VenturesNow

Foreign airlines reject new terminal in Nigeria’s Lagos airport, Authorities might force move

Published

2 years ago

June 3, 2022

Foreign airlines operating in Nigeria have rejected offers by the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to relocate their operations into a newly built terminal at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

The Managing Director of FAAN, Captain Rabiu Yadudu, told journalists that the agency might be forced to relocate operations of foreign carriers to the place at the appropriate time.

It is believed that the small size of the new terminal’s aprons, makes it difficult for the foreign carriers’ large jets to be parked there.

“It is unfortunate that some of them (foreign airlines) said they will not move, but we are not ready to compel them to move. We’ll just keep quiet. You cannot be a FAAN client and dictate to us. When the time comes, they must all move. Those that refuse to move want to paint us in a bad light that we don’t have a good terminal, which is not true.” Yadudu said,

Mr. Yagudu also revealed that the agency is not swift to compel the foreign carriers to move at the moment for the purpose of a smooth transition of operations to the new terminal.

“You have to do an operational transfer before you can move. We decided to start moving in phases.”

“We didn’t want everyone to move at the same time. If you remember, when Terminal 5 opened in London, it took others about six months because of some teething challenges. It is only here that people complain. There is nowhere in the world that you have a perfect system. No airport operates in isolation from its environment. The aviation industry keeps evolving when the challenges happen and are tackled immediately.”

Foreign carriers including British Airways, Emirates Airlines, Air France, KLM, and Lufthansa are yet to relocate their operations to the terminal.

The terminal was launched by President Buhari in March, estimated to be worth over $100 million, and is one of the five airports – Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, and Enugu – that benefited from the 2013 loan deal between Nigeria and China for the building of four new terminals. Port Harcourt and Abuja terminals had been opened since 2018.

Click to comment

VenturesNow

Nigeria wants managers for proposed $10 billion diaspora fund

Published

6 hours ago

April 28, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

A tender paper shows that Nigeria is looking for fund managers for a $10 billion diaspora fund to bring in dollars and foreign investment for the economy.

The fund wants to pool the billions of dollars that its people send back to the country every month so that they can be used for local investments in things like healthcare, education, and infrastructure.

The World Bank says that Nigeria got more than $20 billion in payments from people living outside of Nigeria last year.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade in Nigeria said in a public post that it was looking for “fund managers for the development and establishment of a multisectoral, multilateral private sector-led investment fund to form the $10 billion Nigeria Diaspora Fund.”

The tender paper said that the fund manager’s job is to plan and set up the fund’s legal, operational, financial, and administrative structures.

The investment is intended to last for three to five years, and then more money will be put in after that. The government said the fund would last for 10 years and could be used for an extra two years.

The trade ministry’s tender said that people who want to run the fund must have done business in Nigeria in the last five years and must have a track record of raising money and running big, profitable venture capital funds.

Anglo-American turned down BHP Group’s $39 billion takeover offer on Friday, saying it was way too low for the London-listed company and its future.

In a statement, Minister of Industry and Trade Doris Anite said that it was a “once-in-a-lifetime chance for our citizens in the diaspora to drive Nigeria’s economic growth.”

The naira is under pressure because of a lack of foreign currency because of lower crude oil exports. This has led companies and people to buy dollars on the black market.

Nigeria is going to issue migrant bonds later this year to bring in even more foreign currency.

VenturesNow

World Bank grants Malawi $57.6 million for food crisis

Published

1 day ago

April 27, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

As a response to its food crisis, the World Bank said on Friday that it would give Malawi $57.6 million in “quick release” grants.

“This support comes in the context of the severe food crisis the country is suffering due to El Niño conditions in the wider southern Africa region,” the World Bank said in a statement.

“A series of intense disaster events over the last few years has left almost no time for the country to recover and has resulted in a severe erosion of food security at the national level.”

Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world. It is ranked 170 out of 187 countries in the 2010 Human Development Index. Almost 16 million people live there, and 90% of them make less than $2 a day. That’s 53% of the total population.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says that 46,000 children in Malawi are seriously malnourished. In 2023, UNICEF said that more than 500,000 Malawian children were at risk of not getting enough food.

Now, Malawi has a lot of programs in place to deal with things like poverty, and climate change, and to make the business and agriculture more diverse.