Nigeria continues to innovate on revenue collection. From federal to state governments, if we have put the energies we have exerted on how to collect taxes and fees from citizens and companies, we would have advanced. The latest one is coming from the center of excellence, though nothing excellent on this playbook. Yes, Lagos will now collect 10% service tax on Uber, Bolt and all e-taxis. That is for Lagos. This new 10% does not substitute current fees and taxes!

More so, “the law now mandates operators to acquire a provisional license at N10 million (about US$26,000) per 1,000 vehicles or less; N25 million (US$65,000) for a fleet above 1,000 and renew annually at N5 million and N10 million respectively“, TC Daily summarizes.

Come August 20, Guideline for On-Line Hailing Business Operation of Taxi in Lagos will come into effect. It is the Lagos State government’s approach towards regulating the ride-hailing sector in the commercial city and has been the cause of concern since last year when its existence was first hinted at. Both motorcycle and taxi operators have been at regulatory loggerheads with the state government since 2018. In January, the state government announced the ban of motorcycles, including the tech-enabled operators, from major areas in the state to the outrage of users and the operators. There was a peaceful march afterwards to protest the ruling. As was speculated then, the law now mandates operators to acquire a provisional license at N10 million (about US$26,000) per 1,000 vehicles or less; N25 million (US$65,000) for a fleet above 1,000 and renew annually at N5 million and N10 million respectively. The state government is also asking for a 10% service tax on every ride the operators complete.

Sing Ease of Doing Business improving…hahaha. Except foreign companies, which Nigerian entrepreneurs can raise N25 million just to get a piece of paper? It may not be really bad for Uber and Bolt. At least, the government has killed any local challenger for good.

Technext presents the evidence.

Poor ride-hailing sector players. California is already hitting them hard; it seems there is no escape velocity for these human aggregators.

A California judge has ordered Uber and Lyft to stop classifying its drivers as independent contractors, handing the state a signal victory in a battle over the gig economy Monday.

After the state passed a law broadly requiring more workers to be treated as employees, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and city attorneys sued the ride-hailing firms this year, arguing they were violating the law by deeming their drivers to be independent contractors. Becerra went to court for an injunction immediately compelling the companies to treat their drivers differently.

This only applies now to Tekedia Capital startups which Tekedia Capital invested in.  Attending Tekedia courses does not qualify.

On behalf of our Faculty, Fellows, Staff, Members and Alumni, I welcome co-learners from around the world to the 3rd edition of Tekedia Mini-MBA. I feel great whenever I read the excitement via comments our young people show when they get into the Board. Welcome to class. At Tekedia Institute, we have two great books you can study free, free technical courses at Facyber and Amazon AWS credits to help your mission.

Registration continues: click and join today and experience the amazing.

https://www.tekedia.com/mini-mba-3/

It would be nice to know how Nigerian health insurers are doing. The U.S. insurers are having unbelievable quarters as most Americans freeze elective medical procedures over the fear of contracting coronavirus. Since health insurance premiums continue to roll, notwithstanding, the insurance firms just keep the money. This is counter intuitive: how can health insurance companies be declaring record profits during a period of health paralysis? It comes down to capturing value in market systems.

The nation’s leading health insurers are experiencing an embarrassment of profits.

Some of the largest companies, including Anthem, Humana and UnitedHealth Group, are reporting second-quarter earnings that are double what they were a year ago. And while insurance profits are capped under the Affordable Care Act, with the requirement that consumers should benefit from such excesses in the form of rebates, no one should expect an immediate windfall.

But the amounts that insurers are retaining have caught the attention of the Trump administration. The Health and Human Services Department advised companies to consider speeding up rebates, and on Tuesday suggested that they reduce premiums to help consumers through the economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

It goes beyond what is actually happening in markets to positioning to capture value from markets. Yes, where you play on the smiling curve. If you are at the center, you do all the work and capture minimal value while those at the edges capture most of the values you have created.

Markets are inherently imperfect and companies work to improve the demand-supply relationship, pushing markets towards better equilibrium points, in a positive continuum towards perfection.You can fix big market frictions for DEMAND, and yet fail to capture any value. Today, hospitals are doing great things but health insurers are capturing most of the values, just as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure are using their cloud infrastructures to capture most values in the age of remote everything!

Where are you playing in markets?

Join me with the governors of Borno state (Engr Prof Babagan Zulum) and Nasarawa state (Engr Abdullahi Sule) along with the President of COREN (Engr A.A. Rabiu) for the 2020 President’s Annual Lecture of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (Engr Babagana Mohammed). Date is Wed, Aug 19, at 4pm Lagos time. I will deliver the Guest Lecture, titled The Infrastructures of Nations.