ESFARBA: Beyond one LOA-is this the future of BIR audit?

the environmental scanning. Financial analysis and risk-based assessment is my recommendation of tools and practices that the BIR can pursue to totally reform the audit and LOA system.

What could ESFARBA change in practice?

First, focus. Revenue officer time can be concentrated on the issues with the greatest tax significance instead of giving equal attention to every account and transaction.

Second, taxpayer burden. A risk-focused audit can lead to more specific document requests and fewer repetitive submissions, thereby reducing the time, effort, and hopefully, costs.

Third, speed. When risks, procedures, responsibilities and deadlines are set out in an audit plan, supervisors can detect stalled cases earlier.

Fourth, assessment quality. Each proposed finding can be traced from risk indicator to evidence, taxpayer explanation, legal basis and computation. Unsupported risk hypotheses should be closed rather than turned into assessments merely because they looked suspicious at the start.

Fifth, supervision. Section chiefs and division heads can monitor open risks, outstanding documents, case aging, issues resolved and sustainable findings-not merely the peso value initially proposed.

There are safeguards to consider. Risk models can generate false positives. Financial ratios differ across industries. Third-party data may be incomplete. Algorithms should not become black boxes, and an unusual number should never substitute for evidence, due process, or professional judgment.

Revenue Memorandum Order 1-2026 has already changed the architecture of BIR audit through the single-instance audit framework, risk-based taxpayer selection, stronger documentation, greater accountability, and closer review of audit work. The next challenge is to transform not only who gets audited, but how the audit itself is conducted. This is where ESFARBA can make a difference. By combining Environmental Scanning, Financial Statement Analysis, and Risk-Based Audit, the BIR can move from broad, document-heavy examinations toward focused, issue-based audits that are faster, better supervised, less burdensome to compliant taxpayers, and more likely to produce assessments that are factually sound, legally defensible, and collectible.

The real test of tax administration is not how many LOAs are issued, how many documents are demanded or even how large the initial assessments appear. The better measures are whether the right taxpayers and issues were selected, whether scarce audit resources were directed to the greatest risks, whether taxpayers were treated fairly, and whether the resulting assessments can withstand protest, judicial scrutiny, and collection. The future of BIR audit should therefore not be ‘audit more,’ but ‘audit smarter.’ ESFARBA offers a practical way to do exactly that: understand first, analyze next, focus on the risks, test the evidence-and assess only what can truly be defended and collected.

In the end, the best audit is not the one with the biggest assessment-it is the one that asks the right questions, finds the right issues, reaches the right tax, and gets it right the first time.

The BIR in recent months has already changed the architecture of BIR audits: one audit authority as the general rule, risk-based selection, clearer accountability, documented taxpayer interactions, and a forthcoming measure of a stronger quality review. ESFARBA describes one possible operating methodology for carrying those reforms deeper into the actual conduct of the examination. The same analytical sequence can also be applied conceptually to customs examinations, local-government tax audits, and other revenue-compliance work where limited enforcement resources must be directed to the most significant risks.

Whether ESFARBA becomes part of the future BIR audit model is ultimately a policy and implementation choice. But the professional logic is familiar: do not begin by asking for everything. Begin by understanding the taxpayer, understanding the numbers, and identifying the risks. Then focus on the most important issues that may result in the greatest amount of tax assessments. Then, test what matters-and make every finding defensible.

Joel L. Tan-Torres was the former Dean of the University of the Philippines Virata School of Business. Previously, he was the Commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Chairman of the Professional Regulatory Board of Accountancy, and a partner of Reyes Tacandong and Co. and SyCip Gorres and Velayo and Co. He is a Certified Public Accountant who ranked No. 1 in the CPA Board Examination in May 1979. He provides tax practice and advisory services with his firm, JL2T Consulting. He can be contacted at joeltantorress@yahoo.com.

Personal pensions funding drags on shrinking income

For many market women, roadside traders, artisans and other self-employed Nigerians, saving for retirement is often a battle between preparing for tomorrow and surviving today.

With incomes fluctuating and household expenses rising, putting money aside consistently for old age can easily give way to food, rent, school fees, transport and working capital.

That tension is increasingly showing up in Nigeria’s Personal Pension Plan (PPP), where thousands of Nigerians have opened retirement savings accounts but have yet to make contributions.

