• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Covid-19: Nigeria to receive 100,000 doses of Pfizer vaccine before end of January

The cheap way out backfires
Five countries that turned away more expensive Pfizer Inc. covid doses in favour of a cheaper version from AstraZeneca Plc are paying the price.
Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia and Slovakia, which declined part of their Pfizer allotments to wait for Astra doses, are among the slowest in the bloc to administer vaccines. While Pfizer has met its commitments, Astra has delivered just 30 million of its originally committed 120 million doses in the first quarter.

As a result, Bulgaria and Croatia are expected to vaccinate 45% of their populations by the middle of the year, according to the document, the lowest in the EU after the Czech Republic. Estonia will vaccinate 50%, Latvia 53% and Slovakia 46%. That compares to 61% in Germany, 80% in Denmark and 93% in Malta.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive body, said on Wednesday that more than 100 million doses were delivered to its member states in the first quarter, matching its lowered target. The EU expects the pace to pick up in the second quarter when it’s forecast to receive 360 million doses.

A bitter pill for Ontario, France
The Canadian province of Ontario, home to Toronto and the capital Ottawa, will be locked down for 28 days starting Saturday to fight the spread of the virus, CBC News said.

The new rules to be announced by Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Thursday are intended to counter coronavirus’s spread in Canada’s most populous province. The restrictions would not be as tight as the province-wide lockdown that was imposed in December, the sources told CBC.

Read Also: Passengers to pay more at Easter on shortage of aircraft

Ontario added 2,333 new cases of Covid-19 on March 30, bringing its total case count to 349,903, according to Public Health Ontario.
France will also impose a four-week lockdown from Saturday, and Italy extended restrictions on movement and business openings. They’re the latest signs Europe is yet again losing control of the pandemic

FG set to recover N5.2 trillion debt
Cash-strapped Nigerian Federal Government is set to recover about N5.2 trillion debt owed by some individuals and firms following the success of the Project Lighthouse.
The Project Lighthouse is a data engine that collects, integrates and analyzes data from revenue-generating agencies in order to create insightful information for improved decision-making.

It has brought together data from the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, the Nigeria Customs Service, the Corporate Affairs Commission, as well as data from the Central Bank of Nigeria, in one central point.

The second phase of the project, which is the collection of the money that has been identified, was approved by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo-led Federal Executive Council on Wednesday, according to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, who spoke in a television interview after the council met.
The Finance Ministry in 2019, issued a directive to all MDAs to aggregate and send to the ministry a list of all debtors and the outstanding amount they owe to all government agencies.

Since that time, the government has aggregated N5.2 trillion worth of debt that are being owed the government by third parties.
“As at today, we have been able to recover about N49.7 billion of this amount through the effort and working that we have been carrying out with Project Lighthouse and we are still compiling,” Ahmed said.
According to her, the ministry was able to get land registry data from three states – the FCT, Kaduna State, as well as from Lagos state – while others would join in the second phase.

Naira gains despite lower dollar liquidity
The naira appreciated against the US Dollar on Wednesday, 31st March 2021 gaining for the fifth consecutive day at the NAFEX window to close at N408.67 to a dollar despite a 26.2% drop in dollar supply.
This represents a 0.08% gain, when compared to N409/$1 recorded on Tuesday, 30th March 2021.

FMDQ data showed that forex turnover declined from $47.93 million recorded on Tuesday, March 30, 2021, to $35.37 million on Wednesday.
The naira however remained stable at the parallel market, closing at N486/$1, the same rate recorded the previous trading day.

Passengers to pay more at Easter on shortage of aircraft
People who plan to travel to see families and friends this Easter holiday may be in for some difficulty as flight delays, cancellations and fare hike are expected due to a shortage of aircraft in operations.

During the COVID-19 lockdown that lasted about five months, airline operators had over 120 planes parked, and a few months after flights resumed, over 50 percent of these aircraft are due for maintenance, forcing operators to either park them or take them out for compulsory maintenance.

The absence of Maintenance Repair Overhaul (MRO) facilities in Nigeria means that operators must to take their aircraft to other countries for maintenance every 12 to 18 months, and some of these countries are still under COVID-19 lockdowns, making it difficult for operators to get their planes back when due.

This difficulty is compounded by the inability of the operators to access foreign exchange needed to meet timely payment obligations, and when the airlines push their way to access foreign exchange, the rates are extremely high, causing carriers to run operations at a loss.