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Regulators stifle consumer firm’s growth as volumes slide LOLADE AKINMURELE & OLALEKAN IPELE

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ndustry stakeholders tell BusinessDay that government agencies have become revenue generating bodies and are not facilitating ease of business as is expected of them, especially with regards to consumer goods manufacturers, leading to a slide in sales volumes and capacity utilisation.

“Many of the big players are neither ramping up capacity nor extending new lines and their books show it. Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) compa-

Cost per unit up, capacity below 40%

nies are reeling from this regulatory ineptitude, even as they have been hard hit by weak consumer demand and declining volumes,” a source with vast experience in the consumer goods manufacturing space said.

Last week, the news of P&G shutting down its US$300 million plant located in Agbara, Ogun state, just a year after launch by Vice president Yemi Osinbajo, was an indicator of the woes of the sector.

Declining volumes and profitability have led to massive layoffs in the sector, another industry source told BusinessDay. “Typically in the manufacturing sector, if volumes are down, cost per unit goes up because manufacturing is a game of volume. So when your volume is down, and your cost goes up, the first thing you do is to start laying-off staff in their numbers,” the source who did not want his name in print said.

“Most of the FMCGs are operating below 40 percent capacity, and they have resorted to using poor quality inputs in their production. That is what nobody tells you. Quality is what has been compromised,” the source said.

The Society for Family Health, makers of gold circle condom, has laid off over 50 percent staff because they are in dire straits, while companies like Heinz do Continues on page 38

Fashola directs NERC to stop DisCos’ monopoly … boom for private investors

… Wike describes city as safe again for investments Ignatius Chukwu

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new fertilizer plant has been started in Eleme, near Port Harcourt, Rivers State, at the cost of N976 billion ($3.2bn).

The Senate president, Bukola Saraki, laid the foundation stone of the plant.

The host governor, Nyesom Wike, who used the opportunity to tell investors of the safety of Port Harcourt and the preparedness of the administration to restore confidence of the business community in the oil-rich state, assisted him.

The Indorma-Eleme Fertilizer and Chemicals Limited (IEFCL) is building the new plant, the new majority equity owner of the Eleme Petrochemicals Limited (EPL), formerly owned by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

Indorama bought the EPL in 2006 and rebuilt to new ef-

Inside

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Continues on page 38

Construction of N976bn fertilizer plant begins in Eleme, PH

Continues on page 38

ISAAC ANYAOGU, Lagos & HARRISON EDEH, Abuja

abatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing has directed the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), the electricity sector regulator to enforce provisions in the Electric

fgn bonds

Treasury Bills

L-R: Fiorillo Lorenzo, vice chairman and MD, NAOC; Nicolas Terraz, MD/CEO, TEPNG; Maikanti Baru, group MD, NNPC; Osagie Okunbor, country chairman/MD, SPDC, and Ainojie Irune, COO, Oando Energy Resources, at the signing ceremony of the 7 Critical Gas Development Projects that will enable national energy sufficiency.

Auto policy on track, making progress P. 2 - Enelamah

Battle for 2019 set as PDP merges with 39 parties OWEDE AGBAJILEKE & CHRIS AKOR

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t appears the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) the erstwhile ruling party, and other opposition parties have finally come to the realisation that only a broad-based coalition can dislodge a ruling party in Nigeria.

What had permeated the political landscape as rumours finally materialised on Monday as the PDP, in following the example of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015, entered

…to present one presidential candidate …changes name to CUPP

into a grand alliance with over 39 political parties, including the new splinter group from the APC, the Reformed-APC to confront the All Progressives Congress in the 2019 general elections.

At the signing ceremony at the Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja, the over 39 political parties signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together to defeat the APC administration

and announced a new name – Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) – as the vehicle to achieve that aim and agreed to present just one presidential candidate.

Parties represented at the event include the People’s Democratic Party, (PDP), the newly formed Refored All Progressive Congress (r-APC), former president Obasanjo’s African

Democratic Congress (ADC), the Social Democratic Party of Nigeria (SDP), National Conscience Party (NCP), Labour Party (LP) and a host of other registered but obscure political parties.

They also promised to present an executive bill on Restructuring and Devolution of powers to the National Assembly.

The event also marked the return of the Chairman Senate

Committee on FCT, Dino Melaye and Kawu Baraje - a strong ally of Senate President Bukola Saraki to the party.

The MoU reads in part: “THAT the Parties shall work together to ensure the emergence of a joint presidential candidate of which modalities for this collegiate process shall be under a separate Agreement by the Parties.

“THAT the Parties shall pro-

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Tuesday 10 July 2018

MARKETS Views from Singapore: Somethings I learnt from running around Singapore

Anthony Osae-Brown, Editor, BusinessDay

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develop more knowledge intensive businesses driven by research and development. Officials say the country invested US$19 billion in research and development this year, an amount that is almost equivalent to federal government’s 2018 budget.

Public housing for development In the 1960’s Singapore was congested, dirty and crowded. The government decided to embark on public housing as a development tool and convinced those living in the congested and dirty environment into neater public housing.

The philosophy behind this was to enable them feel that they have a stake in Singapore. What better way for people to feel they have a stake in in a country they have property they can call their own?

