Daily Watch – Pension assets hit ₦8 trillion, Nigeria recalls 2.4m bottles with codeine

30th July 2018

  • Oando and the Cement Company of Northern Nigeria have given stakeholders an idea of what to expect by year-end with the release of impressive half-year financial results. The release of both companies’ H1 2018 financial results, caused the two stocks to rise significantly leading to the addition of ₦8.6 billion to their market capitalisation. Oando recorded 11.4 per cent increase in gross earnings which rose from ₦266.98 billion in June 2017 to ₦297.31 billion in June 2018. Gross profit jumped by 52.6 per cent from ₦33.43 billion in June 2017 to ₦51.01 billion in the same period this year. Profit after tax as at H1 2018 was ₦8.5 billion, and that amounted to an increase of over 5,000 per cent when compared with a loss after tax of ₦172million in the corresponding period in 2017. CCNN boosted its revenue by 42 per cent during the period, as it realised ₦12.08 billion in H1 2018 in contrast to ₦8.5 billion in the same period last year. Gross profit rose by 81 per cent to ₦5.5 billion from ₦3.03 billion during the reference period just as profit after tax increased by 153 per cent from ₦1.03 billion at half-year last year to ₦2.60 billion by June 2018.
  • Nigerian electricity distribution companies distributed 93,219 prepaid meters between January and March, according to data from the power sector report of the NBS. The report said the number of consumers with prepaid meters rose from 1,496,587 at the end of 2017 to 1,589,805 at the end of March 2018. The Benin Electricity Distribution Company issued 260,667 meters during Q1. AEDC in Abuja issued 282,868 meters, while Ibadan distribution company, the largest DisCo, followed by 254,261 prepaid meters to its customers. The Ikeja DisCo metered 157,797 consumers in its franchise area while Eko DisCo issued 158,157 prepaid meters. The Kaduna DisCo also issued 138,164 prepaid meters as at March 31, while the Enugu DisCo had 116,623 of its consumers metered. Port Harcourt DisCo distributed 66,507 meters to its customers; Kano DisCo followed with 63,037 while Jos Disco had 54,395 metered customers. With 37,329 prepaid meters, Yola DisCo had the least distribution, according to the data. The report also showed that the power generation statistics at the end of March indicated that a total average of 92,747 megawatts per hour of energy was generated daily by power stations.
  • The Ministry of Health has recalled 2.4 million bottles of cough syrup containing codeine after a recent audit of the substance carried out by NAFDAC. Ministry spokesperson, Boade Akinola, said health minister, Prof Isaac Adewole, had received the final report of the 22-man Stakeholders Committee set up to address codeine abuse in Nigeria. Adewole said that the audit trail and subsequent recall of the substance was part of recommendations of Stakeholders Committee set by the ministry to address codeine abuse in Nigeria. The FG banned the production and importation of codeine as the active pharmaceutical ingredient for cough syrup preparations to check substance abuse among Nigerians and ordered NAFDAC to ban the issuance of permits for the importation of codeine as the active pharmaceutical ingredient for cough preparations.
  • PenCom has announced that the total pension fund assets stood at ₦8.14 trillion as at May 2018. Peter Aghahowa, PenCom’s spokesman said that the assets rose from ₦7.52 trillion in December 2017. According to Aghahowa, ₦5.2 trillion has been invested in Federal Government Securities by the Pension Fund Administrators. This investment represented 70.08 per cent of the ₦8.14 trillion pension assets. A breakdown of the investment is FGN bonds got ₦3.96 trillion; treasury bills, ₦1.68 trillion, agency bonds like the Nigeria Mortgage Refinancing Company and the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria got ₦6.54 billion, Sukuk bonds got ₦51.98 billion and green bonds got ₦8.26 billion. State government securities received ₦154.02 billion; corporate bonds, ₦393.27 billion; corporate infrastructure bonds, ₦8.36 billion; banks, ₦662.8 billion; commercial papers, ₦71.75 billion and estate properties, ₦228.86 billion.