₦airaland Forum

The Chief Whip of the Senate, Ali Ndume, has explained the difference between corruption by politicians and other people.

Ndume said corruption in Nigerian politics is people-driven and should not warrant any serious punishment.

The senator admitted that politicians “steal and share with the people”.

He stated this on Tuesday when he featured on Channels TV Politics Today while speaking on the death penalty as the deterrent for those caught with drugs.


He said when politicians’ corruption is compared to others, it is a “small one’

He stated, “If you compare us, politicians, to all the corruption, it is very small. Our corruption is people-driven. If you steal it, you will go and share it with the people. If you don’t, you are not coming back for four years. There is no reason for stealing.

“I have been to the National Assembly, I can’t say because we are on TV now and not telling the truth. If the death penalty is supposed to be included in corruption, I will support it but you don’t go and kill someone that stole one million or one billion, no. But someone who steals one trillion of government money should be killed.


The senator said he supports death punishment for drug dealers.


“The death penalty is the best deterrent for those being caught for drugs. If you do drugs, you are killing people.

“In fact, that means you have destroyed the lives of so many people and killed so many people,” he said.

Recently, the Senate passed a bill, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act (Amendment Bill) 2024 passed by the Senate.

The bill prescribed death penalty for persons found guilty of trading in hard drugs and narcotics.

This has, however, been debated and faulted by many stakeholders on whether or not President Bola Tinubu should accent the bill.

On Saturday, some legal practitioners expressed different opinions on the debate over the bill. Some of them urged President Bola Tinubu not to assent to the bill passed by the Senate while others pressed for it to be signed into law.


Some of the lawyers stressed that the death penalty was not a solution to drug trafficking and other drug-related offences in the country.

Paraman:
It's so foolish to introduce cyber security levy at this point in time

helinues:
They should stop cheap attention seeking. FG already suspended the implementation

Putindbutt:
That's your father.

Putindbutt:
Shebi you don give yourself a job, as official thread creator of naira affairs. when naira start picking up again, don't continue to open the thread if dem born you well.

DMerciful:
Where are the gazelle gagaragas to defend Amoda?

Seunmsg, LegendHero paraman, yarimo...come and demonstrate your cluelessness

The local currency depreciated further at the official market, on Friday, closing at N1,466.31 to a dollar at the official market, according to checks by Daily Trust.

The dollar to naira exchange rate increased by N40 between Thursday and Friday having closed to N1,426 to a dollar, according to the National Autonomous Foreign Exchange Market (NAFEM), the official exchange market.

Daily Trust reports that the naira gain has been reversed in recent times after the currency firmed up against the dollar, exchanging below N1000 with businesses and the government heaving a sigh of relief.

This was after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced a string of reforms and interventions tailored towards stabilising the exchange rate market.

The apex bank also supplied more dollars to the Bureau De Change (BDC) operators in a bid to boost liquidity in the market.

While the dollar exchanged at N1,466.31 at the official market yesterday, it further depreciated at the parallel market, exchanging for N1,510.

It earlier exchanged for N1,450 on Friday morning but closed the day with N1,510 at the street market popularly referred to as the black market.

Buhari Government’s ₦5,000 Cash Transfer Scheme Had Little Impact On Household Consumption, Financial Inclusion—World Bank

The World Bank has said the ₦5,000 cash transfer scheme implemented by the Nigerian Government had little impact on household consumption and women's financial inclusion in the country.

This global apex bank said this in a report titled, ‘Beta Don Come: Effects of Cash Transfers on Women and Households in Nigeria’.

In the report, the World Bank added that the scheme implemented in 2016, called the National Social Safety Nets Project (NASSP) also had a limited impact on employment, especially for women.

Former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration provided households with a cash transfer of N5,000, disbursed as a lump sum every two months.

Payments were given to each household’s primary caregiver — predominantly women — the report stated.

The report, however, suggested that there is a need for a complementary livelihood to support the intervention to generate sustainable improvements in households’ self-sufficiency.

The bank said it found “no significant effects on overall household consumption, women’s employment, or financial inclusion”.

The report reads: “Program participation improved several dimensions of households’ and women’s welfare over time.

“Households in communities that entered the program earlier experience larger increases in household savings and food security, along with increased access to farmland and livestock ownership, compared to similar households in communities that entered the program later.

“We also find improvements in caregivers’ self-reported happiness, decision-making autonomy over how to spend their own income, and freedom of movement.

“Positive impacts appear to primarily result from the saving mobilisation component of the program.

“Households are substantially more likely to save the longer they have been receiving cash transfers and to switch away from exclusively using cash for household consumption.

“However, in contrast to these strong positive impacts, we do not find any statistically significant effects on overall household consumption or on caregivers’ employment and financial inclusion.”

The World Bank also said despite the efficacy of the programme, there is no evidence of “the impacts of participating in the program at all”.

“We find positive effects on households’ saving, food security, and economic activity along with increased caregivers’ decision-making autonomy and physical mobility associated with participating in the project for longer periods of time.”

The presidential committee on fiscal policy and tax reforms says there is a need to increase the value-added tax (VAT) rate.

Speaking at the policy exposure and impact assessment session organised by the committee, the committee chairman, Taiwo Oyedele, also disclosed that the VAT revenue-sharing formula would be reviewed.

Oyedele added that the committee has proposed reviewing state and local governments’ share of VAT revenue to 90 percent from current 85 percent.


According to section 40 of the VAT Act, the federal government gets 15 percent of the tax revenue, states share 50 percent, and local governments share the balance of 35 percent.


