By Collins Nweze

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy at $495 billion, spends just 3.75 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on healthcare, compared with 4.8 per cent in Kenya, 8.11 per cent in South Africa and 13.42 per cent in Sierra Leone.

Outside of the continent, Brazil spends 9.47 per cent and the United States 17 per cent, according to figures from the World Bank.

As a consequence of under-investment, bringing Nigeria in line with the world average of 2.7 beds per 1000 people would require 386,000 more beds and entail a massive $82 billion investment in healthcare real estate assets, according to Knight Frank’s Healthcare Consulting Team.

The country needs more 4,000 beds and an investment of $870 million just to keep up with its 2019 bed ratio, given population growth.

With 206million people, Nigeria’s population is forecast by the United Nations to almost double by 2050. This would make it the world’s third most populous country after India and China and render the healthcare trajectory unsustainable.

At barely 4.5 per cent of the the Federal Government’s budget, expenditure on health is below the 15 per cent benchmark set by the African Union in 2001, according to the World Bank.

The country ranks 56th out of 60 countries globally surveyed by the Economist Intelligence Unit for ease of citizen access to quality healthcare services.

Even Nigeria’s elites struggle to access adequate healthcare at home. Abba Kyari, President Muhammadu Buhari’s chief of staff, died at 67 in April from coronavirus, while Abiola Ajimobi, the former Governor of Oyo state, died at 71 of underlying health conditions made worse by COVID-19 in June.

Nigeria’s capacity for testing for coronavirus has been woefully inadequate. Nigeria had tested about 0.2 per cent of its population compared with six per cent tested in South Africa, as of September 1.

Even before coronavirus, interest in African healthcare assets had been growing. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a part of the World Bank, and the biggest investor in African private healthcare, teamed up with the Investment Fund for Health in Africa-II, or IFHA-II, in late 2019 to launch a $115million company to acquire healthcare service businesses in eastern and southern Africa.

Backers of IFHA include European development finance organisations, such as Swedfund, along with the likes of Pfizer and Stichting Social Investor Foundation for Africa (SIFA’s contributors include AEGON, Heineken, Shell, and Unilever).

Nigeria-based Flying Doctors Healthcare Investment Co., which operates an air ambulance service and has been rapidly building mobile testing centres for COVID-19, has invested $200 million in healthcare technology companies and plans to set up a $1 billion fund for further investment in healthcare and wellness across Africa.

Hafeez Giwa, managing partner at HC Capital Properties, a west and central African real estate investment and development company that has started to invest in healthcare assets in Nigeria, says: “There is a very compelling opportunity for the development of world-class healthcare facilities across Africa, but especially Nigeria. Most of the public hospitals here were constructed over 40 years ago and only a handful have received any investment since then.”

Agency Reporter

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved a $7 million grant from the Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA) for technical assistance in setting up a mini-grid acceleration initiative to meet the needs of the continent’s fast-evolving renewable mini-grid industry.

The Africa Mini-Grid Market Acceleration Programme (AMAP), which aims to boost energy access in remote regions and enhance climate resilience throughout Africa, will include three core components: the implementation of a new and standardised framework for national-scale Mini-Grid Acceleration Programmes (MAPs) in four countries; the design and enhancement of financial de-risking solutions; and support for knowledge, innovation, and skills development activities, including the continuation of the bank’s Green Mini-Grid Help Desk website.

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The bank’s Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate and Green Growth, Dr. Kevin Kariuki, said: “Mini-grids are an integral and increasingly important feature of the energy access solution, not just in terms of providing lights to households, but also in ensuring that underserved populations have access to productive uses of energy to power inclusive and green economic growth.

“AMAP underscores the AfDB’s commitment to strengthening Africa’s mini-grids industry, which we see as a key driver for accelerated energy access, climate resilience, and a green post COVID-19 recovery.”