Data from the National Pension Commission (PenCom) show that 219,316 Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) had been registered under the PPP from inception to the first quarter of 2026.

But only 18,811 accounts, representing 8.6 percent, had received contributions.

The remaining 200,505 accounts, or 91.4 percent, were unfunded.

The figures expose one of the biggest challenges facing Nigeria’s drive to extend pension coverage beyond the formal workforce: getting people to register is one thing and getting them to save consistently is another.

For a market woman whose earnings can change from one day to the next, committing a fixed amount every month can be difficult. The same challenge confronts artisans, transport operators, small business owners and other informal-sector workers whose incomes depend largely on daily sales.

When income is uncertain, and living costs continue to rise, retirement can appear too distant to compete with immediate financial needs.

Yet, the consequences extend beyond individual households.

A larger pool of regular pension contributions would give Nigeria more long-term domestic capital to invest in infrastructure, businesses and financial markets, while helping more workers build financial security for retirement.

Nigeria’s pension industry had accumulated N29.52 trillion in assets by the end of the first quarter of 2026. Against an estimated N441.54 trillion gross domestic product, pension assets represented about 6.69 percent of economic output.

That ratio underscores the relatively shallow penetration of long-term retirement savings in Africa’s most populous economy.

The comparison with other markets is revealing. Nigeria’s pension assets-to-GDP ratio of about 6.7 percent compares with approximately 13 percent in Ghana, 6.5 percent in Kenya, 68 percent in South Africa and about 63 percent for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average.

The differences reflect more than pension policy. Countries have different levels of formal employment, income, demographics, financial-market depth and pension structures.

But the figures illustrate the scale that pension savings can reach when large sections of the workforce contribute consistently over many years.

South Africa’s pension assets, for instance, are equivalent to about 68 percent of GDP in the comparison provided, while the OECD average is around 63 percent. Such large pools of retirement savings can provide substantial long-term capital for investment.

Nigeria remains some distance from that level of pension penetration.

The country had 11.18 million RSA holders against an estimated workforce of about 110 million, putting pension coverage at roughly 10.2 percent, according to recent data by EFInA.

This means a large majority of Nigerian workers remain outside the formal contributory pension system.

There are signs of progress, however, as PPP contributions rose from N103.30 million in the fourth quarter of 2025 to N147.16 million in the first quarter of 2026.

That represents an increase of N43.86 million, or 42.46 percent, in one quarter.

Cumulatively, the scheme had generated N1.66 billion in contributions from inception to the first quarter of 2026.

But the size of the contribution base remains small compared with the number of registered accounts, highlighting the difficulty of converting enrolment into sustained savings.

For a salaried worker, pension deductions can be automatic, but for a trader or market woman, saving may depend on remembering to make a payment after a good day’s sales, having enough cash when business is slow and resisting the pressure to deploy every naira towards immediate needs.

This makes convenience, flexibility and sustained engagement critical to expanding personal pensions among informal-sector workers.

Kenya offers a useful example of how sustained reforms and higher contributions can deepen pension savings. According to the Retirement Benefits Authority (RBA) of Kenya, pension industry assets under management rose to KSh2.255 trillion (about $17.4 billion) by December 2024, up 14 percent from KSh1.979 trillion six months earlier. The RBA attributed the growth partly to increased member contributions following the implementation of the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) Act of 2013, as well as stronger investment income.

Under the second phase of the NSSF Act, the lower contribution limit was increased from KSh6,000 (about $46) to KSh7,000 (about $54) a month, while the upper limit rose from KSh18,000 (about $139) to KSh36,000 (about $278). The higher contribution thresholds helped increase the flow of savings into the pension system.

The lesson for Nigeria is not that it can simply replicate another country’s pension system.

Rather, Kenya’s experience shows how sustained contributions, policy reforms and wider participation can gradually transform pension savings into a significant pool of long-term capital.

Read also: Pension funds commit N241bn to expand Nigeria infrastructure financing

Nigeria’s challenge is therefore both a household problem and an economic one.

For millions of informal workers, the question is how to put something aside for a future they cannot clearly see while meeting expenses that confront them every day.

For the pension industry and policymakers, the bigger question is how to make retirement saving flexible enough for irregular incomes while building the discipline needed for long-term accumulation.

