Stock Watch

Katsina State Governor, Rt.Hon. Aminu Bello Masari(4th left); AGILE Project Task Team Lead, Aisha Garba(3rd left); AGILE Project Deputy National Project Cordinator, Mrs Ajanigo Abuka(6th right); other officials of the AGILE Project after the visit to the Government House recently

Reps pass N21.8trn 2023 budget

By Abubakar Yunus Abuja

The House of Representatives has passed the 2023 appropriation bill at N21.83 trillion.

This shows an increase of N1.32 trillion from the N20.51 trillion budget proposal of President Muhammadu Buhari.

A breakdown of the budget indicates an allocation of N967.5 billion for statutory transfers, N6.6 trillion for debt servicing, N8.3 trillion for recurrent expenditure, and N5.9 trillion for capital expenditure.

Meanwhile, the Senate has passed the 2022 supplementary budget of N819.5 billion.

According to the upper chamber, the amendment of the 2022 Appropriation Act is to ensure the implementation of the key capital project in the Act which has not been funded as at this time.

The upper chamber said it is expedient that the capital projects be extended to prevent the problem of abandoning projects in the budget.

The supplementary budget is to address food security following devastating floods across the country as well as damages to road infrastructure and the water sector.

Domestic airfares hit N70k in November — up by 98% in one year

By Abubakar Yunus,Abuja

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) says the average cost of domestic flight tickets in Nigeria increased to N73,267 in one year.

The NBS disclosed this in its recent Transport Fare Watch report for November 2022, released recently.

The latest figure shows that airfares increased by N36,245 which also represents a growth of 97.90 percent year-on-year.

According to the report, the average price of a single flight ticket increased by 0.09 percent from N73,198 in October to N73,267 in November 2022.

“In air travels fare, the average fare paid by air passengers for specified routes single journey, increased by 0.09 percent on a month-on-month [basis] from N73,198.65 in October 2022 to N73,267.57 in November 2022,” the report reads.

“On a year-on-year, the fare rose by 97.90 percent from N37,022.97 in November 2021.”

The report further showed that the states with the highest average prices of airplane tickets on a single journey include Taraba (N77,100), Delta (N76,500), Bayelsa and Oyo with N76,100, each.

States like Niger (N67,100), Gombe (N70,000), and Nasarawa (N70,100), recorded the lowest prices rate.

The NBS report also disclosed that the average fare paid by commuters for bus journeys within the city per drop, increased by 0.12 percent in November 2022 on a month-on-month basis from N636.30 in October 2022 to N637.10.

On a year-on-year basis, however, the average fare paid by

commuters for bus journeys within the city per drop, rose by 42.69 percent from N446.50 recorded in November 2021. “The average fare paid by commuters for bus journeys within the city per drop increased by 0.12 percent in November 2022 on a month-on-month from N636.30 in October 2022 to N637.10,” NBS said. “While on a year-on-year, however, the average fare paid by commuters for bus journeys within the city per drop, rose by 42.69 percent from N446.50 in November 2021.” Telcos threaten to withdraw USSD services over N80bn debt owed by banks

By Abubakar Yunus Abuja

The Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) says the accumulated debt from the unstructured supplementary service data (USSD), owed to them by banks, rose to N80 billion as at November this year.

Gbenga Adebayo, chairman of ATCON, made this known in a recent interview with Thisday.

He said a time would soon come when telecommunication companies would be forced to withdraw from USSD services as banks refused to pay.

“The debt is rising and has not been paid by the banks. As of November 2022, the accumulated debt rose to over N80 billion. When we started the argument in 2019, it was N32 billion, and they continue to claim that they are not owing, but our investigation shows that they are still using the USSD platform to offer banking services to their customers, yet they are not remitting to telecom operators who own the USSD platform,” Adebayo said.

He said the issue has to be addressed as it cannot be wished away.

“Time will soon come when we will be constrained to withdraw the service and many bank customers that depend on the USSD service will suffer for it and it will affect the economy. It is hounorable to pay their debts and they have to pay,” Adebayo said.

“We are warning that the banks’ action in refusing to pay their debt, will have negative consequence on the CBN’s cashless economy agenda for the country. It will be a threat to cashless economy. So, CBN should advise money deposit banks to pay up the accumulated debts.”

Deposit Money Banks (DMO) and telecom operators have been at odds since 2019 over nonremittance of USSD fees.

In 2019, telcos said they could no longer provide the services for free and proposed to take a cut of N4.50k per 20 seconds from the charges paid by customers to the banks.

However, the banks kicked against it, alleging that it would raise costs by 450 percent.

On March 12, 2021, telecom operators said they would suspend the USSD service over N42 billion accumulated debt by banks — a move halted by Isa Pantami, minister of communications and digital economy.

In a meeting headed by the minister on March 16, 2021, mobile network operators (MNOs) and deposit money banks (DMBs) agreed to reduce the charge on customers to N6.98 for each USSD transaction.