The government gave them highly subsidised public housing.

The government builds the houses, hands them over to the people at highly subsidised rates which they pay back over about 30 years. Public housing has become an important tool for developing the country.

Currently 80% of Singapore’s population leave in Public Housing and the remaining 20% live in more expensive private housing. But most young people live in public housing provided by the government which they pay for over 30 years or more.

The Housing Development Board is one of the oldest agencies in Singapore. The original idea was to ensure that all Singaporean residents have good affordable housing that meets their basic needs. This is also accompanied by access to basic amenities, public transport and recreational activities. Over the years, as the country has developed, public housing has shifted to meet the aspirational needs of Singaporeans. So instead of basic housing concepts, they are being equipped with more amenities, with more options, even though they are still public housing.

Private car ownership discouraged Private car ownership is deliberately discouraged in Singapore. And this is because it is such a small citycountry. So cars are very expensive compared to many other places.

And then even when Singaporeans buy a car, they must also obtain a certificate of entitlement, which in most cases are as expensive as the car. So, if a Singaporean got a car for US$100,000, the certificate of entitlement will also cost about the same amount. And because private car ownership is actively discouraged, the government has invested heavily in public transport system to encourage everyone to get on the public transport. This is to ensure that the roads are not clogged with private cars. Creative use of taxation, you would say. Two other items that are heavily taxed in Singapore are cigarettes and alcohol.

Principles that guide economic development in Singapore Singapore’s economic development is guided by four key principles. A believe in strong leadership. The need to anticipate global changes and ensure that the country’s workforce and students are equipped with relevant knowledge and skill sets that helps them remain relevant, the believe in reward for good work and work for reward and finally a believe that there is a stake for everyone.

o, I am in Singapore as part of the African Journalist Visit Programme (AJVP) organised by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) in Singapore and Enterprise Singapore. This programme brings in journalist from different African countries to Singapore ahead of the Africa-Singapore Business Forum which will take place in August.

BusinessDay is a media partner to the Forum. This is 5-day programme and today we had the opportunity to meet with officials of the MTI as well as Enterprise Singapore, a special agency set up by the ministry to help grow Singapore businesses from Start-ups to Multinationals. We also met with some of Singapore’s key businesses.

Here are some take-away from the various meetings today One of the biggest motivation that drove Singapore’s economic development was the realization that it was a small country with very big neighbours-Malaysia and Indonesia and located in an area with many countries that have huge population. Singapore is just about 23-kilometre-long and 42-Kilometre-wide or about half the size of Lagos, Nigeria’s smallest state.

Focus on growing businesses As an official of MTI noted, you can fit 400,000 Singapores into Africa.

It also has a very small population of just five million people which also means that businesses located in Singapore have a limited market and room to grow. But instead of seeing these constraints as a challenge, Singapore turned into a motivation to grow. With limited internal market, Singapore realized that it must nurture its businesses to grow and compete internationally. So a limited internal market has become the incentive to grow externally.

The result is that, today, Singapore has various business nurtured in Singapore but which are now global giants, with some of them operating in Nigeria. The Tolaram Group, makers of Indomie, and now expanding into deep sea ports in Nigeria, Olam, the commodity giant, Indorama, the petrochemical giant, are all headquartered in Singapore. At independence in 1960, Singapore had a GDP of less than US$1000, today the country’s GDP stands at US$340 billion, almost the same size as that of Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy.

The service sector remains the biggest part of Singapore’s economy. There is manufacturing but high value manufacturing and that is a deliberate policy based on the realization that the country cannot compete with its more populous neighbours on the cost of labour for low value manufacturing activities.

So there is a focused approach to Continues on wwwbusinessday online.com

FBN Holdings to buybacks $300m 8.25% debt notes in sign of strength MICHEAL ANI & DIPO OLADEHINDE

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irst Bank of Nigeria Limited, the largest subsidiary of the FBN Holdings has announced plans to exercise its option to call the $300m 8.25 per cent subordinated notes raised from the international debt markets before the due date of August 2020.

In the notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) signed by the company secretary Seye Kosoko; the FBN Holdings said First Bank, seeks to call and pre-pay holders of the note at the next callable date of August 7, 2018.

“The bank took the decision as a liquidity management exercise, just as it demonstrates the strength of First Bank’s foreign currency liquidity and robust capital base, while further

enhancing the efficiency of the balance sheet,” Bank statement said.

Despite its Eurobond being among the riskiest in Nigeria, First bank’s Eurobond was among the best dollar denominated corporate bonds raised by Nigerian Banks in 2018 of CCC ratings, closely behind Diamond Bank of B- Eurobond rating. Ayodeji Ebo, ceo of Afri-invest Securities Limited said the early move by the Bank is a strategic and good business decision because it is very expensive recalling a bond at this time when yield are rising in the United states.

“They are recalling which means that they are paying the debtors off based on the current yield environment,” Ebo said.

A eurobond is a debt raised by an institution or government which

is denominated in a currency other than the home currency of the country or market in which it is issued.

Ebo added, “If they are going to raise new debt, it will be at a higher rate.”

Fitch Ratings said last year that the return of Nigerian banks to the international bond markets, marks “a small step towards, reducing maturity mismatches between foreigncurrency (FC) assets and liabilities.”