Nigeria’s pension pool shows that the country has already established a sizeable foundation.

But the 91.4 percent of PPP accounts without contributions shows how much further the system has to go before pension saving becomes a mass-market habit rather than an option largely associated with workers earning predictable incomes.

Lagos traffic: What Delhi, Mumbai, Tokyo can teach a city stuck in gridlock

For millions of Lagos residents, the journey to work begins long before they arrive at their offices and often ends hours after the official closing time.

A trip that should take less than an hour can consume several hours as commuters negotiate gridlocked roads, broken-down vehicles, road construction, illegal parking and the sheer volume of traffic competing for limited lane space.

The scale of the problem is reflected in Numbeo’s 2026 mid-year Traffic Index, which put Lagos’ Traffic Index at 348.5 and its average one-way commute at about 68.3 minutes.

But while Lagos has continued to seek ways to ease congestion, other megacities facing similar population pressures have increasingly shifted their focus from moving more cars to moving more people.

That distinction could hold lessons for Lagos as it develops its own multimodal transport system.

When traffic becomes a lifestyle

The debate was recently reignited after Obafemi Hamzat, Lagos deputy governor, described the city’s perennial traffic as a ‘lifestyle’ while speaking at PodFest Naija, a gathering of creatives.

‘Anyone who has crossed Third Mainland Bridge at 6pm knows that Lagos traffic is not the problem; it’s just a lifestyle,’ Hamzat said.

He noted that the hours spent by Lagosians in traffic had inadvertently created an audience for podcasters and other content creators.

The comment generated criticism, with some interpreting it as acceptance of a problem that imposes high costs on commuters and businesses.

Hamzat subsequently clarified that his remarks had been made in the context of the creative industry and were intended to illustrate how Lagosians consume digital content during long journeys, rather than suggest that congestion was desirable or that the government was comfortable with it.

The controversy, however, has highlighted a more fundamental question: why has traffic remained such a persistent feature of life in a city that has invested heavily in roads and, increasingly, rail and water transport?

Lagos is building alternatives

Successive Lagos administrations have invested in attempts to reduce dependence on roads.

The Bus Rapid Transit system, launched in 2008, created dedicated corridors for buses and significantly changed public transport along some major routes.

The state has also introduced rail into its transport mix. The Lagos Rail Mass Transit Blue Line, which runs between Marina and Mile 2, commenced commercial operations in September 2023, while the Red Line began full commercial passenger operations in October 2024.

The Blue Line has recorded more than nine million cumulative passenger journeys across more than 70,000 trips in its first three years, according to figures from the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority.

Water transport is another potentially important alternative. With extensive lagoons, creeks and waterways, Lagos has a geographical advantage that many cities do not have. Yet these alternatives have not displaced the dominance of road transport.

Olayemi Dickson, a transport and logistics expert, said the continued dependence on roads is partly the result of the historical dominance and flexibility of road-based transport.

She also pointed to inadequate integration between transport modes, limited reach and frequency of rail and waterways, insufficient investment in non-road infrastructure and policies that have historically prioritised road expansion.

‘Lagos’s continued reliance on road transport is primarily rooted in several structural and policy factors,’ Dickson said.

Delhi’s lesson: build at scale

Delhi demonstrates what happens when mass transit becomes a central component of urban mobility rather than an alternative operating on the margins.

The Delhi Metro has grown into a network spanning more than 400 kilometres across the wider Delhi-NCR area and recorded about 2.36 billion passenger journeys in 2025, according to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.

The significance for Lagos is not simply the size of the network. It is the ability of rail to move millions of passengers daily while reducing the number of journeys that would otherwise have to be made by car or bus.

Lagos’ rail expansion therefore needs to be viewed as a network rather than a collection of individual lines.

The greater opportunity would come from connecting rail stations with BRT routes, conventional buses, waterways, walking infrastructure and other last-mile services.

Mumbai’s transport spine

Mumbai offers another lesson. The Indian commercial capital has long relied on suburban rail as the backbone of its transport system. As of February 2026, India’s Ministry of Railways said Western and Central Railway operated 3,230 suburban services, including AC services, across Mumbai.

The model demonstrates the importance of a high-capacity transport spine serving large numbers of people throughout the day.

