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Private Nigerian firms are to get US $100 million in mid-term loans from the US Export-Import Bank in a bid to expand the share of US business in the country's development drive, bank Chairman and President James Harmon said in Abuja.
"This week, we are taking an enormous step forward in our partnership by expanding our financing to cover the purchase of capital equipment," he said on Thursday at the Nigerian Economic Summit.
Ex-Im Bank, the US government's export credit agency, supported a record US $600 million in US exports to nine sub-Saharan African states in 1998, an 11-fold increase over fiscal 1997, the US information agency, USIS, said.
Harmon is on a 12-day visit to Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Mozambique.
Government bails out fertiliser firm
Government has approved a 2.08 billion naira (US $22
million) bail-out of the ailing state-run fertiliser
company to save it from collapse, AFP reported quoting
Information Minister Dapo Sarumi on Thursday. He said
that the cabinet approved the measure on Wednesday
to the National Fertiliser Company of Nigeria (NAFCON)
in line with a government privatisation plan. The plant
is one of major state companies the government plans
to sell.
Government to lower interest rates, says vice president
The government will continue to lower key interest rates in a drive to boost manufacturing and ease the country's overdependence on oil sales Vice President Atiku Abubakar said on Thursday. AFP reported the minimum discount rate at 20 percent and quoted the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria as saying earlier this month that the high rates had driven many of its members to cut staffing levels.
Central Bank lifts restriction on foreign exchange remittance
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) lifted on Thursday the ban on foreign exchange remittances by non-Nigerians, under the Debt Conversion Programme (DCP).
Consequently all interests, profits, dividends and capital proceeds previously prohibited can now be repatriated immediately. `The Guardian' quoted observers as saying that the amendment would boost foreigners' confidence in the DCP, which is seen as a tool to reduce the country's US $31 billion external debt.
Nigeria completes troop pullout from Liberia
The last of Nigerian ECOMOG units in Liberia arrived in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, on Wednesday ending a nine-year military presence in that country, `The Guardian' of Lagos reported.
The 16 officers and men were involved in "security operations" around Nigeria's interests and guarding arms and ammunition recovered during the disarmament of Liberia's former warring factions. The last of the weapons were destroyed on 19 October.
Government approves N100m for Y2K
President Olusegun Obasanjo approved on Thursday a take-off grant of 100 million naira (US $1.04 million) for the National Committee on Y2K bug compliance.
Minister of State for Science and Technology Pauline Tallen, who heads the committee, pledged on Thursday to ensure Y2K compliance and to create the awareness of the devastation that might be caused by failure to resolve the problem.
She said that many ministries and state owned firms had not attained 100 per cent compliance, barely 72 days to the expected computer problems.
She gave the Y2K status of the following sectors in Nigeria as: Telecommunications - 88 percent; Energy - 85 percent; Transport and Aviation - 75 percent; Financial sector - 50 percent; Government agencies - 41 percent; and Military - 30 percent.
Nigeria boosts diplomatic presence abroad
Military attaches recalled in 1995 from Nigerian missions abroad are due back in their posts before December, signalling the full return to diplomatic normalcy, 'The Guardian' said on Friday, quoting diplomatic sources in Abuja.
The government is also opening seven new foreign missions to enhance Nigeria's diplomatic impact. They will be in Bangladesh, Singapore, Thailand, Greece, Turkey, Ukraine and Mexico.
South-western Islamic youth body to migrate to north
An Islamic youth organisation, NACOMYO, in the south-western city of Ibadan said on Wednesday it might mobilise its members to migrate en-masse to states where Shar'ia (Islamic law) may be introduced, the `Vanguard' newspaper reported.
NACOMYO's president, Alhaji Kunle Sanni, said at a news conference that the organisation planned to start a nationwide demonstration in support of Zamfara State, which has been leading the recent drive to implement the Shar'ia.
Katsina sets up panel on Shar'ia and the constitution
A committee has been established by the Katsina State government to study the constitution as it affects the introduction of Islamic law, `The Guardian' newspaper reported on Friday. Governor Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, who inaugurated the committee on Thursday, said the need to review the constitution arose from public demands for the adoption of Shar'ia in the state.
Members of the committee, he said, included the state Grand Khadi, Alhaji Ahmad Batagarawa as chairman, Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Alhaji Ibrahim Shama; Justice Musa Danladi of the Katsina High Court, Director of the State Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Ishaq Nuhu Batagarawa and Alhaji Ahmed Mohammad Bawa Faskari.
The chief registrar of the Shar'ia Court of Appeal, Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar, will serve as the committee's secretary.
Christian cleric ask for calm
Amidst the clamour and anxiety generated by the demand for the Shar'ia in several northern states, a Kaduna-based Christian cleric, the Rev. Elizabeth Obadaki, has appealed for calm, the `Post Express' newspaper reported on Friday. She told reporters, as part of activities marking the fifth anniversary of the Chapel of Power in Kaduna on Tuesday, that if Christians in Zamfara and other states of the federation lived righteously, they would not be harmed.
House of Representatives boycotting joint sittings with the Senate
The House of Representatives says it will not attend any joint sitting of the National Assembly until Senate president Evans Enwerem resigns because of what it called serious moral questions about his qualifications, state radio reported on Thursday.
This follows the adoption of the recommendations of a report by a House committee which investigated allegations that Enwerem had committed perjury and falsified documents.
Ethics and Privileges Committee Chairman Faruk Lawal, said while submitting the report to the House, that the investigations showed that Enwerem did not attend the grammar school in Lagos from 1953 to 1957, the radio reported.
[ENDS]
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Item: irin-english-1836
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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 1999
Subscriber: afriweb@sas.upenn.edu Keyword: IRIN
Editor: Ali B. Ali-Dinar
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