TechCabal Daily – Heads up courier operators in Nigeria, the FG wants 2% of your revenue

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Here’s what everyone knows: on Saturday, July 25, hundreds of concerned Nigerians used the hashtag #SaynotoNIPOSTfees to protest the new regulations imposed on logistics companies.

Because of public censure, Isa Pantami, the minister of Communications and Digital economy publicly denounced the new licencing fees.

Here’s what really happened: the Courier and Logistics Services Operations regulation (2020) was issued by the Ministry of communications and Digital economy. It is the
framework under which the new licencing categories are contained. It is especially important because the new regulations repealed the Courier Service Regulations (1992) in which NIPOST acted as operator and regulator.

Here’s what everyone should really be worried about: According to Regulation 8(5) of the Courier Service Regulations, logistics companies are mandated to contribute part of their revenues to a postal fund.

“There is now an obligation on a courier operator to contribute a sum equal to 2% of its total revenue to the Postal fund, which will be used for postal development and delivery of postal services in rural and under-served states.”

While licencing fees are worrying, what company wants to give 2% of its revenues to a postal fund?

A lot has been written about the global challenges newspapers face and how the internet has disrupted what was once a super-important business. In Nigeria, where the circulation figures for national newspapers are only a matter of conjecture, the media conversation is still in early stages.

How is Nigerian media holding up especially with the challenges of COVID-19?
Typically, the answer would be: no one knows. But an internal memo sent by the management of Punch Newspapers was leaked last month and it paints a grim picture.

Here’s an excerpt from the memo:

“This pandemic has dealt with our business telling and severe blows. Our circulation and advertising revenues dipped dangerously, compounding the operational and revenue
challenges birthed by the migration of a majority of print newspaper readers and adverts to digital platforms.

“I am not at liberty to disclose all of the measures that the management has taken so far. But the ones that could be made public include an immediate reduction in print pagination; staff furloughing to comply with government and expert advisories on social distancing; the temporary shutdown of the sports newspaper; and significant financial reengineering.”

It paints a grim picture and it explains why Punch newspaper is exploring subscription options. It will be interesting in the coming days to see how much the newspaper commits to a paywall and how much change their business will see.

Jack Ma Foundation’s Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative (ANPI) has selected 50 Startups for 2020 Competition to advance to the next round of selection and will participate in an exclusive virtual boot camp on July 28.

The top 50 finalists were selected from over 22,000 applications across all 54 African nations; The finalists represent 21 African countries, half are female, and work in 18 sectors like agriculture, AI, e-commerce, fashion, healthcare, renewable energy and ICT.

Read all about the finalists here.

For the next TC Live session on Friday, July 31st we will interview Tokunboh Ishmael, co-founder and Managing Director at Alitheia Capital whose portfolio companies include MAX, Lidya and Tomato Jos. Alitheia Capital is one of the continent’s most prolific local investors.

Ms Ishmael has a 20-year experience spanning investment banking, private equity investing, technology and new business development on and off the continent. She will answer questions in an interactive session about Building in Africa.

Register here to join the session.