For Lagos, rail could play that role along the busiest corridors, while buses and waterways provide connections to neighbourhoods beyond railway stations.

Tokyo’s lesson: make the system work together

Tokyo provides perhaps the clearest illustration of what an integrated urban transport system can achieve.

The city has an extensive network of trains, subways, buses and other transport options, allowing residents to move around without relying exclusively on private cars. Tokyo’s official tourism authority describes the city as having a comprehensive public transportation network combining JR trains, subways, buses and waterbuses.

The lesson for Lagos is not that the city can reproduce Tokyo’s system overnight.

Rather, it is that transport policy has to make alternatives sufficiently reliable, connected and convenient for residents to choose them.

Roads alone cannot solve Lagos’ problem

Dickson said congestion is also worsened by weak traffic enforcement, illegal parking, route deviations, poor road maintenance, inadequate pedestrian facilities, ageing vehicles and ineffective route planning.

‘Road transport in Lagos is operating beyond its sustainable capacity, especially during peak hours,’ she said.

She recommended stronger enforcement, real-time traffic management, improved route planning and vehicle maintenance in the short term, alongside accelerated investment in rail and water transport.

The challenge is therefore bigger than traffic management. A new road can temporarily increase capacity, but population growth and increased vehicle ownership can quickly consume that capacity. The more sustainable approach is to provide alternatives capable of carrying large numbers of commuters.

For Lagos, that means expanding the rail network, increasing BRT capacity and reliability, developing waterways, improving pedestrian infrastructure and integrating all these modes into a single transport system.

At the same time, road infrastructure itself continues to present problems. Poor road surfaces, construction-related bottlenecks, illegal parking, informal loading points and traffic indiscipline compound congestion on already busy corridors such as Lekki-Epe and other major routes.

The experience of Delhi, Mumbai and Tokyo suggests that the objective for a megacity should be to give residents dependable alternatives to sitting in traffic, not simply to make them better at enduring it.

State confirms new bosses at Epra, GDC and Ketraco

Edward Kinyua has taken over as the new Director-General of the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra), headlining a list of three key appointments in the country’s energy sector.

Mr Kinyua takes over from Daniel Kiptoo, was resigned from the position in April this year in the wake of a controversial importation of an emergency cargo of petrol outside the Government-to-Government (G-to-G) deal.

Besides Mr Kinyua, Stephen Busieney has been confirmed as the Managing Director and CEO of Geothermal Development Company (GDC) while Tom Imbo takes over in the same position at the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco).

The three senior-most positions at Epra, GDC and Ketraco fell vacant due to resignation, sacking and a government decision not to renew the term of one of the CEOs.

Mr Busieney has been acting since November 2025 having replaced Paul Ngugi who exited after the State opted not to renew his term for a final three years, while Mr Imbo replaces John Mativo who was sacked in the same month.

‘The appointments, which are to take effect immediately, are a culmination of rigorous recruitment processes undertaken in accordance with the applicable laws and relevant human resource guidelines by the respective Boards of Directors of Ketraco, GDC and Epra,’ Energy and Petroleum CS Opiyo Wandayi said on Wednesday when he confirmed the appointments.

The three will serve for an initial three-year term, renewable once subject to performance and other parameters set by the respective boards of directors.

They are tasked with overseeing a number of key projects and regulatory changes in the energy sector that the State is betting on to further open up the space and bolster electricity generation and transmission.

For example, Ketraco is set to deliver Kenya’s first Public Private Partnership-funded power transmission lines, while the GDC is tasked with ramping up production of geothermal power at Menengai and the Bogoria-Silale areas.

Epra is also undertaking major regulatory changes to open up Kenya’s electricity distribution space to more firms besides sanctioning the onboarding of new power plants to the national grid.

Prior to this appointment, Mr Kinyua had been the Director of Petroleum and Gas at Epra, while Mr Busieney was the General Manager, Finance and Investment at GDC before he took over from Mr Ngugi in an acting capacity.

Mr Imbo was the acting General Manager for Finance at Ketraco prior to his latest appointment to replace Mr Mativo who was sacked amid allegations of flawed procurement and a fall-out with the board.

Mr Kiptoo, the former Managing Director of Epra, resigned in April this year and was then arrested over an emergency cargo of petrol that was imported in March this year outside the G-to-G deal.

