) said this on Sunday in a statement signed by Ikechukwu Adinde, NCC’s director of public affairs.

NCC said the vulnerabilities in AVAST and AVG anti-virus apps can lead to millions of devices being attacked.

The commission, however, advised consumers to always enable automatic update features to stay safe.

NCC has been vocal about the increasing rate of cyberattacks in recent times.

It said the latest advisory is part of efforts to keep Nigerians safe on the internet.

“The AVAST and AVG Antiviruses can lead to attacks on millions of devices with high impact in terms of consequences to the ICT user,” the statement reads.

“The threat types as a result of this vulnerability are bypass authentication, remote code execution and unauthorised access while consequences range from privilege escalation, bypass security products, overwrite system components and corrupting the operating system.

“According to CSIRT, researchers at SentinelOne security firm have discovered two potentially damaging vulnerabilities in AVAST and AVG antivirus products that allow attackers to escalate privileges enabling them to disable security products, overwrite system components, corrupt the operating system, or perform malicious operations unimpeded.

“Two vulnerabilities identified as CVE-2022-26522 and CVE-2022-26523 targeted the “anti rootkit” driver of Avast antivirus (also used by AVG) allowing an attacker with limited privileges on the targeted system to execute code in system mode (kernel mode) and take complete control of the device. Moreover, the vulnerabilities allow complete take-over of a device, even without privileges, due to the ability to execute code in kernel mode.

“However, the cybersecurity centre has offered tripartite measures that should be taken by Internet/ICT users to prevent being vulnerable to cyber threats. They include enabling automatic update features for AVAST and AVG antiviruses, upgrading AVAST and AVG antiviruses to version 22.1.2504, as well as carrying out regular patch management.”