essential raw materials. President of MAN, Dr. Frank Udemba, made this call at the association’s meeting with industrialists in Lagos.
He said failure to do so might lead to more factories being closed by the end of this month, adding that the high inflation rate stemmed from the forex restriction.
Udemba said that some of the 41 items in the list were essential raw materials for many manufacturers across key sectors, and could not besourced locally. He added that the affected manufacturers would soon run short of stocks of those inputs and be forced to shut down with attendant social implication of massive job losses.
He said: “Information reaching me from our members is that by the end of March, many of those companies will start closing shop, leading to massive job losses.
“The 41 items involve a lot of things such that when broken down into the Customs Harmonised Service (HS) Codes, you have a total of 680 products.
“Based on our analysis, 95 out of the 680 products are essential industrial raw materials for our members but cannot be sourced in this country for now.”
He said the association had tabled its concerns before the CBN and requested for the removal of the 95 items from the list, at least for the time being. He said: “We are saying they should allocate forex to
our members to import those 95 items pending when local substitutes can be created for them.
“They can give us a time frame of between 18 months and two years to develop the local product capacity for the items before including them in the list.
Diamond Bank Partners BoI On N140bn GEEP Fund As part of efforts to ensure that more farmers, market women, youths and artisans access the N140 billion Government Enterprise Empowerment
Programme (GEEP), the Bank of Industry (BoI) has gone into a partnership with Diamond Bank Plc.
GEEP is a micro-credit scheme that provides loans to people at the bottom of the pyramid. The loans are between N10,000 and N100,000 and the tenor is six months. The beneficiaries pay back in weekly
installments.
Speaking during a media briefing on the partnership in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Bank Plc, Mr. Uzoma Dozie,described the collaboration as a public-private sector partnership.
He said the coming together of both organisations was to enable them bring their resources to bear in order to create a sustainable platform for entrepreneurs and small businesses to access finance to
grow their businesses.“This is also to help create a sustainable environment. In any
economy, the biggest employers of labour are the small businesses and not government and this is an opportunity to drive that. The most interesting part of this is the mechanism through which we are driving this. It is not about doling out cash, but using digital infrastructure to drive it.
“Not only is it going to provide finance, it is also a strategy to promote financial inclusion. When you make payments digitally, you can see what is happening with the money. For us at Diamond Bank, this is
a sustainable path that I believe we need to invest in and I am very glad that we are working with the BoI to drive gender empowerment and sustainable growth of businesses,” the Diamond Bank boss explained.
Also shedding more light on the partnership, an Executive Director at the BoI, Mrs. Toyin Adeniji said the idea of access to finance to women, farmers, artisans and those at the bottom of the pyramid remains very important to the federal government and one of the ways the BoI aligns with that is to support micro-businesses.
According to her, what makes the GEEP initiative interesting is that every beneficiary must have a Bank Verification Number (BVN), they must belong to an association and they must get some form of
endorsement from the association.
“When we think about financial inclusion in Nigeria and when we look at the commercial banks, Diamond Bank jumps at you because of their total commitment to financial inclusion. Not only because they say it, but because they do it. Financial inclusion is the heartbeat of this
administration,” Adeniji added.
GTBank Posts ₦165.14bn PBT, Offers 175 Kobo Dividend Guaranty Trust Bank plc has released its audited financial results for the year ended December 31, 2016 to the Nigerian and London Stock
Exchanges.
A review of the results shows positive performance across all financial indices, reaffirming the bank’s position as one of the most profitable and well managed financial institutions in Nigeria. Gross earnings for the period grew by 37 percent to N414.62 billion from N301.85 billion reported in the December 2015; driven primarily by growth in interest income as well as foreign exchange income.
Profit before tax stood at N165.14 billion, representing a growth of 37 percent over N120.69 billion recorded in the corresponding period of December 2015, while profit after tax stood at N132.280 billion
from N99.436 billion.
The bank’s loan book grew by 16 percent from N1.373 trillion recorded as at December 2015 to N1.590 trillion in December 2016 with corresponding growth in total deposits which increased by 29 percent
to N2.111 trillion from N1.637 trillion in December 2015.
The bank’s balance sheet remained strong with a 19.7 percent growth in total assets and contingents as the Bank closed the year ended December 2016 with total assets and contingents of N3.70 trillion and
shareholders’ funds of N504.9 billion.
The bank’s non-performing loans remained low and within regulatory threshold at 3.66 percent (Bank: 3.29 percent) with adequate coverage of 131.79 percent (Bank: 150.80 percent). Increase in collective
impairment was borne out of the prudent stance of the Bank, while Capital remains strong with CAR of 19.79 percent. On the backdrop of this result, Return on Equity (ROAE) and Return on Assets (ROAA)
closed at 35.96 percent and 5.85 percent respectively.
The bank is proposing final dividend of 175k per unit of ordinary share held by shareholders in addition to interim dividend of 25k per unit of ordinary share bringing total dividend for 2016 financial year
to N2 per unit of ordinary share.
Commenting on the financial results, the Managing Director/CEO of Guaranty Trust Bank plc, Mr. Segun Agbaje, said that “The bank’s financial performance in 2016, does not only reflect the resilience of our franchise, it demonstrates the fundamental strength of our businesses to deliver sustainable long-term growth.
We successfully navigated the heightened economic uncertainty and regulatory headwinds
which dominated the year to deliver a solid performance across all financial and non-financial indices.
He further stated that “We are transforming our organization into a platform for enriching lives by positioning ourselves at the centre of an extended ecosystem that offers our stakeholders, benefits beyond banking. We also remain committed to maximising shareholders’ value and delivering superior and sustainable return, guided by our founding values of hard work, discipline and integrity.
GTBank has continued to report the best financial ratios for a financial institution in the industry as revealed by its return on equity (ROE) of 35.96 percent and cost to income ratio of 40.76
percent evidencing the efficient management of assets and operational efficiency. Overall, the bank has enshrined its position as a clear leader in the industry. In recognition of its innovation and hard work, the Bank received over 20 international awards in 2016.