By leveraging the bank’s  leadership and years of experience in building the African mini-grid industry, AMAP’s aim is to transform the scale of public and private investments in renewable energy mini-grids in Africa, including such initiatives as the Green Mini-Grid Market Development Programme, the Nigeria National Electrification Project, and the DRC Green Mini-Grid Programme.

 

By Collins Nweze

 

The Association of Bureaux De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) has said there is the need to deploy seamless channels that would allow beneficiaries of diaspora remittances easy access to their funds.

In a statement yesterday, ABCON’s President, Aminu Gwadabe, said such move would boost Nigeria’s dollar inflows, support naira’s stability and  development.

He applauded Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN’s) policy, which allows  beneficiaries of diaspora remittances through International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs) to receive such inflows in foreign currency (US Dollars) through the designated bank of their choice.

He said such move would end  malpractices making dollar scarce and keeping the local currency at the mercy of the greenback.

He said the CBN’s directives have helped to usher in naira rebound to N465/$ in the parallel market and should be upheld.

Data on IMTOs inflows into the country over the past year, and through investigations indicate that some IMTOs, rather than compete on improving transaction volumes and create more efficient ways for Nigerians in the Diaspora to remit funds, resorted to engaging in arbitrage arrangements on the naira-dollar exchange rate, which to a large extent resulted in a significant drop in flows into the country.

This encouraged the use of unsafe unofficial channels, which also supported diversion of remittance flows meant for Nigeria, thereby undermining Nigeria’s Foreign Exchange management framework.

The CBN had also blamed MMOs for flouting its directives, insisting that despite spelling out procedures “regrettably, a few operators continue to pay remittances in local currency contrary to the regulatory directive”.

The regulator therefore directed all MMOs to immediately disable wallets from receipt of funds from IMTOs while Payment service providers are directed to cease integrating their systems with IMTOs going forward and must prevent the coming ling of remittances with other legitimate transactions.

Gwadabe insists that for Nigeria to get the full value of what is due to her in the remittance market, BDCs have to be included in the remittances  payment channels and allowed to receive funds from Nigerians in Diaspora.

He listed importance of migrant remittances to the economy to include serving as a lifeline for the recipients small house hold in the economy and used for health, nutrition, education and societal needs.

The remittances are also higher than both Foreign Direct Investment and foreign aids flow to the economy and still, are cheaper sources of funds.

Gwadabe  said there are over 1.24 million Nigerian Migrants abroad and 50 per cent of them live within the African neighbour hood, and the figure is expected to rise in the coming years.

By Collins Nweze

 

The Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020 permits electronic share transfers and private companies can hold their virtual general meetings, the Head of Legal, Compliance & Governance of  Advans Lafayette Microfinance Bank Limited, Jennifer Halim-Ubahakwe has said.

She said the new CAMA is Nigeria’s most significant business legislation in three decades and it introduces new provisions that promote ease of doing business and reduces regulatory hurdles.

Explaining the revision of CAMA on Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria, Halim-Ubahakwe, a lawyer whose repertoire spans the practice of Corporate Commercial Law, Corporate Governance and Commercial Dispute Resolution, said small business owners are the biggest beneficiaries of the CAMA 2020.

Speaking on the impact of the Reduction of Filing Fees for Registration of Charges for those aspiring to register their businesses in Nigeria, she states that this provision introduces a significant reduction in the fees payable for the registration of charges.

It is a good incentive for potential and established businesses in Nigeria especially for those in the lending market as it saves cost and allows for ease of doing business.

Prior to the repeal of CAMA, 2004, the fees for filing and registration of charges as applicable to private and public companies were N10,000 on every N1,000,000 (1 per cent) and N20,000 on every N1million (two per cent).

By Section 222 (12) of the new CAMA, 2020, the fees payable to the Commission with respect to the filing, registration or release of a charge with the Commission shall not exceed 0.35 per cent of the value of the charge or such other amount as the Minister may specify in the Federal Government Gazette. 