The latest appointments have left only Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) and National Oil Corporation of Kenya (Nock) as public firms in the energy sector that do not have substantive CEOs.

Joe Sang, KPC’s former chief executive, resigned alongside Mr Kiptoo while the CEO position at Nock fell vacant following the end of the allowable six-year term for Leparan Morintat.

Treasury payroll reforms to end sacco remittance delays

The State is working on payroll changes that will see the National Treasury directly remit savings and loan deductions to members’ saccos as it moves to address non-remittance of deductions that has swelled to Sh3.92 billion across the industry.

Cabinet Secretary for Co-operatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Wycliffe Oparanya said the reforms, which were initially expected to take effect in July, would centralise payroll processing for government agencies and county governments at Treasury.

Once implemented, deductions for saccos savings and loan repayments will be sent directly to the respective institutions instead of passing through employers in a bid to protect the interests of members of the thrift institutions.

‘This means deductions for saccos and other co-operatives towards savings and loan repayments will be remitted directly to the respective institutions. This is being worked on and, as soon as it is implemented, we will forget about this problem of non-remittance,’ said Mr Oparanya.

He spoke during the release of the 2025 sacco supervision report, which showed the amounts owed to saccos regulated by Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra) had risen by 12.3 percent to Sh3.92 billion at the end of last year from Sh2.49 billion a year earlier.

The number of saccos affected by the non-remittances increased from 85 to 89 over the review period. Sacco members affected by the remittance delays nearly doubled to 104,331 from 55,602 in the previous year.

County governments and assemblies accounted for 48.09 percent of the outstanding funds, followed by public universities and tertiary colleges at 18.52 percent and State corporations at 12.26 percent.

Private sector firms accounted for 8.81 percent of the amount owed to saccos.

Sasra chief executive David Sandagi said in an interview that the proposed model would remove the employer as an intermediary between the employee and saccos, helping address public sector-related non-remittances.

Under the proposed approach, Mr Sandagi said, employers would receive only the amounts due for payment to employees, while sacco deductions would flow directly to the societies.

‘With this approach, what flows to the entity will only be what is due to it, while what is due to sacco members will flow directly to the saccos,’ he said.

The Sasra report showed that Sh3.04 billion or 77.55 percent of the outstanding funds in 2025, represented deductions for loans and other credit facilities, up from Sh2.60 billion. A further Sh879.7 million related to savings deductions.

The regulator said failure by employers to remit loan deductions has left the affected loans in default or substantially impaired, contributing to non-performing loans and putting pressure on saccos’ liquidity.

‘The continued failure by various employer-institutions to promptly remit the deductions made from employees’ remuneration to the beneficiary saccos continue to seriously hamper the liquidity position of the regulated saccos, as well as their ability to meet member obligations regarding issuance of loans and credit facilities, which is their core business,’ said Sasra.

Under the check-off arrangement, employers deduct loan repayments and savings contributions directly from employees’ salaries and remit the funds to their respective saccos.

Sasra notes that while the model has helped promote a savings culture through direct deductions from salaries and made it easier for saccos to recover loan repayments, the challenge of non-remittance has undermined these benefits.

PM caught handing out cash to flood victims

Sparking online debate after being captured on a Facebook live stream, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul was seen handing out cash to flood-hit residents of communities in Bangkok’s Sai Mai district late on Tuesday.

Mr Anutin, who also serves as interior minister, made an unannounced visit to the Ban Ua-Athorn housing estate in Bang Khen, Sai Mai district, on the night of September 29 to hand out supply and check on residents who have been living with floodwaters for five days. More than 10,000 people live in the community.

After the handout, some residents asked to have their photos taken with the prime minister. In a live stream by Eakpob Laungprasert from the Facebook page “Survive – ?????????????” (Sai Mai Must Survive), Mr Anutin is seen taking a wad of cash from his trouser pocket and giving 1,000-baht banknotes to residents at about the 44-minute mark.

“Hush hush, this is all I have. It won’t be enough,” he said in a jovial tone. Security staff then raised their hands to block the camera, and a man could be heard saying: “Please, no filming.”

The clip has been widely shared on social media, with users debating whether such a gesture is permissible and appropriate for a prime minister.

