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Nigeria’s Central Bank raises lending rates to 18%, as inflation figures rise

Published

2 months ago

March 22, 2023

In a move that is aimed at managing the increasing inflation rate, Nigeria’s apex bank has raised the benchmark for the lending rate to 18 percent.

The bank’s governor, Godwin Emefiele, announced the new interest rate bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting that began Monday. He said the committee voted to keep the asymmetric corridor at +100 and -500 basis points around the MPR.

Mr. Emefiele disclosed that the MPC voted to keep the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 32.5 percent, as well as the Liquidity Ratio at 30 percent.

Under the cash reserve ratio (CRR), commercial banks have to hold a certain minimum amount of deposits as reserves with the central bank. The percentage of cash required to be kept in reserves against the bank’s total deposits is called the Cash Reserve Ratio.

The inflation rate for February 2023 in Nigeria hit 21.91% as cash and fuel scarcity continue to bite hard in the West African country.

Emefiele believed that consistency in the recent monetary policies by the apex bank is helping to manage rates.

“We believe that as we continue this process that inflation will eventually begin to trend downwards,” he said.

“Whether we like it or not, between now and May, or the end of the administration, we will expect that subsidy will disappear. Subsidy removal has its own implication on prices which is inflation, so we are not optimistic that prices will continue to come down because of these measures but we feel we need to continue to tighten,” he said.

Nigeria has been on a recent trend of monetary policy in a bid to rescue its struggling economy. The bank recently introduce new designs of the N200, N500, and N1,000 in a move to mop excess cash circulation. According to the CBN, over 80% of cash in circulation was outside the banking system when the policy was announced.

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Court stops Facebook’s dismissal of content moderators in Kenya

Published

9 hours ago

June 4, 2023

Ifeoluwa Dada

The mass retrenchment by a subcontractor for Facebook’s parent company, Meta has been stopped by a court in Kenya.

The court obliged the prayer of 184 content moderators employed in Nairobi by Sama, an outsourcing firm for Meta, who claimed their dismissal was “unlawful”.

Judge Byram Ongaya said Meta and Sama were “restrained from terminating the contracts” pending the determination of the lawsuit challenging the legality of the dismissal.

“An interim order is hereby issued that any contracts that were to lapse before the determination of the petition be extended” until the case is settled, the judge added.

The court also ordered to “provide proper medical, psychiatric and psychological care for the petitioners and other Facebook content moderators”.

Mercy Mutemi, the petitioners’ lawyer, while commending the ruling, said it was “critical that the court found Facebook to be the true employer of its moderators,” adding that they were “very pleased” with the orders.

“This ruling is significant not only for the petitioners but for the entire social media and artificial intelligence industry,” Mutemi said in a statement.

Another local NGO and two Ethiopian citizens have also accused the tech giant of failing to act against online hate speech in Africa. The complainants claimed that this inaction resulted in the murder of an Ethiopian university professor and demanded the establishment of a $1.6 billion fund to compensate the victims.

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South Africa: Power rotation suspended ‘until further notice’ —Eskom

Published

1 day ago

June 3, 2023

Ifeoluwa Dada

South Africa’s state utility firm, Eskom has announced that its power rotation has been suspended “until further notice”.

The situation with the country’s electricity has been critical in recent months and load shedding exercises have gone as high as twelve hours a day.

Eskom spokeswoman, Daphne Mokwena told journalists “Load shedding was suspended today at 11:40 am (09:40 GMT) and until further notice, thanks to improved generation capacity and lower demand.”

“It is not possible to predict at this stage how long the suspension will last. We encourage the public to monitor their consumption, especially during peak hours,” stressed Ms. Mokwena, adding that load shedding could otherwise resume “at any time”.

The firm said it would immediately communicate any significant changes in the new development which South Africans would be hoping lasts long.

President Cyril Ramaphosa in February declared the situation a disaster and appointed a Minister of Electricity, in an attempt to get out of the crisis.

South Africa still draws 80% of its electricity from coal. A $98 billion investment plan was approved by rich countries last year at COP27 as part of an agreement for a “just transition” to clean energy.

Being one of Africa’s most industrialized economies, the power outages have threatened businesses and the general economy of the country. One of its leading companies, Tiger Brands had during the week revealed that its revenues were expected to drop due to the prolonged power challenges.