Under the new CAMA, The Business Rescue makes provisions to protect MSMEs from being declared bankrupt. The Act introduces a framework for rescuing a company in distress and to keep it alive which gives some assurance and comfort to founders and investors as against allowing such entity to become insolvent. SMEs can leverage on the Company Voluntary Arrangement and the Administration provisions of the new Act.

Under Company Voluntary Arrangement, the directors may  propose to its creditors for a negotiated arrangement towards the satisfaction of its debt or a scheme of arrangement of its affairs to prevent the company from being wound up.

By Collins Nweze

FCI and Afreximbank have announced the appointment of Nassourou Aminou as the new Regional Manager for Africa.

Aminou is a Cameroonian and joins FCI with experience in factoring, credit insurance and Information Technology.

He was a consultant specialising in the development and implementation of factoring software in African countries.

Earlier, he worked with Coface as Regional Head of Factoring Projects. During this period, he launched the first factoring in West & Central Africa with 10 commercial banks, combining credit insurance and technology coupled with their financing to support the growth of the factoring activities of these banks.

Aminou, who also worked as an auditor for PwC and other accounting firms in the region holds a master’s in Accounting and Finance from the Catholic University of Central Africa, Yaoundé, Cameroon.

FCI Secretary-General, Peter Mulroy said: “I am delighted that Nassourou has joined the FCI team.

‘’As Africa is still in its infancy stage in terms of a developing factoring market, it requires the support of experienced professionals to promote factoring and its best practices. Nassourou will be close to factoring providers to assist them in launching the product. He possesses significant experience, skills and an abundance of enthusiasm, and we know that Nassourou will make a great addition to our team and support FCI and the Afreximbank in our mission to help spread factoring to all corners of the continent.”

Managing Director, Intra-African Trade Initiative at Afreximbank and Chairperson of the FCI Africa Chapter, Mrs. Kanayo Awani,  added: “The FCI Africa Chapter will benefit a great deal from  Aminou’s experience. He will support the Bank and FCI’s efforts in promoting and creating much-needed awareness about factoring as well as its legal and regulatory advocacy work on the adoption of the Afreximbank Model Law on Factoring.

“Aminou will help in capacity building and bespoke training to support emerging factors, regulators, lawmakers, and other stakeholders. The perennial challenge of the absence of payment and credit information resulting in the conspicuous lack of access to credit insurance, a key requirement for the growth of factoring, will be given prominence.”

By Collins Nweze

In commemoration of the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Access Bank’s ‘W’ Initiative, a flagship women empowerment programme, has organised a breast cancer  campaign for eight weeks.

The event spread awareness about the realities of breast cancer in Nigeria and also created opportunities for women to get free screening by medical experts.

This campaign, which aimed at improving community awareness on health issues that affect women and their families, screened over 300 women in Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt.

In addition to cervical screening in Lagos, courtesy of partner hospitals, female staff members of Access Bank also benefited from the campaign, enjoying access to the breast cancer screenings.

Group Head, W Initiative, Access Bank Plc, Ayona Trimnell, said: “We are very delighted to see all the Nigerian women we were able to support with our breast cancer campaign. Breast cancer is a major health issue affecting women in Nigeria, with little attention been placed on its impact. We encourage the women who participated from the free screening and other women across Nigeria to continue to have regular check-ups from their gynaecologists and also enlighten other women on the importance of a regular breast screening.”

“At Access Bank, we hope to do so much more for the women who have trusted us with their resources as we launch new campaigns that would educate, enlighten, and provide them with the financial assistance they need to live healthy and full lives,” she added.

The W Initiative has become home to everything Access Bank has to offer women. These privileges range from financial to lifestyle needs.

Under the initiative, participating women and their families have been given access to a wide range of privileges, including access to credit facilities to not only fund women owned businesses but also healthcare needs.

By Collins Nweze

The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) has reiterated its commitment to supporting African entrepreneurs adversely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic to recover, grow and sustain their operations.

