Nigeria’s Company Income Tax (CIT) surged by 150.83 per cent to ₦2.47tn in Q2 of 2024.

A report by the National Bureau of Statistics said the increase was from ₦984.61bn recorded in Q1 2024.

On a year-on-year basis, the CIT went up by 59.52 per cent from ₦1.55tn in Q2 2023.

On a quarter-on-quarter basis, the NBS reported a growth rate of 150.83 per cent from ₦984.61bn in Q1 2024.

“Local payments received were N1.35 trillion, while foreign CIT payments contributed N1.12 trillion in Q2 2024,” the report shows.

“On a quarter-on-quarter basis agriculture, forestry and fishing recorded the highest growth rate with 474.50%, followed by financial and insurance activities and manufacturing with 429.76% and 414.15 respectively.

“On the other hand, activities of households as employers, undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own use had the lowest growth rate with –30.22% followed by activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies with –15.67%.

“In terms of sectoral contributions, the top three largest shares in Q2 2024 were Financial and insurance activities with 15.53%; manufacturing with 8.99%; and Information and communication with 7.84%.

“Nevertheless, the activities of households as employers, undifferentiated goods- and services-producing activities of households for own use recorded the least share with 0.00%, followed by water supply, sewage, waste management, and remediation activities with 0.02% and activities of extraterritorial organisations and bodies with 0.03%.”

Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador.

He credits President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life.

“Before I was unemployed… and now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company.

Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin into legal circulation in a bid to revitalize El Salvador’s dollarized, remittance-reliant economy.

He invested hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money in the cryptocurrency, despite warnings about volatility risks from global institutions.

Osorio credited the US founder of the NGO My First Bitcoin, John Dennehy, with encouraging him to accept payment in the cryptocurrency.

He now has 21 drivers working for his Bit-Driver brand and has made enough profit from the currency’s rise to be able to buy four rental vehicles.

A divorced father of two teenagers, he also no longer struggles to pay for their education.

Launching bitcoin as legal tender on September 7, 2021, Bukele said he wanted to bring the 70 percent of Salvadorans who do not use banks into the financial system and promptly began plowing public money in cryptocurrencies.

To spur Salvadorans to use bitcoin he created the Chivo Wallet app for sending and receiving bitcoin free of charge and gave $30 to each new user.

His grand ambitions for bitcoin fell foul of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which hesitated to grant El Salvador a $1.3 billion loan because of its official use of the cryptocurrency.

In August, however, the IMF announced a preliminary loan agreement with El Salvador, while saying it needed to mitigate “potential risks.”

Offered as ‘option’

While Osorio has grown relatively wealthy with bitcoin, a study by the University Institute for Public Opinion showed that 88 percent of Salvadorans had yet to use it.

“From the beginning… it was clear that it was clearly an ill-advised measure that the population rejected,” the director of the institute, Laura Andrade, told AFP.

One-quarter of Salvadoran GDP comes from remittances sent home by family members, mostly from the United States.

But in 2023 only one percent of the transfers were made in cryptocurrencies.

In an interview with Time magazine in August, Bukele acknowledged that while “you can go to a McDonald’s, a supermarket, or a hotel and pay with Bitcoin” it had “not had the widespread adoption we hoped for.”

He added that “the positive aspect is that it is voluntary; we have never forced anyone to adopt it. We offered it as an option, and those who chose to use it have benefited from the rise in Bitcoin.”

He also confirmed that he had around $400 million in bitcoin that is kept in a public “cold storage wallet” — a way of storing bitcoin offline.

Bitcoin’s fortunes have been mixed.

This week it was trading at around $52,000, down from a peak of $73,616 on March 13. In November 2022 it fell as low as $16,189.

Independent economist Cesar Villalona told AFP that Bukele himself had hobbled bitcoin’s take-up by stripping it of the usual functions of a currency.

“Bukele… said: there will be no salary in bitcoin, there will be no pensions in bitcoin, there will be no savings in bitcoin and there will be no price in bitcoin, and in so doing took away the three functions of money,” Villalona said.

Luis Contreras, an instructor at My First Bitcoin, told AFP many Salvadorans were simply afraid of making the switch.

The organization has taken cryptocurrencies into public schools, teaching around 35,000 students to use bitcoin so far.

Contreras says the hardest thing about training people on bitcoin “is their fear of new things, which creates a fear of technology” as well as “the fear of moving from a classic currency in the current economy to one that is totally digital and decentralized.”

A Nigerian agriculture-focused company, A.R.N Foods Limited, has teamed up with multinational manufacturer AGI Milltec to establish a rice mill in Epe, Lagos State.

The Chairman of A.R.N Foods, Nola Adetola, formalized an agreement with AGI Milltec on Friday in Lagos for the construction of the rice mill, which will have a production capacity of 8 tons per hour.

The rice mill represents A.R.N Foods’ entry into the food processing sector, underscoring its dedication to quality, sustainability, and food security, according to the company.

Adetola highlighted the partnership as a step towards addressing Nigeria’s food challenges.

