₦airaland Forum

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, has said the federal government will sanction power distribution companies (DisCos) that fail to supply 20 hours of electricity to customers in the Band A category.


This is contained in a post made by Adelabu on Tuesday in his official X (formerly Twitter) account.

The minister said this is part of the adjustments made under the newly revised tariff system targeted at electricity consumers under the Band A category.

Recall that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) recently increased the electricity tariffs of customers under Band A category from N66/kWh to N225.kWh.


According to the NERC, Band A customers are the electricity users who enjoy power supply for a minimum of 20 hours daily.

Reacting to the development, the minister said the government will hold DisCos accountable for failure to supply 20 hours of electricity to customers under Band A.

Highlighting some of the provisions under the tariff adjustment reform, Adelabu noted that the federal government will save N1.5 trillion with tariff adjustment. FG still subsidizes Bands below A.

Pricing changes will help increase liquidity to the NESI and that DisCos will be sanctioned for supplying less than 20 hours electricity to Band A customers.

The Presidency on Monday unveiled its Citizens’ Delivery Tracker to provide a “strong feedback loop between citizens and government” on the eight priority areas of the Bola Tinubu administration.

The President’s Special Adviser on Policy and Coordination, Hadiza Bala-Usman, disclosed this at the Go-Live event of the CDT holding in Abuja on Monday.

“The platform is available as a web link (app.cdcu.gov.ng) and will be available as an app for download in the next few months,” said Bala-Usman.

Bala-Usman said Monday’s unveiling is the culmination of a months-long process since Tinubu announced plans for ministerial assessment at the Cabinet Retreat for ministers and heads of government agencies last November.

In reaching the key performance indicators, the presidential aide explained, “The CDCU held numerous bilateral meetings with Ministries, Departments and Agencies within six weeks.”

The eight priority areas are: Reform the economy to deliver sustained inclusive growth, strengthen national security for peace and prosperity, boost agriculture to achieve food security, and unlock energy and natural resources for sustainable development.

Others are to enhance infrastructure and transportation as enablers of growth, focus on education, health, and social investment as essential pillars of development, accelerate diversification through industrialisation, digitisation, creative arts, manufacturing & innovation and Improve governance for effective service delivery.

In an interview on TVC last October, Bala-Usman revealed that the FG would prioritise citizen engagement to ensure that Nigerians are part of the ministerial assessment.

“We’re going to deploy an application, a software where citizens are able to report back on project-based deliverables that the federal government has committed to doing within the period to 2024,” she explained.

Detailing the process at the time, she said, “We sat with the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. We have worked effectively to define exactly the deliverables for each ministry.

“And those deliverables are also deliverables that I mentioned cascade to the agencies of government. So, for example, you have the sectoral deliverables for a sector in health, and everything that is contained within the value chain or the ecosystem within that sector will be contained within the deliverables.

“Those deliverables are translated into key performance indicators for the respective ministries. Once you have your key performance indicators, you’re able to clearly understand what your deliverables are over the period of the four years of the administration.”

In late January, no fewer than 140 officials were drafted to track and assess the performance of federal ministries, departments, and agencies ahead of the first assessment exercise at the end of this month.

The officials joined the third technical retreat for delivery desk officers of federal ministries on the implementation of presidential priorities and ministerial deliverables in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State capital, which began on Wednesday, the 24th of that month.

They were drawn from 35 federal government ministries, departments, and agencies.

“It will involve a permanent secretary and directors of planning and other officials, four each from 35 ministries.

“They are considering the modalities of the assessment, the key performance indicators and the reporting mechanisms, and all of those,” an official at the CDCU told our correspondent.

No fewer than 15 universities in the United Kingdom have announced plans to sack some workers and even stop running some courses because of the sharp decline in enrolment by foreign students including Nigerians.

According to a report by University World News, the sharp decline in foreign students enrolment was particularly felt at the postgraduate level.


The development is also connected to the decision by the Uk government to reduce international students, as some concessions given them that level have been whittled down.

Also, there are concerns too that the high cost of living being experienced globally may negatively affect enrolment of foreign students at the undergraduate level.

From the prestigious Russell Group Universities to mid-tier universities and Scottish institutions, the current situation is not sparing most universities.

Robert Gordon University (RGU) recently introduced a voluntary severance scheme in the face of staff redundancy due to its financial difficulties as a result of a notable decline in international student enrollments, a consequence of post-Brexit alterations in UK immigration policies.

RGU cited escalating cost pressures and a considerable reduction in public funding as contributing factors.

Kposkila:
For example Wike n fubara

The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, on Sunday, said for over 60 years, Nigerian leaders have looked like men in a drunken stupor who stumble and fumble while searching for the way home.

