Three hundred and forty megawatts of electricity would be added to the national grid before December 2017, Babatunde Fashola (photo), Minister of Power, Works and Housing, revealed on Thursday. Speaking while inspecting ongoing works at the Afam Power Plant in River State, Fashola explained that the 340MW would be generated from the power plant alone while a further 276MW would be generated from...

Leading online payment service provider, PayU, has said that it is increasing its efforts to connect businesses to Nigeria’s online payment market this year. This is expected to increase annual online payments in the country to over N200 billion ($623mln) against the N167billion ($520mln) last year. “In order to pursue PayU’s aggressive expansion in the online payment market in Nigeria,...

The Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has revealed that proceeds generated between 2011 and 2014 from crude oil amounting to $36.9 billion have not been paid into the federation account. According to the agency, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was responsible for $21billion out of the money while the remaining $15.9billion was payment...

Nigeria, Africa’s second largest crude oil producer, plans to raise $1.2billion through planned financial package, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Emmanuel Kachikwu (photo), revealed. This fund when raised will be used to upgrade the country’s ailing refineries, as part of plans to put an end to its dependence on imports of oil products by 2019. “We are still far from...

In Madagascar, early harvest of green vanilla by Malagasy producers in the Sambava, one of the country’s main producing areas, situated in its north-eastern part, has impaired the quality of the pods, Reuters reported. Indeed, vanilla’s quality is directly related to its maturity, therefore harvesting the beans too early brings down the percentage of vanillin in them, the molecule that is...

International Finance Corporation (IFC), subsidiary of the World Bank, has awarded a $55 million financing to Mozambique for the construction of its first utility scale solar photovoltaic plant. With a capacity 40.5MW, the infrastructure will be developed in Mocuba by Norwegian firm Scatec Solar. It will provide power to 175,000 households and costs $80 million. Power produced at the...

In Cote d’Ivoire, state agents who sold public properties will be prosecuted, the government decided in a council of ministers held on June 7. “Most of the lands were sold before 2011 and it even happened that some of the plots or State properties were sold to private operators very cheaply under opaque conditions. This is harmful to Cote d’Ivoire. Those behind this practice behaved in a...

Nigeria will from June 13 commence an international road show for the sale of a diaspora bond worth between $100million and $300 million, according to the Debt Management Office (DMO). The country has also named Bank of America Merill Lynch and the Standard Bank of South Africa as her joint lead managers. The debt office in a statement said the roadshow will commence with meetings...

Leading Nigerian indigenous oil and gas company, Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, in its operations update revealed that it has succeeded in returning production at OMLs 4, 38 and 41 to the levels they were before. According to the company, the production was returned to levels of around 75,000 bopd and 290 MMscfd, or 125,000 boepd respectively, after it recommenced the injection of...

FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria Plc, has launched a milk collection plant with a per day capacity of 12,000 litres of raw milk and an annual capacity of 4.32million litres in Oyo State, Nigeria. With the new plant FrieslandCampina’s per day milk gathering capacity in the country has reached 40,000litres. “This is FrieslandCampina WAMCO’s fifth milk collection plant in Oyo and will see...