Renewed interest from international investors seeking yield enabled several banks to issue Eurobonds since late 2016, for the first time since 2014, albeit at higher yields, following rating downgrades in the intervening period. In most cases, the issuance will boost foreign currency funding, rather than simply refinance maturing dollar debt.

Continues on wwwbusinessday online.com

L-R: Ayodele Fayose, governor, Ekiti State; Bukola Saraki, Senate president, and Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, governor, Rivers State, during the commissioning of the iconic Obiri-Ikwerre Airport Road by the Senate President

Auto policy on track, making progress - Enelamah … as ADF secures N12.5bn loan facility to local auto assemblers MIKE OCHONMA & ENDURANCE OKAFOR

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he criticism by some stakeholders over the auto policy’s failure to achieve the much desired result due to the high cost of brand new vehicles since the advent the new policy in 2013, is unfair according to Okechukwu Enelamah, minister of industry, trade and investment, insisting the policy is making remarkable progress.

The minister told BusinessDay during a chat that policy changes such as the current automotive policy normally entail some inconveniences to certain groups in the initial stages, but ultimately, such policy initiatives work out well for the benefit of all segments of the population and the country at large through faithful implementation.

On whether or not the ministry has done any comprehensive evaluation of the government’s auto policy, Enelamah disclosed that regular evaluation and tweaking are integral parts of all its policies to ensure they deliver their set objectives.

According to him, the objective of the automotive policy is to restore full automotive assembly and develop local content, thus, creating employ-

ment, acquiring technology and to establish Special Economic Zones reducing pressure on the country’s around the country as measures balance of payments, “indeed the ef- towards attracting core investors that forts to attain an effective automotive would lead to local manufacturing of sector have been a continuous one,” affordable vehicles.

Enelamah said.

While the minister was silent on On the critical challenge of Nige- the actual amount that has so far ria’s capacity and right infrastructure been collected as levies and duties to meet up with local demands of on imported cars in the last three vehicles and the state of auto parts years of President Muhammadu manufacturers, he stated that, as the Buhari administration, and how the sector grows, various parts providers government has judiciously utilised will spring up as it is being witnessed. the funds, the ministry in a state“The policy has led to the reduc- ment signed by Bisi Daniels, strategy tion of importation of fully-built and communications adviser to the vehicles due to higher tariff on them. minister said the fund is being used So in order to boost local produc- to further boost the sector. tion, currently the Council, through On the supply side, Enelamah the automotive development fund said auto parks are being developed (ADF), has provided loan facilities in Nnewi, Osogbo and Kaduna, while to 57 companies amounting to N12.5 plans are alsounderwayfor testing cenbillion,” Enelamah said. tres, including the building and skill deOf the 57 companies being grant- velopment of automotive technicians. ed loan access, 29 of those are being Meanwhile, according to the processed at the Bank of Industry figures by the National Bureau of (BOI) and increasing activities are Statistics (NBS) 269,386 new vehicles now experienced in the automotive were imported in 2012, while 280,226 industry the minister disclosed. came into the country in 2013 and The minster assured that govern- 247,932 in 2014. Also, in 2015, imment will grant tax holidays to some ports collapsed to a mere 131, 994 critical players in the industry as a vehicles, and just 105, 189 in 2016. form of incentive to stimulate volume, even as efforts are being made Continues on wwwbusinessday online.com

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Tuesday 10 July 2018

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Is APC reaping the whirlwind?

MAZI SAM OHUABUNWA OFR sam@starteamconsult.com

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n Nigeria there are many prophets, mostly false prophets. But the effervescent dynamics of Nigerian political environment often gives them the opportunity to brag. That’s because, they neither hear from God, nor have the necromancing ability to peep into the future to prophesy.

Many only read newspapers or listen to radios or watch television often and feel sufficiently equipped to project the future. Others do not even make the effort to search the media-online or offline, they just pay regular visits to drinking parlours and listen to the gists, rumours and gossips that are traded as they wash down goat-meat pepper soup with Adonko alcoholic bitters and they turn to prophecy, more so in this football season.

I asked one of such ‘prophets’ a few weeks ago who would win the World Cup and he told me it was going to be one of Germany, Spain or Portugal. When these three teams got eliminated in the first rounds, I called this ‘prophet’ friend of mine to ask ‘how come?’ and he told me that the Octopus on which he depended disappointed him. I then tried to convince him that he was not a prophet, but was only in the business of guesswork and that if he insisted on being addressed as a prophet then he was a false prophet. My friend strongly

STRATEGY & POLICY

MA JOHNSON Johnson is a marine project management consultant and Chartered Engineer. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, UK.

“Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.”- Psalm 133 verse 1 (New American Standard Bible). he public space is bombarded with a cacophony of ideas about the unity and future of Nigeria. At the same time individuals are also, making hate speeches which to my mind cannot promote unity amongst Nigerians.

Leaders of thought and public affairs analysts across the length and breadth of the country are engaged in debates on how to move the nation forward.

