Nigeria Computer Society Confronts CBN on E-Naira Project

 

The Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) recently decried the decision of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to hand its digital currency project (e-naira) to a foreign company based in Barbados- Bitts Inc. 

The NCS highlighted that Bitt Inc is a 3-man organisation and has lower capitalization compared to local Fintech organisations in Nigeria. The NCS stakeholders mentioned that this act negates the recent need to source goods and services locally because of the exchange rate challenges, which the CBN itself is managing. Local Fintech’s also lost the opportunity to improve their experience. 

According to the NCS CBN, by appointing Bitt Inc as Technical Partners also failed to adhere to the provisions of the NITDA Act which recommends clearance for any IT project. The action of the CBN also violates “Presidential Executive Order 003 of 2017, which states that ‘’All Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDA’s ) of the FGN shall grant preference to local manufacturers of goods and services providers in their procurement of goods and services. 

While the response of the NCS appears late, it is better late than never. Local content has to be given preference with such projects. 

Recall that the CBN announced the appointment of Bitt Inc in August 2021, it recently announced in September 2021, that it had acquired a majority stake in Bitt Inc. The question here is how much did the CBN invest in Bitt Inc, and what sort of oversight functions enabled such a decision. 

Evidently, there is a need to guide the guardian of our monetary policy. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Monotechnics Can Accelerate Nigeria's Movement into the Knowledge Economy

 ASUU is proposing an amendment to the NUC Act. The objective of that proposed amendment is to stop the proliferation of universities, where there is lack of funding.  I understand ASUU. The idea is that they won't get as much compensation and benefits if government spreads itself too thin. I get that.  But the thing is this. We need to reconfigure our economy. We actually need more universities. But we need way more vocational institutions and monotechnics.  The key to accelerating the knowledge economy in Nigeria is not Universities, it is monotechnics. Just Information Technology Courses.  These monotechnics can be virtual and can award degrees. They can also be exempted from NYSC or given privilege to choose where they want to serve.  They must also be able to get full time jobs.  My objective for such an intervention will be to surpass India in production of technology talent. Nigerians can be the leaders of major technology companies abroad....
Read more

Why Apple's Strategy has to Change

Image
I'll naturally think Apple would be the best executor of the Metaverse, considering it's user experience edge and learnings over the years. However, it appears that Apple may not be playing any leading role in that part of Web 3.0. This has obvious strategic implications. Why do I say this? Apple's Q4 results fell short of analysts expectations. It's hardware businesses (iphone, Wearables and Mac) particularly missed the target, while it's service business surpassed analysts target. This has been attributed to shortage of chips, leading Apple to knock off $6billion off it's revenue forecasts, also making Apple lose its most valuable company status to Microsoft. Growth has been good in India and Greater China (83%), but it must be noted that Apple sells discounted and cheaper iPhones in China.  Apple has also had to increase prices to meet revenue targets. The point is that the hardware business may not be sustainable as the major source of revenues, ...
Read more

Global Responsibility: A Brief Description of a New Paradigm

The entire world is struggling with inflation and other economic woes because some people in Asia have a fancy for wild animals, and coincidentally, when the microorganisms in those animals have been mutated by climate change. Something can start in a small country and put the entire world in trouble. That is how connected we are. The new fact is that we are in the age of global responsibility. Is it possible that absolute sovereignty and national determinism have become obsolete. If a cyber attack on some super servers or digital infrastructure in USA affects Europe and Africa, leading to a loss of 30 billion dollars daily, is US still free to do as it pleases with it's cyber-policy? If China creates malicious AI algorithms that provide inspiration for non-state actors to cause misinformation and disinformation at scale, thereby providing tools for terrorists in Africa, especially Islamic State in West Africa (ISWAP) and Islamic State in Central Africa (ISCAP), does it still ha...
Read more