Airtel Nigeria has once again been recognized for its commitment to sustainable development, carting away the Partnership of the Year award at the 18th edition of the Sustainability, Enterprise, and Responsibility Awards (SERAS) held at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, on Saturday, 14th December, 2024.

The award celebrates Airtel’s continued success with its Re-imagine Education Initiative, a ground-breaking collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) aimed at transforming education in Nigeria through technology.

Airtel’s consistent focus on creating social value through strategic partnerships reflects its position as a key enabler of progress in the Nigerian education sector.

Commenting on the award, Femi Adeniran, Director, Corporate Communications and CSR, highlighted the significance of the winning the Partnership of the Year award for the second time with the Airtel collaboration with UNICEF to provide digital access to quality educational resources for more than 1,200 schools in Nigeria.

“Winning this award for the second consecutive year is a reflection of our enduring belief in the transformative power of technology in education. We are deeply committed to making a meaningful difference in the lives of Nigerians, and this recognition fuels our resolve to do even more,” he said.

The SERAS Awards, widely regarded as Africa’s most prestigious platform for celebrating sustainability and corporate social responsibility, brought together leaders from various industries to honour organizations driving impactful change.

Airtel Nigeria remains steadfast in its mission to foster inclusive growth, empower communities, and champion a sustainable future for its stakeholders and the environment.

TeamApt Ltd’s Managing Director, Dennis Ajalie, has said that fintech companies and banks play very complimentary roles in deepening payment products and services for users while acknowledging that at certain times those roles might have been misunderstood.

L-R Chief Product Officer, Frank Atashili; Managing Director, Dennis Ajalie and Chief Technology Officer, Emeka Awagu all, from TeamApt Ltd, at the Committee of e-Banking Industry Heads (CeBIH) Conference 2024 which held in Lagos recently

A subsidiary of Moniepoint Inc, TeamApt Ltd, facilitates payment processing across many industries while enabling reliable payments for banks and their customers, while reducing operating costs.

Mr Ajalie added that the industry’s regulator, Central Bank of Nigeria has delineated what each entity should do and how they should function in creating a successful payment ecosystem that protects consumers and enables businesses, which he admitted to be complementary and not competitive.

He made this point while participating as a panelist at the annual conference of the Committee of e-Business Industry Heads (CeBIH) conference in Lagos with the theme, “Payment System Vision 2030: Navigating Contemporary Issues in Driving Future Growth”.

Other panelists at the session include: Partner, Digital Engineering, Deloitte, Oluwole Oyeniran; Chairman, Association of Licensed Telecoms Operators of Nigeria (ALTON), Gbenga Adebayo; Chief Executive Officer, Emtech, Carmelle Cadet; Chief Operating Officer, Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), Dr. Mohammed Jiya. The panel discussion focused on “Digital Payments and the National Digital Economy Framework (NDEF).”

Formed in July 2008, CeBIH seeks to achieve the primary objective of driving the adoption of electronic banking services in line with global practices by serving as a forum for Heads of e-Business/e-Payments in Nigerian deposit-money banks to share ideas and experiences, as well as advocating for the use of the right technologies, policies, standards, innovation and public awareness in creating a financial services landscape that works for all.

This year’s event, which had Moniepoint Inc as a Premium Sponsor, demonstrates the financial giant’s avowed commitment to create a safe, transparent and secure digital payments ecosystem for all Nigerians.

The moderator, Founder, aCubed Limited, Wunmi Ogunbiyi, opened the panel discussion by highlighting the session’s focus on providing clarity on the real issues that matter to everyday Nigerians when it comes to digital payments, such as high fees that burden users unnecessarily, lack of accountability in digital transactions, bridging the gap in digital literacy to empower all Nigerians and navigating the challenges of our evolving financial ecosystem.

Touching on the imperative of borderless transactions and the solutions for implementation with respect to the framework, Ajalie said, “Borderless transactions have to happen, because we’re becoming more interconnected by the day and by the minute. We still have a lot of siloed implementations among key stakeholders and unless we recalibrate our systems, borderless remains beyond our reach and a mirage. There’s the fierce urgency of now that demands that we find solid ways to interconnect, and once we’re able to interconnect within ourselves, reconcile properly, especially on the local front, then we can present a single, unified front that will enable us to push transactions and receive transactions from outside. We cannot go forward without fixing these internal challenges.”

Wrapping up his thoughts, he reiterated the need for industry-wide collaborations in fighting the menace of fraud, “If we able to all share information and collaborate seamlessly, we’ll find out that it becomes disinteresting for these bad faith individuals to use the collective technology commonwealth that we have all built to commit nefarious activities. So, it goes back to collaboration among fintechs, the banks, NFIU, infrastructure providers, the telcos, and switches. We’ve all got to come together to say, enough is enough and that this present situation threatens all of us rather than just one of us.”

The panel stressed the necessity of working together to create adaptable, inclusive, and easily accessible payment solutions that cater to the diverse and expanding Nigerian population. Such systems, they argued, would stimulate economic growth. Additionally, given the regulators’ active efforts to combat fraud, the panel emphasized the importance of every ecosystem member, including consumers, taking responsibility to eliminate fraudulent activities.

Taiwo Oyedele, chairman, Presidential Fiscal Policy and Tax Reforms Committee (PFPTRC) has disclosed that MTN Nigeria contributes over N200 billion in Value Added Tax (VAT) monthly, making it the largest contributor to the nation’s VAT pool.

Oyedele made the disclosure recently while speaking as a panellist during Channels Television’s Town Hall on Tax Reforms.

He used the platform to highlight disparities in the current VAT distribution system and explained the reforms aimed at addressing them.

According to the tax expert, the current system allocates all VAT paid by the country’s biggest telco to Lagos State, where the company’s headquarters is located, even though the services that generate this revenue are consumed nationwide.

“MTN is the largest contributor to VAT in Nigeria. So they, in fact, pay VAT of over N200bn every month; the gap between them and number two is huge.”

He added, “Today, all the VAT paid by MTN is credited and attributed to Lagos State, even as calls are made in Kano, the FCT, Ekiti, Edo, or Kebbi.”

Part of the reform bill proposes adjustments to ensure a more equitable distribution of VAT revenues across states based on actual consumption rather than the location of corporate headquarters.

To demonstrate the implications of the proposed reforms, Oyedele provided a hypothetical redistribution model of MTN’s VAT contributions.

He illustrated how the reforms would allocate the VAT revenue based on consumption rather than the location of the company’s headquarters.

Under this new framework, Lagos State, which currently retains the full N200bn, would see its share reduced to approximately 20 per cent, while other states across the federation would benefit from a fairer distribution.

“This adjustment ensures that states where the VAT is generated get their fair share,” Oyedele said.

“When you analyse the data, you see Lagos State’s share reduces slightly, but every other state gains.”

The tax reform bill, which aims to address longstanding issues in Nigeria’s fiscal policies, includes provisions for revenue redistribution, addressing inefficiencies, and promoting fairness in the tax system.

The reform proposal has sparked debates recently, with some critics accusing the committee of pushing policies that could adversely affect some parties.

Oyedele dismissed these claims, emphasising that the current system is flawed and unfair. “If you’re doing the wrong thing, how can Lagos State disagree with us when we propose to fix it?” he argued.