The implication of the proposed new sharing structure, according to him, is that the committee is recommending reducing the federal government’s share from 15 percent to 10 percent.

“We are proposing that the federal government’s portion should be reduced from 15 percent to 10 percent. States’ portion will be increased but they would share 90 percent with local governments,” [/b]he said.

He explained that the new sharing formula for VAT is in favour of the lower tier of government because it is a tax generated at the states level.

[b]“In 1986, we had sales tax collected by states. The military came up with VAT in 1993 and stopped sales tax so they said it would collect VAT and return 15 per cent as cost of collection and that is the 15 per cent charged today came about. But we think it is too much,” he said.


The tax expert added that the burden of VAT should be on the ultimate consumer.

“So we must make it transparent and neutral and this is what over 100 countries where they have VAT are doing,” Oyedele said.


He stated: “Nigeria’s economy is more than 50 percent in services and if I just stop at this, many states will be broke because VAT collection will go down by more than 50 percent and it won’t even fly.



“So we therefore need to adjust the VAT rate upward. We would ensure that it doesn’t affect businesses. The only thing is to look at basic consumption from food, education, medical services and accommodation will carry zero percent VAT. So for the poor and small businesses, no VAT.”

Oyedele said other consumers will pay a bit more.

“We have spoken to businesses about it and they won’t increase the product price. We want to make sure when we do VAT reform, no one will increase the price of commodities. We will work the mathematics with the private sector,” he explained.


Oyedele also said each state should not be granted exclusive custodianship of their collections– because it would likely result in chaos.

FreeStuffsNG:
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/05/relocation-of-destitute-to-home-states-ll-continue-lagos-govt/#google_vignette

The Naira yesterday depreciated to N1,415 per dollar in the parallel market, from N1,410 per dollar on Monday.

Similarly, the Naira depreciated in the Nigerian Foreign Exchange Market, NAFEM, to N1,416.57 per dollar.


Data from FMDQ showed that the indicative exchange rate for NAFEM fell to N1,416.57 per dollar from N1,354.21 per dollar on Monday, indicating N62.36 depreciation for the naira.

Consequently, the margin between the parallel market and NAFEM rates narrowed to N1.57 per dollar from N55.79 per dollar on Monday.

“If I’m collecting N250,000 from anybody I won’t be in that place again” – Lagos underbridge landlord

Gbenga Oluwafemi, purportedly the landlord and alleged leader of the suspected gang renting out 86 apartments under Dolphin Estate Bridge, Ikoyi, has refuted claims of receiving N250,000 per annum as rent.

In a video posted by News Central on its social media handle late Sunday, Oluwafemi, also known as “Mopol,” stated that there’s no estate chairman in Dolphin Estate who wouldn’t recognise him.

In a telephone conversation with the agency, Mopol said, “No estate chairman in Dolphin Estate that will say he did not know me.

“Even there are some people in power here in Lagos State that live there that know me. They knew us very well.

“The demolished blue container there this morning had been there for about 15 years now.

“The previous government did it for us there. The person who did the container Festus Keyamo was passing by and asked us what we were doing there and our survival.

“We said we are security to the street lights here. He also asked how we cope when it is raining. It was then he promised us that he would look into it and that was when the container was constructed.”

He, however, denied collecting money from anyone as rent contrary to some residents’ claims and the evidence of payments seen.

“I have never refunded any money to anybody. I don’t think I’ve… If I am collecting N250,000 from anybody I will not be in that place again,” he said.

The Lagos State Government had on Saturday disclosed that it had intensified its efforts to arrest suspected gang leaders who rented out the 86 apartments.

Meanwhile, a resident who simply identified himself as Sola in the five minutes and seventeen seconds video – named one man called “Mopol” as his landlord who collected N250,000 from him.

Another resident, Johnson Kenneth, noted that he had just made a N50,000 deposit before the government moved in.

Also, a December 2022 receipt with “OLUWAFEMI” as the letterhead and phone number, being payment for N150,000 for a room was retrieved from one of the residents.

KAI chief wades in
Earlier in the video, the Commander, Kick Against Indiscipline in Lagos State, Major Olaniyi Olatunbosun Cole (retd.) described the act on the government facility as nothing but a “sabotage.”

“All the sands put under the bridge for a kind of protection were excavated and they started putting structures. It was about 86 rooms.

“You can imagine someone removing sand meant for protection to a facility, a bridge, and erecting a structure there to collect money from the people. That is sabotage,” Cole said.

Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, last Wednesday said the government discovered 86 partitioned rooms, sized 10×10 and 12×10, under the bridge.

The Naira depreciated by N130 against the United States dollar at the parallel foreign exchange market on Sunday.

A Bureau De Change operator, Mistila Dayyabu, disclosed this to the DAILY POST in an interview.

He noted that Naira dropped to N,1420 per dollar from N1,290 in less than 48 hours at the parallel market.

“The Naira depreciated to N1,420 per dollar on Sunday at the parallel market due to high demand. We buy at N1,410 per dollar and sell at N1420 as of Sunday. It was N1290 per dollar on Friday,” told DAILY POST.

DAILY POST recalls that the Naira appreciated at both the official and parallel foreign exchange markets on Friday.

The Naira has continued to experience fluctuations in foreign exchange despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s interventions.

From March 26th to April 26th, 2024, the apex bank released FX thrice to Bureau De Change operators.

Financial expert Kalu Aja said CBN’s intervention was the reason for the appreciation of the Naira from March to mid-April 2024.

Zxcvbnmghtr:
What about the price of Kulukuli?!