The report that despite the appreciable surge in the number of new investors angling to float local airlines, the industry is much more in a precarious zone with operators struggling with depleted fleet capacity and low market penetration is one of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Guardian reports that despite an appreciable surge in the number of new investors angling to float local airlines, the industry is much more in a precarious zone with operators struggling with depleted fleet capacity and low market penetration.
By total fleet capacity, the country parades over 100 assorted commercial airplanes out of which over 48 are grounded. That depletion earns the country less than five per cent coverage of its over 200 million local population, 10 per cent of West African market share and about two per cent of the African market, despite the largest population density.
While new start-ups and a rash of leased aircraft have surfaced lately, the burden of keeping up with routine maintenance programmes, spike in the cost of aviation fuel, and multiple charges remain an albatross on sustainable air transport.
Conspicuously missing too is the current administration’s promises to the sector, especially in the areas of aircraft leasing companies and Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facilities to meet local demands and defray huge capital flight.
Apparently unimpressed with the worsening state of affairs, stakeholders have warned that the sector risks collapse without an urgent intervention. They said, while investors and operators are braving the odds to place orders for new aircraft and lease capacity in the short-run, government should do its bit in creating an enabling and stable business-friendly environment that works for all.
The newspaper says Nigeria’s Internet speed has been ranked 16th of the 46 countries examined on the continent, with Morocco, South Africa and Tunisia having the fastest mobile download speeds in Africa.
Crowdsourcing firm, SpeedChecker, in its Africa’s Mobile Network Champions report for 2021, released at the weekend, ranked countries and mobile operators in two categories: fastest mobile network champion and best mobile coverage champion.
The firm explained that data used for the survey was collected between January 2021 and January 2022 from end user devices running Android and iOS systems. SpeedChecker took over 704 million coverage samples and over 3.4 million speed test samples across Africa.
While Nigeria ranked 16th at 11.55Mbit/s, with Airtel emerging as the fastest network, Maroc Telecom in Morocco came out tops with an average country download speed of 23.57 Mbit/s. Second place went to MTN in South Africa with an average of 19.20 Mbit/s. The third place was Tunisian operator, Tunisie Telecom, at 18.19 Mbit/s.
The slowest country in 46th place was Central African Republic with an average country download speed of just 3.97 Mbit/s, followed by Mauritania at 4.23 Mbit/s and Libya at 4.28 Mbit/s on average.
According to SpeedChecker, Orange was the fastest operator in three of the top 10 countries: Mali (4th); Botswana (6th) and Liberia (9th) and was the fastest overall in eight countries out of the 46 measured. MTN was the fastest in four countries and Airtel was the fastest in three nations.
The Sun reports that the High Commissioner of the Republic of Ghana to Nigeria, Rashid Bawa, has said the amicable resolution of the crisis between Ghanaian and Nigerian retail traders in his country was underway.
Bawa fielded questions from Daily Sun following the 2022 Ghana-Nigeria Business Council Chief Executive Officers’ Forum, last week, in Abuja.
The former Ghanaian Minister of Sports explained that the huge investments by Nigerian companies and individuals in the various sectors of the Ghanaian economy seem to be overshadowed by the perennial tension between Ghanaian and Nigerian traders in Ghana, which forms an insignificant portion of business between the two countries.
Bawa, a former Ghanaian Ambassador to the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, disclosed that the ministers of trade of Ghana and Nigeria signed an agreement in 2021 establishing a framework to guide the engagement between the countries in resolving issues between Ghanaian retail traders and their counterparts from Nigeria.
Bawa said: “I can assure you that the government of the Republic of Ghana is committed to the timely implementation of the framework of engagement between Ghanaian and Nigerian traders.”
The Punch says that the implementation of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act has created over 50,000 direct jobs in the local economy over the past 11 years, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Mr Simbi Wabote, has said.
Wabote said this in Lagos during separate breakfast meetings he held with members of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers on Thursday and editors of newspapers and broadcast stations on Friday.
According to him, the level of Nigerian content in the oil industry stood at around five per cent before the enactment of the NOGICD Act in 2010.
He added that the implementation of the Nigerian content law resulted in an increase to 26 per cent in 2016 and 42 per cent as at December 2021.
Wabote said the NCDMB had launched the Nigerian Content 10-Year Strategic Roadmap in 2017, with a target to achieve 70 per cent Nigerian content by 2027.
He said the board would catalyse the creation of 300,000 direct jobs in the oil and gas industry and linkage sectors, enable the retention of $13bn out of the estimated annual $20bn spend in the oil and gas industry and establishment of major fabrication yards and manufacturing hubs in-country.
The newspaper reports that the Federal Government is making concerted efforts to ensure that the ban on beans exports from Nigeria by the European Union is lifted to stimulate the country’s export potentials and better the lot of stakeholders in the beans export value chain.
The Trade Promotion Advisor, Ado-Ekiti Assistance Office, Nigerian Export Promotion Council, Mrs Iyabode Abe, said the efforts included sensitisation of beans farmers and merchants on good agricultural practices and avoidance of indiscriminate use of chemicals.
Abe, who spoke in Ado-Ekiti at a technical session on value chain export development to address chemical residue in storage of dried beans for export, said the inability to export beans to EU countries had negative impact on the country’s gross domestic product.
At the event where NEPC distributed hermetic bags for grains storage to beans farmers and merchants, the advisor tasked stakeholders on “best practices to actualise the dream of exporting their products to the international market which will in turn increase the GDP of the non-oil sector to Nigeria’s economy.”
NEPC Assistant Director, Products Development Department, Afolabi Bello, said, “The problem with beans is insects during storage.
ThisDay says that Nigeria’s surest path to full and effective funding of annual budgets as well as long term strategies can only happen if it turns to her portfolio of national assets to unlock liquidity and focus on increasing its revenue base.
According to economic experts who spoke at the National Association of Microfinance Banks (NAMB) Lagos state chapter in Lagos, Nigeria’s economic outlook for 2022 can be positive only if it deploys effective policy instruments, adjust and reconnect its economy with unfolding global realities and stop borrowing in the “wrong” way.
Speaking on the theme; “The importance of Microfinance in revamping the Nigerian economy; Roles, Impacts and Prospects,” and the 2022 outlook of the nation’s economy, the Chief Executive Officer, Economic Associates, Dr. Ayo Teriba, said opportunities to move the economy forward remains abound but the narratives run contrary to the reality.
He added that China, Brazil and India who were once in the poverty bracket has gone on to become super powers in the global economy.
Teriba added that for Nigeria to get away from the poverty bracket, it needs to strategically reposition itself for global trends, become proactive in seizing opportunities ahead of others, adjust and connect its economy to the unfolding global realities in 2022.
GIK/APA