Some advocate, that Nigeria should

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remonstrated against calling him a false prophet. But this my friend called me last week and sounded triumphant. He asked me if I had heard. I asked ‘heard what?’And then went on to answer that I had heard that Belgium beat Brazil in the quarter finals in the ongoing finals. He retorted that was not what he was asking about. And announced to me that his prophesy about APC splitting into factions has been fulfilled and requested me to withdraw my earlier classification of him as a false prophet. I ended the discussion by telling him that if predicting that APC would split into two or even self-destruct was an act of prophesy, then, most Nigerian political watchers and analysts like me would also claim to be prophets as well.

How could anybody not see it coming? The Bible said centuries ago that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And that if you sow to the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.APC was clobbered together as a vehicle in a determined effort by political power mongers to take power from Jonathan and his PDP. These power mongers received support from the oracle of Ibogun, the man who troubleth Nigeria. Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT) led teams of this confederal group to go and invite his one time archenemy Olusegun Obasanjo to come and lead them to ‘rescue’ Nigeria from Jonathan’s ‘cluelessness’. OBJ, who had earlier torn his PDP membership card in public, offered his services and Jonathan was overthrown.

One would have hoped that once the mission of capturing power was accomplished the leaders of this amorphous congregation would take determined steps to begin welding the disparate groups together. But they never did. The first sign that the future was fraught with danger was the bad omen on the day the NASS

How could anybody not see it coming? The Bible said centuries ago that a house divided against itself cannot stand. And that if you sow to the wind, you will reap the whirlwind was inaugurated. The President had signed papers to proclaim the NASS at its first sitting at 10am on that fateful date. At the same time, it was alleged that the same President called the party leaders including NASS members to a meeting at the International Conference Centre, Abuja.

It was when they saw on television that Dr Olubukola Saraki was being sworn in as the Senate President that the parallel meeting ended abruptly with legislators scampering and running to the National Assembly.

In the meantime, the Senate had elected Saraki as its President and Dogara as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. That pained leaders of APC to no end as these were not their preferred candidates.

And everything Saraki and Dogara did thereafter to appease them, including joggling the other principal officers to accommodate the party’s desire failed. But the unforgivable sin committed by Saraki was that he allowed Ekweremadu of PDP to become Deputy Senate President.

Well I do not know what would have happened if PDP was bold and daring enough to have used its overwhelming majority that morning to take the Senate Presidency. But I am sure there would have been a war in the Senate chambers to forcefully

remove such audacious President.

Indeed there have been wars in other ways to dislodge Saraki and Ekweremadu. First they were charged with forgery and illegal changing of the senate rules to inaugurate the chamber. When that failed, they took Saraki to the code of conduct Tribunal (CCT) for failing to declare some assets he owned 15 years ago as Governor.

When they lost at the CCT, they appealed and got some support for 3 out of the 15 charges at the Appeal Court. Saraki went further to the Supreme Court who late last week quashed all the charges, setting Saraki free after nearly three years in court. A few weeks ago Saraki was to be arrested for allegedly sponsoring armed robbers who violently robbed banks in Offa in Kwara state. Saraki along with the serving Governor of Kwara State were roped into the armed robbery case by the Nigeria Police under the leadership of IGP Ibrahim Kpotun Idris. Were it not for the outcry of the media and notable Nigerians, Saraki would have been handcuffed as a common criminal and put away in detention, awaiting trial as an alleged sponsor of such deadly armed robbery that took the lives of about 30 people. He was then asked to write his statement and I believe the case was slowed down waiting for the outcome of the Code of Conduct case in the Supreme Court. Now that Saraki has been acquitted and discharged, may be the case would now be accelerated and charged to court. Much so, that Saraki is now being suspected as one of the sponsors of rAPC. Before that, Nigerians watched in amazement as hoodlums walked into the red chambers, picked up the mace as the senate was in plenary and left unchallenged by the security forces. I hear this was part of a plot to impeach Saraki & Ekweremadu which again failed but further caused intra party dislocation. Not

to talk of the efforts of the APC governments in Kogi and Kaduna to incriminate APC Senators Dino Melaye & Shehu Sani respectively.

While the campaign of APC against APC continued in both chambers of the NASS, of course with greater ferocity in the Senate, the President opened another front with Tinubu on who was the National Party leader. The President had to cut BAT to size when he admonished him to stop parading himself as the national leader of APC but to be content with being addressed as one of the National leaders since there cannot be two captains in one boat. This rift caused instability for a while in the party and began to widen the gaps leading to further humiliation of BAT in Ondo state regarding choice of gubernatorial candidate.

The then party Chairman Odigie Oyegun rose in defence of PMB and another conflict front was opened between the party Chairman and the defacto National Party leader -BAT who was incensed by Oyegun’s betrayal. He then began a major effort to remove Oyegun from his position even before his term was up. PMB in an effort to reward Oyegun for helping him cut BAT to size, was at first willing to allow Oyegun and his Exco to extend their term but BAT rose like a wounded lion and pointedly asked PMB to chose to lose the next election (apparently by withdrawing his support for PMB) or ask Oyegun to go. Given the current patent weakness of the brand, PMB made an about turn and asked Oyegun and his Exco to go and hand over to Oshiomhole.

Note: the rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https://businessdayonline.com/ Send reactions to: comment@businessdayonline.com

Breaking the jinx of disunity go for sovereign national conference, while some are for referendum. There are eminent Nigerians who see restructuring of the political structures as the way forward for a better and improved Nigeria. All these views to my mind, are from those who wish Nigeria well, as there is an urgent need to unify the people more than it has ever been.