Speaking during a virtual media programme at the weekend, TEF Chief Executive Officer, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, said the opening of the application portal for its entrepreneurship programme on January 1, 2021, was to support young African entrepreneurs’ recovery especially at this period of the pandemic.

She said that most Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) do not have the shock absorber that the bigger organisations and have remained at the receiving end of most economic and health crisis.

She said the TEF will continue to deepen and expand its African entrepreneurship empowerment programmes across the continent.

Ugochukwu said the 2021 edition is the seventh in a series of the entrepreneurship programme which have continually given hope and financial support to thousands of African entrepreneurs.

According to her, till date, the Foundation has trained, mentored and funded over 9,000 African entrepreneurs. “We are also excited to say that PwC in conjunction with our Foundation has just completed an impact assessment report which would be released in the first quarter, to mark our 10-year anniversary. So, there is a lot happening in our Foundation,” Ugochukwu told the participants drawn across the continent.

She explained that after the application portal for last year closed, the pandemic lockdown took place across Africa and the entire world.

“We knew that we could not continue with the programme at that time because most people were under strict lockdown and there were no movements in their country.

“Most of our entrepreneurs often times needed to go to schools, business centres or offices to have access to the internet to take the programme. So, we decided to postpone the programme to 2021.

“Now, we all know that Africa had to bear the brunt of the health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. But for the economic impact, some people have said that Africa is the epicenter of the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the SMEs, which are the heartbeat and lifeblood of economies in Africa, is on the frontline.

‘’That is why for us, opening the application portal January 1, 2021, marked a new beginning. It marked the renaissance and the beginning of recovery; and the beginning of Africa really taking its place in the global stage,” she added.

According to her, from those that applied in 2020, the Foundation would still select 1,000 entrepreneurs who would be funded.

By Collins Nweze

 

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has debited the accounts of 23 deposit money banks with N349.72 billion over Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) breaches.

The debits are the latest in the regulator’s CRR debits meant to get the banks to lend to real sector operators.

The debits are also part of the apex bank’s move to mop up liquidity as inflation uptick persists.

The CRR debit for last month stood at  N226 billion.

The CRR is an important monetary policy tool used by the CBN to regulate the economy.

It is pertinent because, among others, it helps the apex financial institution to redirect focus to other strategic sectors of the economy such as the real sector, a goal that aligns with that of the central bank.

The CRR is also an important tool in managing the country’s foreign exchange liquidity since the whittling down of CBN’s OMO borrowing.

By the CRR policy, banks have a mandate to keep 27.5 per cent of deposits  with the CBN.

Fitch Ratings predicted a 20 per cent hit in the banks’ revenue this year due to the CRR policy and foreign exchange shortage.

It said Nigeria’s banks would face rising borrowing costs as the CBN’s  measures to support naira squeeze lenders, who already hit by COVID-19 pandemic and oil price shocks.

Some banks have already indicated they expect a hit. In April, mid-tier lender Fidelity Bank warned that 2020 profits would drop by 15 per cent.

Bankers said lenders were relying on existing customers to weather the storm as new lending looked risky with the economy expected to tip back into recession.

“General sentiment in the market is that CRR debits are carried out quite close to Foreign exchange auctions to prevent the banks from presenting large ticket forex demands at auctions,”  analysts said.

 

 

Those debits also hamper wider lending, going against Central Bank measures of lowering banks’ Loan-to-Deposit Ratios, she said. CBN data showed that credit to the private sector in April dropped by nearly two-thirds from end-2019.

 

Banks are dealing with slow growth, fall in lending, a lack of forex in the market and asset quality issues, saying he expected banks’ revenues to drop at least 20 per cent this year, though he did not expect any to make a loss.

 

Fitch predicts impaired loan ratios will rise sharply in 2020 with Nigerian banks the most exposed to stress in the oil sector compared to their peers in emerging markets elsewhere.