He said, “We did not want to just produce rice for one year or two; we wanted something that would stay.

“We went with a company that had a history of doing it before, and we wanted to grow with them. We went with Milltec to grow with them.”

The chairman of A.R.N Foods stated that the collaboration with AGI Milltec was motivated by a vision that goes beyond profit, aiming to make a difference by generating employment opportunities.

The chairman of A.R.N Foods stated that the collaboration with AGI Milltec was motivated by a vision that goes beyond profit, aiming to make a difference by generating employment opportunities.

Two years after rebranding as a food processing company, A.R.N Foods distributed various staple commodities, such as paddy rice, maize, soybeans, and sorghum, stated Chief Operating Officer Muhuydeen Giwa.

Giwa characterized the company as a comprehensive trading and processing enterprise dedicated to delivering high-quality and reasonably priced agricultural products.

He stated that the two companies formed their partnership to grow and address issues related to food shortages.

“You realise that it’s not that the rice mill has not been in existence, but because we are partnering with AGI Milltec, we believe that we will be able to reduce our costs, enhance the quality, and provide accessibility of this process, product, all year round,” Giwa added.

Emmanuel del Pozzo, the Africa Regional Head of AGI Milltech, stated that the manufacturing company offers the same level of expertise and quality in foreign rice that Nigerians are accustomed to.

Del Pozzo mentioned that the company plans to collaborate closely with the Cremona construction firm, whose Managing Director, Guido Firetti, has committed to offering technical assistance to AGI Milltec for their Nigerian projects.

Firetti praised the rice mill initiative, noting its commendable nature, and assured that his company would ensure it is completed on schedule.

Vincent Matthews, the Business Development Manager for AGI Milltec in Nigeria, stated that the proposed Epe Rice mill has been tailored specifically for the varieties of paddy grown in Nigeria.

Matthews said, “We already know the benchmark quality that Mr Nola is looking for. This plant is going to be able to, I should say, achieve the quality levels that he is expecting.”

“And Mr. Nola has a vision that he wants to be able to export in the future. So, this plant should be able to capture both of them together.”

The PUNCH

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), says it has approved 20,000 dollars each for eligible Bureaux De Change (BDCs) at the rate of N1,580 to a dollar.

This is according to a statement issued by Dr Williams Kanaya, the Acting Director,
Trade and Exchange Department of the apex bank.

“This is to inform the BDC operators and the general public that we are providing more liquidity into the market.

“To this end, the CBN has approved the sale of 20,000 dollars to each eligible BDCs operator at the rate of                    N1, 580/dollar. This is to meet the demand for invisible transactions.

“All BDCs are allowed to sell to eligible end-users at a margin not more than one per cent above the purchase rate from CBN.

“Eligible BDCs interested in this transaction are directed to make the Naira payment to the CBN deposit account numbers with them,” he said.

He said that payment confirmation and all necessary documentation for disbursement are to be submitted at the appropriate CBN branches in Abuja, Awka, Kano and Lagos for collection of the 20,000.00 dollars.

The naira took a hit against the dollar on Tuesday, with FMDQ data showing a significant weakening to N1611.34 per dollar, a N25.57 loss from Monday’s rate of N1585.77 ¹.

This downward trend was also reflected in the black market, where the naira lost N10 to close at N1640 per dollar.

The foreign exchange transaction turnover saw a substantial increase, surging to $206.61 million on Tuesday from $71.18 million the previous day.Meanwhile, the pump price of petrol experienced a notable hike, jumping to N885 per liter from N617 at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited on Tuesday.

This increase is likely to have a ripple effect on the economy, particularly for consumers who are already grappling with the challenges of a weakening naira.

It’s worth noting that the naira’s performance against the dollar has been volatile in recent times, with fluctuations in the exchange rate affecting the country’s economy.

The current exchange rate stands at approximately 1 USD = 1,589.51 NGN ¹.

In a notable development amid the ongoing fuel scarcity in the country, Dangote Refinery has commenced the production of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).

This comes as a critical response to the country’s persistent fuel supply challenges, which have led to long queues at filling stations and price hikes in the black market.

The announcement was made by the President of the Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, on Tuesday where he mentioned that the product and the refinery would change the entire dynamics of not only the country but sub-Saharan Africa.

He stressed that the capacity of the product will meet Nigeria’s demand, and it will also meet the demand of sub-Saharan Africa at least.

Showing a sample of the product, Dangote mentioned that the different colour from the usual one seen implies that the product is the real product.

“This is the sample of the petrol, you see it like a different color but that’s the real one, so you are now going to have good petrol where the engines of your vehicles will last longer as you will not be having an engine issue, which a lot of us were having, It won’t happen at all,” he said.

The business mogul added that the quality of the product matches the quality of the product anywhere in the world, and assured that the refinery would ensure no one beat the country in terms of quality.

The commencement of PMS production at Dangote Refinery is expected to significantly impact the fuel supply chain, potentially alleviating some of the current shortages as the capacity aims to stabilise the market and provide a more reliable source of PMS, thereby addressing the supply issues that have been affecting consumers across the country.