The quotation above has been selected from the scriptures to remind Nigerians that we must accept ourselves as one people, though, tribe and tongue may differ. And that there should be no division whatsoever amongst us irrespective of our religion. But we must learn to be perfectly united in our thoughts and ideas about how Nigeria could be a strong and indivisible whole. The “us” against “them” rhetoric that ignited the last civil war between 1967 and 1970 which resulted in bloodshed of bestial magnitude must not be allowed to resurrect again. Had it been that war is the solution to our national problems, we should not be talking about inequality, injustice, and social exclusion of some tribes anymore.

But guess what, war is not the solution to achieving unity. Those who

have either fought or experienced war would tell you if they are alive, that war is gruesome, destructive, and deadly.

Those who are dead have no stories to tell. War is never a solution to a national problem between brothers and sisters.

We need to dialogue and negotiate what our coexistence should look like.

Perhaps, it is time for us to use this agitations to redefine Nigeria for greatness.

The challenges we face today are due mainly to leadership and the type of constitution the nation willfully inherited from the military. The political class took over power in a hurry in 1999 with a constitution prepared by the military to run democracy. Nigerians were tired of military tyranny but not particularly interested in the character traits of those who are to run the affairs of government after elections. Behold, it was an all-comers affair as no serious consideration was given to honest, upright, and conscientious leadership.

What the nation needed at the start of a democratically elected government in my opinion was an assemblage of thoughtful leaders who would serve the nation with their hearts and minds.

Why? It takes a generation of committed leaders to build a nation. We lost that opportunity big time!

Scholars of political structures and military-driven constitutionalism know fully well, but took for granted the paradox inherent in the writing of a constitution authored by the military. This is because the objective of a military-sponsored constitution has often been to legitimize and civilianize military rule rather than restore constitutional life as expected in the country. This is the genesis of the challenges the nation is facing today. That is why some Nigerians are demanding that the 1999 Constitution be reviewed through a referendum, and that the restructuring of the nation should start with a constitution that reflects the wishes of the people of Nigeria. They defend their position by saying that the 1999 Constitution is stifling political and economic growth.

The political structure they argue must reflect true federalism, while the cost of governance must be reduced significantly. Furthermore, the government at the centre must shed its weight by transferring most of the items reflected in the Exclusive Legislative List with 68 items to the Concurrent Legislative List of 12 items to enable states generate wealth. Anyway, the reason for a referendum to my mind is to resolve

some subjective interests and preferences which were cleverly tucked into various layers of the constitution by the military junta. Whatever we want to do as a people, the terms of restructuring, and basis of our unity must be discussed and negotiated by all constituent parts of the nation.

How then do we break the jinx of disunity in the nation? It is very important that Nigeria must have quality leadership. Nigerians must elect those politicians who have courage, vision and a sense of history. Any leader in a plural society with more than 250 ethnic groups with over 500 languages must have have the capacity to persuade, inspire trust and confidence. We need leaders who possess the capacity to attract men and women of talent into public office, not those who buckle under the influence of any cabal. Nigeria does not deserve leaders who are either bigots or narcissists.

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[#StopTheKillings] Why is West Africa less attractive to foreign investors?

RAFIQ RAJI “Dr Raji is chief economist at Macroafricaintel. He was previously an Africa Economist at Standard Chartered Bank, London, UK. (Twitter: @ DrRafiqRaji)”

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ow is it that West Africa only accounts for 5 percent of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the African continent?

The World Bank so wondered in an article in July 2017. This is the region that includes the continent’s largest economy, Nigeria, with gross domestic product (GDP) of US$406 billion in 2016, about 29 percent of Sub-Saharan African output of US$1.4 trillion.

For comparison, South Africa, the continent’s most advanced economy has a size of US$294 billion. Furthermore, the largest and most dynamic francophone African country, Ivory Coast, with a US$36 billion economy, is also West African. So why the scant foreign investor interest?

To buttress the point further, take the following example. Jack Ma, Asia’s richest man, led a cohort of similarly deep pockets from the region to East Africa in July. His first stop was Kenya, an economy barely one-fifth of Nigeria. Mr Ma also visited Rwanda, a tiny landlocked neighbour to Kenya.

If perhaps corruption, terrorism and the occasional rebellion in Nigeria and Ivory Coast are disturbing, what about Ghana?

With an economy (US$43 billion) almost as large as Kenya, Ghana has a better democratic record and has proved to be one of the most stable African countries.

And just as Nigeria struggles to deal with the Boko Haram terrorist group in its northeast, so does Kenya with Al-Shabaab.

Additionally, political violence is more of a problem in Kenya than it is in Nigeria.

It begs the question: Why would Mr Ma and his 38 billionaire friends find such relatively smaller African countries more attractive to larger coastal countries with such cosmopolitan cities like Lagos and Abidjan? The reasons are not farfetched. The World Bank asserts cumbersome administrative procedures and corruption at the ports hinder the speedy clearance of goods, for example. These apply to most African countries, though.

