Health

NCAA: Airline operators risk imprisonment, N5m fine for non-remittance of ticket sales charge

By Abubakar Yunus Abuja

The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) says airline operators who fail to remit the mandatory five percent ticket sales charge and cargo sales charge (TSC/CSC) risk a two-year imprisonment, N5 million fine, or both penalties.

This is contained in the newly introduced civil aviation act (CAA) 2022.

The five percent TSC/CSC is statutory and deducted from the total air ticket paid by air passengers to airlines, and the same applies to cargo charge.

The sum is shared among four aviation agencies: NCAA, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA), Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET), and the Nigerian Safety Investigation Bureau (NSIB).

President Muhammadu Buhari had assented to the CAA 2022 in August.

On the five percent TSC/ CSC, section 23(1) of the CAA 2022 states thus: “There shall be a 5 percent of airfare, contract, charter and cargo sales charge payable to the authority, which shall apply on all international and domestic air transportation originating in Nigeria irrespective of place of sale, issuance of air ticket or execution of the contract of carriage.”

The CAA, in section 23 (2) further stipulated that “the 5 percent of airfare, contract, charter and cargo sales charge shall be chargeable on the total amount, excluding statutory fees and taxes – (a) paid by a passenger for an airfare; in a contract relating to carriage of persons or goods for hire and reward in the case of air transportation not involving the issuance of an air ticket; (c) paid for a charter flight; and (d) of the cargo sales”.

Section 23(10) added that “an air operator, which fails to remit to the authority, within the time specified in the regulations the 5 percent charge, commits an offence and its directors are each liable on conviction to a fine of N5,000,000 or imprisonment for a period of two years or both”.

The NCAA had threatened to sanction domestic airlines for over N19 billion debt on ticket sales in August, 2022.

The industry regulator, while appealing to the airlines to pay their debts, said the N19 billion on ticket charges were collected from passengers but the aviation firms refused to remit to the agency.

Last year, Hadi Sirika, the minister of aviation, had said Nigerian airlines owed various federal agencies to the tune of N37 billion.

CBN: Over 6,000 BVNs linked to fraudulent

transactions in Q1 2022 under watch

By Abubakar Yunus Abuja

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) says it placed over 6,000 bank verification numbers (BVN) of customers under watchlist for transactions linked to fraud in the first quarter (Q1) of 2022.

The apex bank made this known in its recently-released financial stability June 2022 report.

According to the report, the number of watchlisted BVNs for fraudulent activities rose by 13.09 percent to 6,047 BVNs, from 5,347 in the last quarter of 2021.

It also noted that 11,871 BVNs were watch-listed as deceased persons in the review period.

The report said the CBN conducted an assessment of 28 banks and the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NISS) to ascertain compliance with the regulatory framework for BVN operations and watchlist for the Nigerian banking industry.

It added that the assessment revealed some infractions and regulatory actions were taken.

Meanwhile, 2.72 million BVNs were enrolled in the first half of this year, the report said, bringing the total number of enrolled BVNs to 54.65 million.

Also, the number of accounts linked with BVNs was 130.57 million out of 148.46 million active accounts in the considered period.

“The number of accounts linked with BVNs was 130,569,656 out of 148,462,947 active customer accounts, while the number of watch-listed BVNs associated with fraud and deceased persons stood at 6,047 and 11,871, respectively,” the report reads.

In March, 2022, four Nigerian deposit money banks (DMBs) lost a total of N1.77bn to fraudulent activities involving the banks’ employees and consumers in 2021.

The banks were Access Bank Plc, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, First Monument City Bank, and Wema Bank.

he SDP Presidential Candidate, Prince Adewole Adebayo during the party Campaigns Rally recently in Oyo State

NNPC’s transition, off-spec petrol —how oil sector fared in 2022

As the world adjusted to new economic realities in 2022, the oil industry was not left out, with major sectoral shifts occurring in the year.

The Nigerian oil sector, like other sectors, sometimes showed bolstering resilience, wading through high storms. Other times, surrounding issues affected the sector to its marrow.

In this article, Peoples Daily highlights some oil and gas events that became the cynosure of 2022.

In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global oil prices surged to more than $130 a barrel amid a shortfall in global supplies from Russia.

Due to the increased international prices, oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia raked in high oil revenues.

Though it was expected that Nigeria, a major oil producer, would get more revenue; the country could not produce enough crude oil to maximise the high price of the commodity, even as it struggled to meet the quota set by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

With an output of 1.39 million barrels of oil in January, the country’s production declined for four consecutive months before it increased to 1.15 million bpd in June.

Setting the pace for another bout of decline, oil production averaged 1.08 million in July. In August, oil output hit an all-time low — falling below the 1 million mark — only rising above the level in September.

For October and November the country’s oil output averaged 1,014,485 bpd, and 1.18 million bpd, respectively.

Overall, the country failed to record above 1.4 million in the year 2022. There are also indications that the underproduction may extend till 2023.

Timipre Sylva, minister of petroleum resources, had said Nigeria should meet the production quota set by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in May 2023.

“Nigeria’s production of crude had improved to about 1.3 million barrels per day from under 1 million barrels previously, and the country hoped to meet its OPEC quota by May of next year (2023),” he had said.

In 2021, the country produced between 1.4 million bpd and 1.7 million bpd. But diverse issues, including oil theft and pipeline vandalism, culminated in the oil output dip in 2022.

Several institutions and authority figures lamented that the menace affected the sector tremendously, estimating the monetary value and volume of loss at huge numbers.

In June 2022, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) said Nigeria lost $1 billion in the first quarter of the year.

In November 2022, the senate committee investigating oil theft and its consequent damage to the country’s economy said Nigeria lost N1.3 trillion ($2 billion) to oil theft between January and August 2022.

Apart from the losses recorded, significant volumes of crude oil were shut-in consistently due to theft.

When an oil well is shut-in, it is closed off so that it stops producing.

Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO), Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, had said Nigeria loses 700,000 bpd to crude oil theft and production shut-ins.

“We had the capacity to do 2.1 million. You can technically say that you have lost about 700,000 barrels of oil per day of production. But it doesn’t mean 700,000 bpd are stolen,” Kyari had said.

“What in reality happens is that when those stealing take place, we probably lose up to 200,000 bpd of direct losses to thieves. And beyond this, once you have this infraction getting to a level we cannot manage, in some instances, some of the pipeline losses get up to 80 percent to 90 percent loss at one point.”

Also speaking on the issue, NUPRC had said about 1.2 million barrels of oil are shut-in consistently due to the menace.

But the federal government said it was working with relevant stakeholders to curb the issue.

It appeared that such ‘collaboration’ paid off in the long run.

The NNPC awarded a pipeline surveillance contract — reportedly worth N48 billion annually (N4bn per month) — to an exmilitant warlord, Government Ekpemupolo, otherwise known as Tompolo.

In October, a private pipeline surveillance team, Tantita security services, led by Tompolo, arrested a vessel used for crude oil theft off the Niger Delta creeks. The vessel was subsequently destroyed.

More so, in the same month, NNPC said it uncovered an illegal 4-kilometre (km) pipeline from Forcados terminal to the sea, and a loading port that had operated for nine years.

Despite these feats, Babagana Monguno, the national security adviser, said Nigeria may lose $23 billion in 2023, if oil theft is not fully curbed.