Connect with us

VenturesNow

Nigeria not handing over Ajaotuka Steel Plant to British firm. Here’s why

Published

on

Nigeria’s Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Arc. Olamilekan Adegbite, has refuted reports that the Federal government of Nigeria plans to hand over the Ajaokuta Steel plant to a British firm for rehabilitation.

The refuter was revealed via a statement issued by the minister’s Special Assistant on Media, Ayodeji Adeyemi on Monday.

The statement is in reaction to a report on some media outlets that the Ajaokuta Steel plant will be handover to a British firm,

“A local company in partnership with a British company has offered to execute the technical audit at no cost to Nigeria and with no preconditions. This was what I said at the media parley at the statehouse and not that Ajaokuta would be handed over to a British company for rehabilitation.” The statement reads.

The minister further explains that the ministry’s partnership with a Russian firm on the resuscitation of the plant due to international sanctions placed on Russia, which have also impacted Russian firms and businesses.

“The minister clarified that a local Nigerian firm with a British partner had expressed interest in carrying out the TECHNICAL AUDIT for free with no preconditions. The minister pointed out that the federal government had been in discussion with a Russian firm Messrs TPE (nominated by the Russian government) towards conducting the technical audit. The war between Ukraine and Russia has caused a setback to the proposed plan.” The statement concludes.

The Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited (ASCL) is located in Ajaokuta, Kogi State, Nigeria on a 24,000 hectares (59,000 acres) site starting in 1979, it is the largest steel mill in Nigeria, and the coke oven and by-products plant are larger than all the refineries in Nigeria combined. However, the project was mismanaged and remains incomplete 40 years later. Three-quarters of the complex has been abandoned, and only the light mills have been put into operation for small-scale fabrication and the production of iron rods.

VenturesNow

Kenya, Uganda settle oil import dispute

Published

on

In an effort to patch things up between the two neighbours, Kenya will permit Uganda’s landlocked state oil company to import petroleum products through its port of Mombasa, the country’s energy ministry said on Thursday.

After decades of receiving their cargo through affiliated firms in Kenya, Uganda has been looking for alternative ways to import petroleum products, including through a port in Tanzania. According to Solomon Muyita, a spokesman for Uganda’s ministry of minerals and energy, the first shipment under the new arrangement is scheduled for May.

“Kenya has agreed to give us a licence, UNOC (Uganda National Oil Company) is now free to import through Mombasa,” he said.

According to reports, UNOC would use the Kenya Pipeline Company to transport the goods, so Kenya would still profit from the agreement, according to Kenyan Energy Minister Davis Chirchir.

In 2022, Uganda imported petroleum products valued at $1.6 billion, the majority of which came from the Gulf. Kenya serves as the import gateway for about 90% of the goods.

It declared in November that it would transfer all exclusive petroleum product supply rights to a division of the international energy trader Vitol, which would subsequently supply UNOC.

According to what the government said at the time, using Kenyan companies to import oil had “exposed Uganda to occasional supply vulnerabilities” whereby Ugandan retail companies were viewed as secondary whenever there were supply disruptions changing retail prices.

The two African nations that make up the Great Lakes are partners in a variety of fields, including trade, infrastructure, energy, education, agriculture, and military security.

Continue Reading

VenturesNow

No plan to increase taxes, Nigeria’s revenue chief says

Published

on

The head of Nigeria’s revenue agency, Zacch Adedeji, has reaffirmed that there is no plan for the introduction of new taxes in the country.

Adedeji, who is the Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue, made the position known when the Chief Executive Officer of Guinness Nigeria Plc, Adebayo Alli, led the management team of the company on a visit to the Revenue House in Abuja.

He was quoted as saying, “the President gave a directive that he wants a single digit tax in the country, meaning that the maximum number of taxes we will have after the work of the Presidential Committee on Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms will be nine taxes,” in a statement signed by the Special Adviser on Media to the FIRS chairman, Dare Adekanmbi.

“For us at FIRS, we have responded to that directive. We want to grow the pie such that even if we are taking the same percentage of the bigger pie, the result will be huge.

“By God’s grace, we will not introduce additional taxes nor increase any form of tax. We are only determined to increase the pie. We have restructured our operations at FIRS in such a way that we are now effectively carrying out our duty of assessing, collecting and accounting for taxes. We used to have functional types of taxes, but we have identified that the only customers we have are the taxpayers.”

He stated that by restructuring “our operations based on our customers, using their turnover as the basis to categorise them into large, medium, and small,” FIRS has enhanced its customer relations. He continued by saying that President Bola Tinubu wanted to increase Nigerians’ purchasing power in order to promote growth and increase businesses’ capacity for productivity through the recently implemented consumer credit scheme.

The Nigerian government has been working to overhaul the nation’s monetary and fiscal policies since the start of the Bola Tinubu administration. This has resulted in the central bank and the Oyedele-led tax advisory council implementing daring new policies.

Continue Reading

EDITOR’S PICK

Strictly Personal5 hours ago

Off we go again with public shows, humbug and clowning, By Jenerali Uliwengu

The potential contestants in the approaching elections are already sizing themselves up and assessing their chances of fooling their people...

Musings From Abroad6 hours ago

UAE’s IRH to consider stake in Zambia’s Lubambe copper mine

A division of the International Holding Company of Abu Dhabi, International Resources Holding (IRH), has announced that it plans to...

Sports6 hours ago

Paris Olympics: Nigeria’s D’Tigress in ‘group of death’, to battle Australia, France, Canada

Nigeria’s women national basketball team, D’Tigress, have been drawn in what many term the group of death after they were...

Tech6 hours ago

Egyptian AI-powered ed-tech startup Sprints raises $3m to scale up platform

Egyptian AI-powered ed-tech startup, Sprints, has announced raising $3 million bridge round of funding to help it scale up its...

Culture6 hours ago

Actress Yvonne Nelson lambasts Ghanaian President Akufo-Addo, labels his regime ‘8 years of lies’

Ghanaian actress and filmmaker, Yvonne Nelson, has lambasted President Nana Akufo-Addo over a viral video from the Neo-natal Intensive Care...

Metro6 hours ago

Zambia, Botswana sign cooperation instruments to enhance trade

Zambia and close neighbours, Botswana, have signed 10 instruments of cooperation aimed at enhancing trade relations between the two countries....

VenturesNow8 hours ago

Kenya, Uganda settle oil import dispute

In an effort to patch things up between the two neighbours, Kenya will permit Uganda’s landlocked state oil company to...

VenturesNow15 hours ago

No plan to increase taxes, Nigeria’s revenue chief says

The head of Nigeria’s revenue agency, Zacch Adedeji, has reaffirmed that there is no plan for the introduction of new...

Metro16 hours ago

Tinubu vows justice for slain soldiers, bestows national honours on them during burial

President Bola Tinubu has once again reiterated that killers of 17 soldiers of the Nigerian Army in Delta State on...

VenturesNow1 day ago

Nigeria’s central bank raises interest rate to 24.75% amid soaring inflation

Governor Olayemi Cardoso of Nigeria’s central bank has announced that the bank has increased its monetary policy rate by 200...

Trending