It attributes access to finance as

Even though corruption underpines the relatively more difficult business conditions in West African countries, it is not likely why they are less attractive investment destinations, however…

That East African countries are more economically integrated may be why though well. This is probably not as significant, though, because foreign investors are expected to bring their own capital. But if a country’s exchange rate policy is controlled and not transparent, this can be stymied. Incidentally, East African countries have been more reliable in this regard, allowing their currencies to trade without much interference and not hindering the free flow of capital in and out of their jurisdictions, even during crisis periods. This has not been historically the case in West Africa, especially Nigeria, which until recently not only rationed hard currency but blocked the repatriation of capital, causing great losses to foreign investors. So myriad bottlenecks around doing

business in most West African countries are worse than they are in East Africa. Little wonder the World Bank ranks Rwanda and Kenya 56th and 92nd out of 190 countries respectively in its latest Doing Business ranking. Ghana and Nigeria are ranked 108th and 169th respectively. Even though corruption underpines the relatively more difficult business conditions in West African countries, it is not likely why they are less attractive investment destinations, however. Kenya is perceived to be more corrupt than Nigeria, for instance. In fact, Transparency International ranks the largest East African economy 145th out of 176 countries in its 2016 corruption perception index, with Nigeria more favourably ranked at 136th.

That East African countries are more economically integrated may be why though. Because in contrast, West African countries under the aegis of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have been more successful at political integration than economic cohesion. A more innovative streak is also a factor, especially in regard of information technology; albeit West African countries like Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria are increasingly demonstrating technological progress as well. Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg,

visited Nigeria in August 2016, for instance. East Africa’s strategic location at the horn of Africa is also an attraction. China recently opened its first African military base in Djibouti, joining earlier military complexes of the Americans and others. So what can West African governments do to attract more FDI? They must make doing business easier certainly. The World Bank is helping via a European Union funded 4-year “Improved Business and Investment Climate in West Africa Project”.

An ECOWAS Investment Climate Scorecard, it is hoped would engender quicker progress towards integration than the globally oriented Doing Business ranking, say, which though African countries can use to see how they are doing relative to each other, is not as sharp a tracking tool.

With patronage-based politics continuing to be tremendously crucial to the stability of most West African countries, however, there is not much political will towards economic integration.

Move too quickly and they might have bigger problems than just being difficult to do business in.

• An edited version of these thoughts was published by Forbes Africa magazine in October 2017 Send reactions to: comment@businessdayonline.com

Oil is crude: Let’s refine Nigeria out of the ‘resource curse’

UYIOSA OMOREGIE Dr Omoregie is a petroleum economist

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s Nigeria cursed? Is it fated that all of Nigeria’s attempts at progress and economic development will fail? Many people think so. I do not believe that Nigeria is cursed in that sense. However, I do believe in the ‘resource curse theory’. A quick search on Wikipedia will explain the ‘resource curse’ to be: “…also known as the paradox of plenty, refers to the paradox that countries with an abundance of natural resources (like fossil fuels and certain minerals), tend to have less economic growth, less democracy, and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources.”Wikipedia goes on explain that “most experts believe the resource curse is not universal or inevitable, but affects certain types of countries or regions under certain conditions.”

If we think about the history of Nigeria since crude oil discovery

in 1956,we would consider that Nigeria has been been afflicted with the ‘resource curse’.

According the National Bureau of Statistics, the petroleum sector in Nigeria contributes less than 10% to Nigeria’s economy.

The Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) divides the petroleum sector into two sub-sectors: upstream and downstream. The ERGP shows that nearly all the petroleum sector’s contribution to Nigeria’s GDP is from the upstream sub-sector, with the downstream sub-sector contributing less that 0.5% of GDP. This is not what you would expect from an ‘oil economy’ when compared with other oil-producing countries like Kuwait (petroleum sector contributes up to 50% of GDP), Qatar (50% of GDP), Saudi Arabia (42% of GDP) and United Arab Emirates (30% of GDP).Yes, Nigeria holds the tenth largest oil reserves in the world, at 37 billion barrels, it is the second largest in Africa, after Libya. But these reserves have not translated into value for the economy: The CIA World Fact Book ranked Nigeria 72nd in refined petroleum productionand 82nd in refined petroleum products exports.

Simon Baur, a researcher at the London School of Economics in 2014 showed that, a country like Nigeria can mitigate the resource curse by increasing its refining capacity, as this will improve economic and institutional outcomes of an oil-producing country like Nigeria. Increased midstream and downstream capacity should increase the availability of petroleum products, its consumption, enhance linkages to other sectors and ultimately diversify the economy. According to Baur “coupling national strategies for developing downstream capacities with supplying internal demand and energy self-sufficiency may reduce the ‘rentier effects’ associated with serving a mostly external market.”

This was the pioneer research attempt at estimating the impact of refining capacities (quantitatively) on economic growth and institutional quality. The empirical results obtained by Baur show that increased economic growth and a reduction in petroleum dependence is statistically significant and positively correlated with an expansion of refining capacity in a country.

The Federal Government in recent years unleashed three policy interventions which lay

emphasis on the need to increase in-country oil refining capacity.

The Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources’ ‘7 Big Wins’ Initiative (2015), The Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (2017) and The National Petroleum Policy (2017), all highlighted the value that a reinvigorated refining industry can add to the Nigerian economy.

