Winners have emerged in the second edition of the PwC Media Excellence Awards 2017 held at Oriental Hotels in Lagos on October 6, 2017.
Winners of the PwC Media Excellence Awards 2017
Isaac Anyaogu, BusinessDay’s energy correspondent emerge the first prize winner in the SMEs category with his entry titled: ‘Pennies for a piece of the sun’, a story that explored how smart companies are commoditising solar and aiding small business in a country where power supply is inadequate.
Isaac Anyaogu also won the second prize in the tax category for his story titled: ‘Can Nigeria plug tax leakages in the digital economy?’, which explored the need for the tax authorities to catch up as more transactions are moving online. His story on Apapa roads, a crying shame, which took a swipe at the lack of will to fix one of the most important roads in the country, won third prize in the Business & Economy category.
Collins Nweze from Nation newspaper won the first prize in the tax reporting category. He was awarded for his story: “Taxation: Endless games…endless controversies”, a special report on the government’s new push to get the citizenry to pay their taxes and resistance from the people over claims that the government misuses tax revenues meant for societal growth.
Victor Ekwealor of Techpointng won the first prize in the Business & Economy category with his story: “Can technology help dried fish nourish the Nigerian economy?”
Nkiru Nnorum from Vanguard newspaper claimed top prize in the Capital markets category with her story: “Furore over conversion of dollar debts into equity”.
According to Uyi Akpata, PwC Nigeria country senior partner on the PwC Media Excellence Awards 2017:
“Why a professional service firm organising a media award you may ask, our purpose is to build trust in the society and the media is a partner to help achieve this objective.
We hope the award will be a motivation for journalists to improve their report and take interest in business reporting which has the capacity to improve society.”
Taiwo Oyedele PwC partner and head of tax practice said the entries this year were three times the number received last year and the quality of the entries were remarkably better.
Oyedele said that overall, PwC Nigeria received 123 entries but some of them did not meet requirement and were eliminated. It was now down to 83 entries. Business and Economy category had 45 entries, Tax category 11 entries, SMEs 12 and Capital markets received the rest of the entries.
Anyaogu, who was a second runnerup in the Citi Journalistic Excellence Awards, held in June this year, continues a tradition of BusinessDay reporters winning laurels for excellent business journalism. Anthony Osaebrown, editor, Patrick Atuanya, Caleb Ojewale, Odinaka Anudu, Teliat Sule and Chuka Uroko have all won prestigious awards on the BusinessDay platform.