Speaking at the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation on Wednesday, Mr Anutin said: “My money is clean. The money I gave the residents yesterday was not even half of what I earned as prime minister.”

He said residents had walked a long way to meet him and he did not know what else to give as supplies for the handout had been depleted. “I handed out what I had. That was my intention,” he said.

TV presenter Sorayuth Suthassanachinda said on the news programme Kammakorn Khao Khui Nok Jor that handing out cash outside an election period should not be considered illegal. However, he warned that people would begin asking the prime minister for money whenever he makes an appearance.

Burnham promises 10-year plan for Britain

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said on Tuesday that the country had been “on the wrong path for a long time,” citing deindustrialization and Brexit as he pledged to break with the direction of the past 40 years.

Addressing the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, Burnham said his government would publish a 10-year plan for Britain later this year.

He also said a strengthened water bill would be brought before Parliament, leasehold reform legislation would be introduced before Christmas, and ministers would draw up a national energy plan.

Still, Burnham said the government would pursue its agenda “responsibly” while sticking to its fiscal rules.

Azerbaijan’s digital investment surges as its non-oil economy seeks new growth

The digital sector still accounts for a relatively small share of Azerbaijan’s economy, but recent figures show that it is growing significantly faster than the economy as a whole. The results for January-August 2026 are particularly notable in terms of investment: investment in the information and communications sector increased by 49.4% in real terms to ?320 million ($188.24 million). During the same period, the value added generated by the sector increased by 10.7% to ?1.775 billion ($1.04 billion).

These two figures actually illustrate the main question facing Azerbaijan’s digital economy. On the one hand, investment is increasing by 49.4%. On the other hand, the sector’s real value added is growing by 10.7%. In other words, the increase in capital investment is considerably higher than the sector’s current economic growth. This is not a problem in itself. In particular, returns from infrastructure-related investments may materialize over years rather than immediately. The main issue is how much additional value, productivity, new services and exports the ?320 million ($188.24 million) investment can generate in the coming years.

The information and communications sector currently accounts for 2% of Azerbaijan’s total GDP. In January-August, the country’s GDP amounted to ?87.7 billion ($51.59 billion), of which ?61.5 billion ($36.18 billion) came from the non-oil and gas sector. The ICT sector’s share of non-oil and gas GDP reaching 2.9% also shows that the sector is still relatively small. Nevertheless, while the non-oil and gas economy grew by 2.1% in real terms in the first eight months of 2026, growth in the information and communications sector stood at 10.7%.

The ICT sector is growing significantly faster than the economy as a whole. The bigger issue is what lies behind this growth and whether it is translating into higher productivity, stronger investment returns and greater economic value.

The sector providing ?2.748 billion ($1.616 billion) worth of services in the first eight months of 2026 presents an interesting detail in this regard. Of this amount, ?868 million ($510.6 million), or 31.6%, came from mobile communications, while ?455 million ($267.6 million), or 16.6%, came from internet services. Software development and related consulting services accounted for ?435 million ($255.9 million), or 15.8%, of total services. More interestingly, software development and related consulting services increased by 39.4% in real terms over the year. Growth in internet services stood at 21.3%, while information services grew by 13.4%.

These figures can be considered one of the possible signs of structural change in the ICT sector. Mobile communications is still the sector’s largest source of revenue, but the faster growth of software development and related services shows that activities generating higher added value are expanding.

This is precisely where the main opportunity for Azerbaijan emerges. The future of the digital economy will depend on how effectively Azerbaijan can turn better connectivity and wider digital access into higher-value economic activity. A greater economic impact can come from exporting software, cloud services, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, data services and other digital products to regional markets.

The ?320 million ($188.2 million) invested in the ICT sector is significant, particularly when compared with the sector’s overall contribution to the economy. Azerbaijan’s total investment in fixed capital across the economy reached ?12.68 billion ($7.46 billion) in the first eight months of 2026, with information and communications accounting for approximately 2.5% of the total.

On the other hand, the fact that the average monthly nominal wage in the ICT sector reached ?2,137 ($1,257) in January-July 2026 is also noteworthy. This figure is significantly higher than the average monthly wage nationwide. At the same time, the number of employees working under employment contracts in the sector stood at 34,200 as of August 1. The sector currently employs a relatively small workforce, although its wage levels suggest room for further growth in higher-income employment.