Nigeria’s National Petroleum Policy(NPP)was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) July 2017.The NPP’s vision is for Nigeria to be a nation where “hydrocarbons are used as fuel for national economic growth and not simply as a source of income.”

The NPP came into being because previous policies over the years were not designed for economic development and instead encouraged a rent-seeking approach. Nigeria ended up as the only member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) without effective oil refining capacity. One of the objectives of the NPP is to create value for the Nigerian economy by processing oil into important products for other industries. The future of the oil sector in Nigeria lies in refining and petrochemical

industries. The NPP states that capacity utilization of Nigeria’s refineries dropped to 14% in 2014 against a global average of capacity utilisation of 90%. The NPP states (very early on) that “a strong commercially viable and significant refining sector is an essential part of the National Petroleum Policy.”

Nigeria recently exited an economic recession that had a lot to do with the petroleum industry. The crash of oil prices in 2014, combined with dwindling oil production because of oil militancy disruptions, sharply reduced the federal government’s foreign exchange earnings (about 70% come from the petroleum industry). This reduced government revenue affected Nigeria’s external reserves. The crash of the Naira followed, with inflation as the result. Additional pressure on the Naira also comes from the petroleum industry: it was revealed by the Honorable Minister of Finance that 30% of forex demand is for the importation of refined petroleum products.

It is surely time for Nigeria to refine it’s way out of the resource curse!

Send reactions to: comment@businessdayonline.com

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Editorial PUBLISHER/CEO

Frank Aigbogun EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Prof. Onwuchekwa Jemie EDITOR Anthony Osae-Brown DEPUTY EDITORS John Osadolor, Abuja Bill Okonedo NEWS EDITOR Patrick Atuanya EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SALES AND MARKETING Kola Garuba EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS Fabian Akagha EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DIGITAL SERVICES Oghenevwoke Ighure ADVERT MANAGER Adeola Ajewole MANAGER, SYSTEMS & CONTROL Emeka Ifeanyi MANAGER, CONFERENCES & EVENTS Obiora Onyeaso SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Patrick Ijegbai CIRCULATION MANAGER John Okpaire GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (North)

Bashir Ibrahim Hassan

GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (South) Ignatius Chukwu HEAD, HUMAN RESOURCES Adeola Obisesan

Tuesday 10 July 2018

Ending frequent truck accidents in Lagos

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s at the last count, 12 people have lost their lives while many others lie severely injured in various hospitals as a result of Thursday, June 28th tanker explosion on Otedola Bridge axis on LagosIbadan expressway, where a fully loaded petrol tanker fell and spilled its content on the road. Besides the 12 lives that were lost, many other injured in the fire are struggling for survival at various hospitals in the state while about 54 vehicles were destroyed.

But even before the furore over the accident died down, another similar accident was averted, last week Wednesday at Iyana-Ipaja, when another fully loaded petrol tanker fell, spilling petrol all over the road. It took a concerted effort by various security agencies to manage the situation and ensure no explosion occurred after the accident.

We commiserate with the families of the deceased and wish those who sustained varying degrees of injuries speedy recovery.

But we must state that the Lagos state government

and the various transport and traffic management agencies have failed to learn from similar incidences in the past to ensure effective traffic management to forestall the reoccurrence of such incidences.

Had they acted after the fuel tanker explosion at FESTAC Link Bridge, in 2014, which destroyed more than 25 cars, the constant falling off of badly latched containers on trailers on Ojuelegba and other bridges in the state with devastating consequences for other road users, the June 28th incidence would not have happened.

Preliminary investigation into the cause of the explosion shows that it was caused by human error. The truck was originally designed to carry 15-tonne, but on the day of the accident, it was carrying double its capacity – 30 tonnes.

What was not said however was the monumental failure of government and its plethora of agencies to ensure that the truck was stopped and prevented from causing the avoidable disaster it eventually caused.

And to show that no lessons were learnt, just a few days after the incident, another video of an NNPC fully loaded petrol tanker in motion on Ikorodu

road, Maryland, heavily leaking fuel with one man perching dangerously at the bank of the tanker and trying unsuccessfully to control the leakage with just a rag.

It beats us that the police and our overzealous traffic and road management agencies do not see these deadly traffic infractions or conveniently look the other way. As usual, they are preoccupied with chasing after private vehicles from which they could easily extort money. They mount roadblocks just for the purpose of extortion and allow road unworthy vehicles to pass in exchange for gratification without giving a thought to the danger and fatalities road unworthy trucks could cause.

We are encouraged though, that following these unfortunate incidences, the government is now insisting on petrol tankers plying previously designated routes – the Apapa Oworonsoki Expressway via Ogudu to Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. But we do not agree with the government’s 30-day ultimatum to owners of these trucks to submit their vehicles for Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO) test and obtain the Ministry of Transportation (MOT)

Certificate of Road Worthiness.

We feel this is another way of merely extorting money from the truck owners and drivers.

Other states of the federation just like Lagos, have VIO offices and issue Certificate of Road Worthiness. It will be expressly against the federal structure or even the constitution of the country for the state government to insist all trucks passing through the state to go the whole hug of submitting their vehicles for tests and obtaining the state’s road worthiness certificate.

