More Nigeria News
1. The new Finance Act came into effect February 1, 2020. Some small businesses no longer pay Income Tax or value-added tax (sales tax). This is only for small businesses in the agriculture, construction, and automotive industries. These tax breaks and other laws are intended to enhance the ease of doing business, support growth of existing businesses and attract new investment in those three industries. The ultimate goal is to increase employment. I say a strategy designed to increase foreign businesses and jobs is a less optimal strategy than creating internal entrepreneurs who employ their own people. Nigeria's economic strategy is geared towards helping foreign companies get rich by employing Nigerians on the cheap in the same manner as India and China have been the slave plantations for Europeans. 2. Banks and other financial enterprises such as venture capitalists in Nigeria are making agricultural loans with interest of not more than 9 percent. [that's expensive. Africans have been trained to think they should be charged high interest rates based on false risk factors used as weaponized tools against fools of psychological warfare]The agricultural loan scheme is one of Nigeria's Central Bank's projects on agriculture that seeks to initiate rapid expansion in the Agricultural sector and eradicate food insecurity. These high-priced loans are promoted as making it easy for farmers and other businesses in the sector to access bank loans. A middleman company between the borrower and lender is quoted as saying “it is easy for farmers to pay back loans because the loan plan gives them a longer period to repay, is more flexible, interest rates are not as high as it used to be and the loans are non-collateral.” This middleman also said that since his company began to “assist uneducated farmers and Agric businessmen to access loans, monitoring their production and ensuring profitable sales, none of them has defaulted in repaying the loans because they don’t even feel it when the banks do their deductions.” [If they don't feel it, they must be still uneducated and sedated]. According to the Central Bank of Nigeria, over 1.13 million jobs have been created along the various agricultural value chains. The Agriculture sector is 21 percent of GDP, but 70% of the population relies on that 21% of revenue generation. This means, that even though the Oil Sector of Nigeria is 70% of GDP, most of the people in Nigeria are likely not benefiting from Nigeria's oil resource. If they were, they should have free water, school, medical, low taxes, good roads, electricity, internet. 3. The circular economy approach advocates reduce-reuse-recycle and regenerative design. Currently, Europe is leading the circular economy shift, with China and Japan following closely. [This is problematic for many reasons. It will not work in their worldview] African is slowly beginning to adopt circular economy ideology. Several African countries have banned plastic bags and single-use plastics. Rwanda is enforcing the production and use of eco-friendly packaging. Nigeria is creating plastic recycling plants, but supposedly many are not being used. Like Ghana, tons of used electronics are shipped each year into Nigeria from the West. 4. Nigeria projected a 5-year growth in mining from 0.33% of GDP to 3%. Nigeria secured a $600 million investment to develop an iron ore project. Nigeria has oil, gold, lead, zinc, limestone, and coal to name a few of their resources. A recent report shows that about 44 minerals have been reported in Nigeria. The article goes on to paint the picture and indicate suggest and sometimes outright state that Nigeria does not have enough information, technology or knowledge to take advantage of its natural resources. Of course, the report, which was most likely prepared by Europeans, states that other challenges are infrastructure, money, illegal mining and other communities fighting against the mining companies who are on their land taking their resources. Nigeria's solution is to require the mining companies to sign agreements with local communities. In exchange, the mining companies must develop and maintain the communities they are robbing and devastating. In other words, the mining companies are told to bribe the communities to make peace with them. Break them off some crumbs. The communities are called “hosts” but they should be called hostages to Nigeria's government. If Nigeria really wanted to help those communities, they would educate them as to the value of their land, resources and other rights and help them negotiate the best agreement. Otherwise how do you expect villagers to make an informed decision when talking to mining experts and their lawyers?From gemstones alone, annual revenue of 12 billion is projected. 5. United Arab Emirates indicated an interest in completion and running of the maintenance, repair, and overhaul facility (MRO) at the Victor Attah International Airport. Africa’s aviation industry is seen as a potential for revenue generation, particularly for Middle East carriers. Fellow regional airlines, Qatar Airways also recently expressed interest in a major expansion in Africa.
The Qatari carrier is also in talks to buy a 49 percent stake in RwandAir. In December, Qatar Airways agreed to own 60 percent of a new airport in Rwanda. Rwanda's aviation industry has been expanding mainly due to loans such as the Eurobond. [See recent message on Ghana's Eurobond stupidity] 6. When it comes to developing an economic advantage, people are no longer looking at China and India, and instead are looking at Africa's affordable workforce. Outsource Global is a company was created with the idea to open the population of Nigeria as potential workers for American companies. With the right planning and potential to take advantage, western and European economies can be ready to take advantage of this emerging population. The African worker population is ripe to be taken advantage of for economic growth in the future.