As a result, the key indicator for Azerbaijan’s digital economy in the coming years should not be simply how many percent the ICT sector grows. More important questions will be how much productivity the investment generates, how much exports of software and digital services increase, how the number of highly skilled jobs changes, and how much the ICT sector’s 2.9% share of non-oil and gas GDP rises.

Azerbaijan is already investing more resources in digitalization. The main issue now is not for that investment to create greater consumption of digital services within the country, but to translate into the production of higher-value-added products and services and their expansion into foreign markets. If this happens, the sector that currently accounts for 2% of GDP could become a more significant pillar of Azerbaijan’s non-oil economy in the future.

House elects dermatologist as health panel chair

The House of Representatives on Tuesday elected Manila Rep. Giselle Maceda as head of the chamber’s health committee, a week after the post was vacated following the death of its previous chairman.

Maceda, a medical doctor specializing in dermatology who represents Manila’s fourth district, will head the panel tasked with overseeing legislation on public health systems, hospital creation and congressional health investigations.

She is taking over the health panel following the death of Batanes Rep. Ciriaco Gato, who died of cardiac arrest on Sept. 21. Maceda was the committee’s vice chairwoman during Gato’s tenure.

Maceda assumes the panel’s leadership as it co-hosts hearings with the Ways and Means Committee on a proposed excise tax hike on sugary drinks, a measure that has drawn pushback from beverage groups.

Proposals by lawmakers seek to raise the rate for beverages sweetened with caloric or noncaloric sweeteners from the current P6 to P9 to P20 per liter, and to raise the rate for beverages containing high-fructose corn syrup from P12 to as much as P40 per liter.

NBA: Pistons start camp without Jalen Duren on roster

The Detroit Pistons tipped off training camp without Jalen Duren on the roster.

Pistons general manager Trajan Langdon said last May that the team wanted to sign the All-Star center to a contract extension, but the two sides had not reached an agreement ahead of media day on Monday afternoon.

If Detroit and Duren don’t reach a deal, he has until Thursday to sign a one-year qualifying offer from the franchise.

‘We are excited to have him back when he gets back,’ Langdon said.

Duren became a first-time All-Star last season while averaging 20 points and 10.5 rebounds to help the Pistons win the Central Division for the first time since 2008 and earn top seeding in the Eastern Conference playoffs.

His scoring dropped dramatically in the NBA playoffs to 10.2 points, showing his limitations offensively, and that led to Detroit being pushed to a Game 7 in the first round against eighth-seeded Orlando and losing a seven-game series in the second round against Cleveland despite home-court advantage.

‘I know there’s a lot of things out there being said, but he’s a huge part of what we do and where we are right now and the steps that have been taking,’ coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. ‘It’s all love from our standpoint.’

The 6-foot-10 center, though, is just 22 years old and can potentially develop some low-post moves and mid-range jumpers to make defenses respect him with the ball outside of the lane.

‘He’s going to be a huge part of our team, regardless of the decision he does make,’ Langdon said.

He was selected No. 13 overall out of Memphis in 2022 by Charlotte, and Detroit acquired him in a draft-night trade. He averaged 11-plus points a game over his first three seasons in the league and and grabbed a career-high 11.6 rebounds in his second season.

The Pistons recently invested in another player who is also limited offensively, but he is one of the NBA’s best defenders.

They gave Ausar Thompson a five-year, $155 million contract earlier this month, extending a player the franchise picked No. 5 overall in 2023 even though he’s not a double-digit scorer.

Thompson, who has averaged only 9.6 points over his three-year career, was on the NBA All-Defensive team last season and finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting after averaging a league-high two steals per game.

Detroit’s best player, 25-year-old point guard Cade Cunningham, is under contract through the 2029-30 season. The Pistons put two players on the roster during the offseason to complement Cunningham, an All-NBA player.

Isaiah Joe was acquired in a trade with Oklahoma City, adding a 27-year-old guard whose 3-point shooting percentage ranked 10th in the NBA last year to improve one of Detroit’s weaknesses. Veteran forward John Collins, who has averaged 15.7 points over his career, was given a three-year, $51 million contract to essentially replace Tobias Harris, who left in free agency to sign to San Antonio.