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Guinea’s junta gives bauxite miners 10-days to present refinery construction timeline

Published

2 years ago

June 11, 2022

The military junta in Guinea has given bauxite mining companies 10 days to present a timeline for the construction of alumina refineries.

The new ultimatum which was made through a statement on Friday, comes after the mining companies were unable to meet the initial deadline set for May.

The junta leader Mamady Doumbouya, in a broadcast on state television in April, asked international mining companies to submit project proposals and a “precise timetable” for the construction of alumina refineries to the mines ministry by the end of May 2022.

“As of today, it has been noted that none of the companies has complied,” said the statement, a readout from a June 9 cabinet meeting.

The companies affected by the refinery ultimatum include Guinea’s top two bauxite producers Societe Miniere de Boke (SMB) and Compagnie des Bauxite de Guinee (CBG). Neither company immediately responded to a request for comment.

According to the government statement, Guinea is also looking to set a reference price for bauxite. The junta is concerned about bauxite miners in Guinea setting different prices for the ore, the statement said, and expects a draft decree on the issue by next Friday.

In March, the junta ordered the cessation of all activities at the massive Simandou iron ore deposit owned by Rio Tinto and a Chinese-backed consortium, saying it was seeking clarification of how Guinea’s interests will be preserved.

Bauxite is the most common ore of aluminium. Extraction of aluminium metal takes place in three main stages: mining of bauxite ore, refining the ore to recover alumina, and smelting alumina to produce aluminium. Other raw materials are mined as aluminium ore, but their use is minor compared with bauxite.

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Nigeria’s finance ministry unveils system to monitor tax exemptions

Published

3 hours ago

April 16, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Nigeria’s Ministry of Finance has unveiled the Incentive Monitoring and Evaluation Platform (IMEP), a cutting-edge computer system meant to make it easier to keep an eye on the tax costs connected to import duty exemption certificates.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Wale Edun, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, said it was part of a larger plan to cut down on tax spending and make sure that fiscal policies were helping the country’s economy grow.

Edun said the IMEP was meant to change how the Federal Ministry of Finance figures out how much the tax breaks for businesses, non-governmental organizations, and foreign groups affect the economy.

Since President Bola Tinubu took office, Nigeria’s government has been trying to change the country’s fiscal and monetary policies. This has led to bold moves by both the central bank and the tax advisory committee run by Taiwo Oyedele.

Edun said the ministry wanted to improve the monitoring and review of these exemptions by putting in place a strong automated tool. He talked about how the IMEP has many useful features, such as a mechanism for clawing back duties, electronic report generation, a central database for tracking, factory geo-location tagging, industry qualification status validation, integration with many government agencies, and sending demand notices to people who don’t pay their taxes.

“One of the critical objectives of the IMEP is to provide a framework that will prevent ineligible applicants from receiving tax benefits, enforce compliance with fiscal policy measures, and offer a comprehensive analysis of the economic impact of tax incentives.

“By doing so, the ministry hopes to curb the misuse of tax expenditures, support the realisation of economic outcomes from fiscal incentives, and enhance the direct measurement of tax incentives’ effects on the economy,” he noted.

Edun says the system is meant to give a framework to checkmate and limit applicants who aren’t qualified, make sure that strict fiscal policy measures are followed, and give a strong analysis of how tax incentives affect the economy.

“Overall, the introduction of the IMEP represents a significant step towards reducing the cost of tax expenditure and ensuring that tax incentives have a positive impact on the Nigerian economy. This initiative is part of the government’s commitment to fostering transparency, accountability, and efficiency in the management of the nation’s resources,” he explained.

In December, the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC) said it granted three years of tax exemption to 34 companies in 2023.

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Nigeria’s inflation hits 28-year high of 33.20%

Published

1 day ago

April 15, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The recent gains of Nigeria’s Naira as the best-performing currency worldwide in the last month have had little or no impact on the consumer price index in the West African country as its inflation rate reached a 28-year high of 33.20%.

According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s inflation has continued its 15-month-a-row surge driven by soaring food and energy costs despite the central bank’s rate hikes aimed at halting its ascent.

This was 10.37% more than the 21.9% inflation rate seen in March 2023. Year-over-year, rural inflation was 31.45% in March 2024. Rural inflation fell from 2.9% in February 2024 to 2.87 % in March 2024, which was a 0.20 percentage point drop from February 2024.

It went up by 5.71% points from March 2023 to March 2024, when it was 19.79%. The average rural inflation rate for the twelve months finishing in March 2024 was 25.50%.

Food prices went up by 40.1% a year in March 2024, which was 15.56 percentage points more than the rate of 24.45% a year earlier. The statistics office said food and non-alcoholic beverages were the biggest contributors to the pickup in inflation. Food inflation rose to 40.01% year-on-year, from 37.92% a month earlier.

Since President Bola Tinubu ended an expensive gasoline subsidy and devalued the naira twice in his first year in office, price pressures have grown. To get the economy off of subsidies that have hurt the government’s finances, the government recently raised energy rates for people who use the most electricity.