Collapsed Ikoyi building: 32 bodies recovered in 4 days
The Lagos State government on Thursday confirmed the recovery of a total of 32 bodies from the rubble of the 21-storey building that collapsed on Gerard road, Ikoyi, on Monday. Among the bodies recovered on Thursday afternoon was that of Femi Osibona, CEO of Fourscore Heights Limited, developers of the ill-fated building.
The number of victims rescued alive from rubble still stood at nine, as of yesterday. Three of the rescued victims, BusinessDay gathered, have been discharged, while six are still receiving medical attention in a hospital, with the Lagos State government picking up the bill. On his third visit to the site on Thursday, the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, expressed satisfaction with the rescue operation and commended the first responders for their efforts. He also met with some of the distressed family members at the site and gave words of encouragement.
The actual number of persons trapped in the collapsed 21-storey building remains unclear, but 32 fatalities have been recorded, the governor confirmed. Sanwo-Olu, while giving an update to the press, disclosed that family members had submitted 19 names of those still missing, saying the ongoing corona inquest on the bodies evacuated from the site was expected to be concluded Friday, November 5, after which families would be invited to identify them.
Access Bank empowers women in business, SMEs
Access Bank has restated its commitment to, through the W Initiative, inspire, connect and empower women who are into business. In 2019, Access Bank and Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF) launched a N2 billion matching fund loan scheme to support women-owned businesses operating in Lagos State. The loan scheme caters to start-ups, micro-enterprises as well as small and medium scale enterprises with loans ranging from N50,000 to N5 million.
As a way of increasing awareness and bridging the information gap, the Access Bank’s W Initiative and LSETF teams embarked on a series of grassroots engagement sessions in the month of October to sensitise business women resident in Lagos on the availability of the facility, the processes as well as requirements involved. While opening the session, the group head of the W Initiative, Abiodun Olubitan, said that “women are a driving force in the Nigerian economy, but their access to finance is far too small. Therefore, Access Bank partnered with LSETF to bridge the gap. This initiative will increase the contributions of women-owned businesses to the Nigerian economy and can have a significant development impact.”
Cooking gas price to rise further ahead of Christmas
Cooking gas price in Nigeria will rise further in the approach to Christmas following a widening gap between supply and demand, the depreciation in the value of the local currency as well as new charges imposed by the federal government on imported gas, the association of liquefied gas markets said Thursday. In addition to this, the vast increase of the price of gas on the global market is also impacting gas prices in Nigeria where up to 40 per cent of consumption is being met by imported gas from countries like Algeria and the Central African Republic. Cooking gas storage tanks are drying up across Nigeria and the depreciation of the local currency means that fewer marketers are now able to import gas, intensifying the crisis.
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Mr Olatunbosun Oladapo, president of the marketers association said the federal government must now intervene by suspending the new charges on imported gas and also by incentivising investors to go into exploration and production of gas in Nigeria to plug the shortfall in supply. A 12.5KG cylinder of cooking gas today sells for nearly N10,000 with marketers buying a 20MT tank of gas at N11.6m up from the N3.8m for which the same tank of gas was bought in January this year. Nigeria’s local production of cooking gas is estimated at 600,000 but efforts to draw Nigerians to the use of gas means that demand is today about twice that level and the planned intervention by the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited via its train seven will not materialise in five years.
U.K. approves use of groundbreaking oral covid medicine by Merck
Regulators in Britain granted approval to the experimental drug molnupiravir from U.S. pharmaceutical giant Merck on Thursday, marking the first authorization from a public health body for an oral antiviral treatment for covid-19 in adults. Experts say that if widely authorized, the medicine could have huge potential to help fight the coronavirus pandemic. Pills are easier to take, manufacture and store, making them particularly useful in lower- to middle-income countries with weaker infrastructure and limited vaccine supplies. “We will continue to move with both rigor and urgency to bring molnupiravir to patients around the world as quickly as possible,” Merck President Robert M. Davis said in a statement.
The company has applied to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization, while the European Medicines Agency has launched a rolling review of the drug. Merck said it was also working to submit applications to other regulatory agencies. A global clinical trial showed the pill reduced hospitalizations and deaths by nearly half among higher-risk adult coronavirus patients diagnosed with mild to moderate illness, Merck — which worked on the drug with partner Ridgeback Biotherapeutics — said last month. The first dose given to a volunteer in the trial was administered in the United Kingdom.
MTN, Airtel get approval in principle to operate payment service bank
MTN Nigeria and Airtel Africa Plc have received approval in principle to operate a payment service bank (PSB) in the country. The two telecommunication companies disclosed in regulatory filings on the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) on Friday.PSB operators provide financial services through digital means to low-income earners and people that do not use banks or banking institutions for transactions. Airtel will operate PSB via its Smartcash Payment Service Bank Limited while MoMo Payment Service Bank Limited will be MTN’s PSB.
This is to ensure more people are brought into the financial inclusion space. According to Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access (EFInA), about 36 percent of the adult population, representing 38 million citizens, do not have access to financial services in Nigeria. “I am very pleased that Smartcash has been granted an approval in principle to operate a service bank business in Nigeria. We will now work closely with the Central Bank to meet all its conditions to receive the operating licence and commence operations,” Segun Ogunsanya, CEO, Airtel Africa, said. “This is the first step in a long process that would lead to eventual approval. In other words, MTN Nigeria would be required to fulfil a number of conditions, even as ‘the decision to issue a final approval is firmly within the regulatory purview of the CBN’, Uto Ukpanah, company secretary at MTN Nigeria, said.
