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By Solomon Odeniyi

Establishments in Abuja have lamented the N100, 000 emission permit levied on business operators by the Abuja Municipal Area Council for the emission of gas from generators and other heavy duty machines.

They described the levy as outrageous and capable of sending them out of business.

In a letter that has gone viral on the Internet which was signed by the Head of Environment, AMAC, Ahmed Haruna, and addressed to a bakery, it was stated that the levy was for the discharge of harmful substances into the air, water and land.

Haruna said failure to comply with the directive could lead to arrest of the bakery operator.

The letter read, “The management of Abuja Municipal Area Council Environment Services Department (ESD) Bodies, wishes to notify you of levy/fees due to the Abuja Area Council for Gaseous Emission Permit Limit.

“This includes the discharge of harmful hazardous substances into the air or the land and water in Nigeria by the activities of industries, warehouses, banks, either from generators or heavy-duty, drilling, production, construction and manufacturing equipment, filling stations, etc.”

He said the directive was in line with the provision of Section (2C) of the fourth schedule of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended under the function of the Local Government Authority and Federal Environmental Protection Agency Act part (iii) Section 25 which establish the Local Council Authority to regulate, enforce and collect levies for the interest of public health importance.

But the chairman, Association of Master Bakers and Caterers of Nigeria, Abuja chapter, Ishaq Abdulkareem, dared the council, saying that members would not obey the directive.

He said, “Is it our fault that the power supply is unstable and we have decided to look for an alternative? We are still contending with the high cost of raw materials and they are asking us to pay this much as a levy?

“That means they want to kick us out of business. The directive is a politically motivated one. They specifically stated bakery. Are we the only ones emitting smokes? Let them take their directives and arrest residents for using generating sets or other industries, only then would we oblige.”

Meanwhile, the Abuja Chamber of Commerce and Industry has asked the council authorities to suspend the N100,000 levy imposed on bakeries and other businesses in the FCT.

The President, Al-Mujtaba Abubakar, in a statement on Friday, said imposing new levies despite the country’s high inflation rate would increase the cost of doing business.

“We call on the leadership of Abuja Municipal Area Council as well as other government agencies to suspend the planned imposition of generator and equipment taxes, as this is inconsistent with the Federal Government’s programmes to create an attractive business climate for business owners.

“Imposition of new taxes like the generator and equipment taxes will not only be an additional burden to be borne by business owners, it will accelerate the collapse of…

Amid rising poverty and insecurity across Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari insists he has done his best to salvage the country’s precipitous situation as he met with some of his party men on Thursday.

According to a statement by the president’s media aide Garba Shehu, Mr Buhari made the assertion when he received some governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at his country home in Daura.

The former military dictator claimed that things were worse when he assumed power as a democratically elected president.

“We have done our best and thank God for what we have been able to achieve with the available resources, otherwise we would have been in trouble,’’ he explained.

Mr Buhari also said the country’s security situation had improved compared to the instability in the North-East before 2015 when parts of the region were directly under terrorists’ control.

“The subsequent development in the North-West is the most amazing, where people who lived together, spoke (the) same language and shared common faith started killing each other and rustling cows.

“I had to change the security chiefs and we had to get down to the fundamentals of providing security. If you look at the situation in relation to time and resources, you will find out what we have been able to achieve,’’ the president noted.

Emphasising his regime’s turning the country’s economy around, Mr Buhari said oil prices fell from more than $100 to less than $38 under his watch, with crude oil output at 2.1 million barrels a day dropping to about 500,000 barrels.

”Intellectuals and historians should be fair to us so that…

• Testing fell by 29 per cent in three months, FG cries out as dangerous strain spreads fast

• Nigeria receives 3,924,000 Oxford-AstraZeneca doses next week, states list testing obstacles

• Put Nigerians on red alert, Delta strain can spread in communities before detection – Tomori

There were indications on Thursday that at least 13 states had stopped testing for COVID-19 despite the impending third wave of the disease propelled by the highly infectious Delta strain.

Epidemiological data obtained from the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control showed that since the first case of the Delta variant was reported on July 8, 2021, only about 23 states and the Federal Capital Territory had been sending reports to the NCDC.

These came to the fore on Thursday  as  data from the NCDC  showed that the COVID-19 tests  reduced  from  735,573 to 521,738 in three months amid warning by the Federal Government that Delta variant was spreading among unvaccinated Nigerians.

The NCDC, on its website revealed that 735,573 tests were conducted between January 10 and April 11.

But between April 11 and July 11, 521,738 were conducted representing a reduction of 213,835 (29.08 per cent).

As of January 10, 1,121,484 COVID-19 tests had been conducted in the country while 1,857,057 tests were conducted as of April 11.

While 1,857,057 were conducted as of April 11, the figure rose to 2,378,795 on July 11.

The states that have been sending updates include Cross River, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and the FCT.

The 13 states that have not sent any results to the NCDC in the last two weeks include Abia, Adamawa, Anambra, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Ebonyi, Kebbi, Kogi, Niger, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara states.

The PUNCH also observed that among these 13 states, only Yobe has sent an update to the NCDC in the month of July. This implies that 12 states have not sent any COVID-19 status update in over three weeks.

It was learnt that no single COVID-19 infection had been reported in these 12 states in the month of July despite the rising number of cases in 23 states and the FCT. This may imply that the 169,884 cases recorded in Nigeria may be far from reality.

Why we have not been testing – Bauchi

Executive Chairman of the Bauchi State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Rilwan Mohammed, confirmed that the state had not been conducting tests.

In an interview with one of our correspondents, he said, “We have been testing but for the past two weeks, we’ve not tested because we have a lot of challenges on the issue of testing.

“Some of the challenges are that the reagents are not available. There is the problem of electricity and the diesel is not there (to power the generators), a lot of issues. These are mybe reasons why we are not testing in Bauchi,” he said.

Asked if finance was not a major challenge to them, he said, “When we have the money, we will buy the diesel.”

Mohammed who is the state Chairman of the Sub-Committee on Contacts and Surveillance of the State Task Force on COVID-19, also said, “We are not doing active case testing in communities across the local government areas as we were doing before. We are no longer doing community testing at all.

We haven’t been conducting tests, people not turning up – Benue

Also, the Benue State Government admitted that it had not been conducting tests for the past two weeks, but stated that  it had stepped up awareness campaign.

Speaking separately to one of our correspondents on the phone…