Kukah, in his Easter message made available to newsmen, called on the Federal Government to come up with a robust template for how it wishes to reverse and put the country on a path of national healing.

He said, “Our leaders chose the feast rather than the fast. We are today reaping what we sowed yesterday. For over 60 years, our leaders have looked like men in a drunken stupor, staggering, stumbling and fumbling, slurring in speech, with blurred visions searching for the way home.

“The corruption of the years of a life of immoral and sordid debauchery has spread like cancer destroying all our vital organs. The result is a state of a hangover that has left our nation comatose.


Notwithstanding, Easter is a time to further reflect on the road not taken. It is a time to see if this Golgotha of pain can lead us to the new dawn of the resurrection. Nigeria can and Nigeria will be great again. Let us ride this tide together in hope.”

As part of measures to curb the current economic woes and curtail hunger among the citizens, the bishop urged the government to come up with some urgent steps to put the nation on the path of healing.

These, he said, must include a deliberate policy of inclusion that will drastically end the immoral culture of nepotism.


He said, “The government must design a more comprehensive and wide-ranging method of recruitment that is transparent as a means of generating patriotism and reversing the ugly face of feudalism and prebendalism

“There is a need for a clear communications strategy that will serve to inspire and create timelines of expectations of results from policies.

“There is a need for clarity over questions of the who, what, when, and how national set goals are to be attained and who can be held accountable.”

The bishop added, “Second, the notion of rejigging the security architecture is a hackneyed cliché that is now at best, an oxymoron. It is difficult to fathom our current situation regarding the ubiquity of the military in our national life.

“It is impossible to explain how we can say we are in a civilian democracy with the military literally looking like an Army of occupation with an octopussean spread across all 36 states and Abuja.

“This has very serious consequences both for its professionalism, its integrity and perceived role in protecting society. No other person than the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor, who recently referred to the military as facing the dilemma of what he called ‘see finish.’ It is now difficult to say whether the persistence of insecurity is a cause or a consequence of military ubiquity.

” Trillions of naira continue to go into bottomless pits with little measurable benefits. Our military’s professionalism cannot be diluted by the recruitment of hunters, vigilante groups, and other unprofessional and untrained groups.”


Kukah noted that “this is not sustainable because it leaves the military open to ridicule and perceptions of surrender. Fighting insecurity is now an enterprise. I believe our security men and women can defeat these criminals in a matter of months. All we hear and see are fingers pointing to the top. No, this must end.”

The bishop expressed delight that President Bola Tinubu recently announced that kidnapping and banditry are now to be treated as acts of terrorism.

“If so, we need to see a relentless and implacable plan to end this menace with a definite deadline for bringing these terrorists to their knees, no matter what it will take,” he said.

Kukah encouraged the President to continue on the path of probity, to take further steps to cut down the overbearing costs of governance and to put in place more comprehensive plans towards achieving both food and physical security across the country.

He said merely distributing money through already corruption-riddled structures is not enough and diminishes the dignity of citizens.

The cleric argued that no one needs to line up to receive aid when the nation is not in a war.

“Give our people back their farms and develop a comprehensive agricultural plan to put our country back on the path of honour and human dignity,” he said.

Floky215:
And again..one add value to humanity the other add zero value..!!

The federal government has released a sum of N90 billion to subsidise the 2024 pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Daily Trust has learnt.

An impeccable source within the National Hajj Commission of Nigeria (NAHCON) revealed this to Daily Trust on Thursday.

The source, who asked not to be named, noted that without this intervention, each of the intending pilgrims would have been requested to add at least N3.5 million to the initial fare which was pegged at N4.9 million.

A top official at the Presidency also confirmed that the federal government “actually provided some financial support for the hajj exercise”.

Recall that the NAHCON had, in December last year, fixed a fare of N4.9 million per pilgrim based on the exchange rate of N897 to a dollar.

In announcing the fare at that time, the commission had quoted the sum of N4,899,000 for southern pilgrims; N4,699,000 for those from the North; while pilgrims from Yola and Maiduguri centres were asked to pay N4,679,000.

Through a statement issued on Sunday by its spokesperson, Fatima Usara, the hajj commission had raised the fare by N1, 918,032.91, jacking up the total amount to N6.8 million.

The commission had also said intending pilgrims had up to yesterday (March 28, 2024) to make payment for the spiritual exercise.

The NAHCON had attributed the latest hike in hajj fare to the foreign exchange crisis which Nigeria has been battling for months.

The NAHCON’s source told Daily Trust that if the commission had received up to N230 billion as support from the federal government, there would have been no need to ask intending pilgrims “to add a dime.”

“The forex crisis has caused a lot of problems. That is why the Hajj Commission has asked intending pilgrims to pay the extra amount of N1.9 million each. The commission actually needed N230 billion to sort out the fare differential caused by the forex crisis.

“The N90 billion support which was provided by the government was announced in the presence of reporters during the inauguration of the board and management of the Hajj Commission which was held at the Office of the Vice Presidency on February 28, 2024. But they (reporters) were asked not to report it. That was why no newspaper carried the report. Or did you see it in any reports?”

“If the intending pilgrims pay ₦1.9 million, it is then it can be balanced,” the source further stated.

He said the NAHCON had also contacted state governors “to subsidise the hajj fare for the intending pilgrims in their respective states. Kano has responded by subsiding it by N500,000 for each pilgrim.

“By the previous calculation, the N90 billion given by the federal government can only subsidise 19,000 intending pilgrims by ₦3.5 million. But by spreading it on 50,000 pilgrims, it reduces it to N1.9 million; meaning that the federal government has subsidised each pilgrim by ₦1.6 million before each intending pilgrim was asked to add the remaining N1.9 million,” he said.

A presidency source, who also spoke to Daily Trust yesterday, said it was true that the federal government had provided what he called a “huge financial support” for this year’s hajj exercise.

Asked to confirm whether the federal government released up to N90 billion as support for the pilgrimage, the official simply said: “that might not be far from the truth.”

He added, “Of course, the federal government has offered support for the pilgrims because the pilgrims have been lamenting.

“Normally, any support that the government is giving to any faith, whether the Christian faith or the Muslim faith, the government does not like to announce it openly so that it will not appear as if the government is favouring on faith.”

The Central Bank of Nigeria has issued a circular to Bureau De Change operators (BDCs) informing them that they sold $10,000 to each BDC at a rate of N1,251/$1.

In a circular seen by Nairametrics, each BDC is to sell the dollars to eligible customers at a rate not exceeding 1.5% above the purchase price.

This suggest BDC are not expected to sell above N1,269/$1.

“We refer to our letter to you referenced TED/DIR/CON/GOM/001/071 in respect of the above subject wherein the CB approved a second tranche of sale of FX to eligible BDCs.

We write to inform you of the sale of $10,000 to each BDC at the rate of N1,251/$1. The BDCs are to sell to eligible end users at a spread of NOT MORE THAN 1.5 per cent above the purchase price.”

This confirms a resumption of sale of dollars to BDC operators after a protracted period of ban by the central bank in 2021.

The ban was lifted earlier in the year following the revocation of licences of over 4173 BDC operators in February.

Investigations by Nairametrics reveal that the exchange rate dropped below N1,400/$1 in the parallel market after closing at N1,431/$1 on Friday, with the referenced NAFEX rate at N1,382/$1.

What this means
At an estimated 1,500 BDC licenses remaining, Nairametrics estimates that over $15 million might have been sold into the retail end of the market. Before the revocation Nigeria had an estimated 5,689 licenses.

The resumption of forex sales to BDCs indicates that the apex bank is refocusing on enhancing liquidity in the retail segment of the forex market.

Previously, price arbitrage was a significant reason for the prohibition of forex sales to operators during Emefiele’s tenure, a time when the exchange rate was fixed.

However, with the exchange rate now being “market-determined” under a new forex regime, the apex bank believes that operators no longer have the incentive to engage in arbitrage by purchasing at lower rates from the CBN and selling at higher rates in the parallel market.

By enhancing liquidity, the central bank aims to stabilize the forex market, narrow the gap between official and parallel market rates, and ultimately reduce the volatility of exchange rates.

This strategy is expected to make forex more accessible to retail and small-scale enterprises, fostering a more transparent and efficient market.

If sustained, Nairametrics projects that the impact of improved liquidity could lead to an even stronger Naira in the short term. This is further supported by the expected hike in MPR rates when the CBN meets later this week.

Putindbutt:
Very good, keep it up nigga. My own destiny no de observe bad news like your destiny. when bad new jam una family too, make sure you use same energy to mention me, i will sympathize with you.

NaijaCoverBlog:
Source: https://dailypost.ng/2024/03/24/ondo-murdered-woman-stabbed-by-mentally-challenged-teenage-niece-police/

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Putindbutt:
Of course, enemies of the state with their usual propaganda. Shebi you're in the bush with the bandits to know they are not complete. Make sure you take good care of the remaining students in the bush, Ode boy.

HonNL:
SOURCE

Putindbutt:
These newspapers report both sides but enemies like wake up every morning, looking for the negative reportings only.

Putindbutt:
So, you agreed that terrorism is PDP legacy, very good.