We feel what should concern the state government is effective enforcement of traffic rules and strict adherence to designated routes for trucks. It must create a renewed synergy among the various vehicle, road and transport management agencies – the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), the Vehicle Inspection Office (VIO), the police and the Lagos State Transport Management Authority (LASTMA) – to ensure all trucks coming into and going out of the states follow traffic rules. At the extreme, there could be occasional stop and check to verify the road worthiness of suspected vehicles and trucks.

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Tuesday 10 July 2018

BUSINESS

COMPANIES & MARKETS

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‘We account for about 42% of market share with six other operators’

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Co m pa n y n e w s a n a ly s i s a n d i n s i g h t

C & I Leasing, NEM Insurance shares outperform peers in financial services industry Emeka Ucheaga

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he financial services industry has had a fantastic ride in the past year in the stock market especially for banks but it was C&I Leasing and NEM insurance which delivered capital gains to investors in excess of 200 percent since July last year.

BusinessDay analysis revealed that out of the 29 publicly listed financial services companies surveyed; the best performing stocks were C&I Leasing with a total one year return of 296.49 percent and NEM insurance with a return of 225 percent over the same period.

Behind the top performers was FCMB with a return of 104.81 percent, making the bank the best performing publicly listed bank in the Nigerian stock market over the past year.

All banks delivered positive results during the period under review with the likes of Fidelity Bank delivering 87.91 percent returns to shareholders and FBN holdings returning as much as 74.38 percent. Even troubled Skye bank is currently up 5.88 percent over the past one year.

Insurance companies

weren’t as fortunate as the banks in the capital market as the move by the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to remove the price floor of 50 kobo for listed securities sent many insurance companies shares into a free fall. 8 out of the 15 publicly listed insurance firms lost more than 4 percent

each in stock value over the past year.

Equity Assurance shed as much as 60 percent over the past one year. Other big losers in the insurance sector were Niger Insurance (-46%), Cornerstone Insurance (-42%), Lasaco Assurance (-26%) and Mutual Benefits Assurance

CYNTHIA EGBOBOH

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he Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council (PEBEC) has commissioned the PEBEC Kiosks/ App to promote transparency and efficiency in the business environment.

Jumoke Oduwole, senior special assistant to the President on Industry, Trade and Investment said the Kiosks/APP would serve as a self-service terminal, with customer service representatives to promote the PEBEC report app, located at the international wing of the Muritala Mohammed Airport in Lagos, and also Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport.

The PEBEC report App, Jumoke explained in a statement issued is the official public service website for complaints and feedback on the service delivery standards

(+225%), Linkage Assurance (+40.98%), AXA Mansard Insurance (+31.46%) and AIICO Insurance (+16.95%).

C&I Leasing which was the top performer in the stock market over the past one year is the only publicly listed leasing company in Nigeria.

The stock is up 296.49 per-

R-L: Jubril Lawal, expert, Investment and Technology Promotion Office (ITPO), UNIDO; Simon Aranonu, executive director, large enterprises, Bank of Industry (BOI); Kayode Pitan, managing director/CEO, BOI; Jean Bakole, UNIDO representative to ECOWAS and regional director, Nigeria Regional Office Hub; Lola Odebiyi, expert, Investment and Technology Promotion Office (ITPO), UNIDO; Leonard Kange, general manager, large enterprises, BOI; and Mabel Ndagi, deputy general manager, communication and external relations, BOI during the working visit of Bakole to the BOI head office in Marina, Lagos.

PEBEC commissions App to promote transparency, efficiency in business HARRISON EDEH &

(-22%).

But there were some outliers in the Insurance sector who managed to deliver strong positive returns to their shareholders in line with their peers in the financial services industry.

These insurance companies were NEM insurance

of select Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The app was launched on 25 June 2018 at a special PEBEC meeting after a 6-month preparation period.

According to Jumoke, the app has been piloted with nine of the PEBEC priority Ministry Department and Agencies, MDAs (PPM); Citizens and Business Department, Corporate Affairs Commission, Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority, Nigeria Customs Service, Nigerian Police Force, Nigerian Ports Authority and Standards Organization of Nigeria.

Jumoke explained that the Pilot report shows that “the App aims at removing the hurdles encountered when dealing with MDAs; Strengthens federal enforcement, service delivery and public protection efforts on a national level (through filing a complaint);

Helps identify trends and tracks the issues that matter to Nigerian citizens”.

The app includes a feedback mechanism for MDAs, which have assigned administrators to handle complaints according to pre-agreed service level agreements (SLA).

All administrators have been trained on how to handle complaints and feedback from the app within a 72-hour timeline. On June 27 2018, the Federal Executive Council also approved a directive on strict compliance by all MDAs to respond to complains within 72 hours.

This web-based application which was signed by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo on 18 May 2017 targets to promote transparency and efficiency in the business environment, foster a robust monitoring and evaluation process (M&E), EO1 mandated all MDAs to submit monthly reports to the office of the Head of Service and SERVICOM.

cent since last year July as company profits jumped over N1 billion for the first time in 2017. The Bull Run in the share price began in March last year after results from 2016 performance showed that earnings per share (EPS) had jumped from 8.61 kobo in 2015 to 54.17 kobo in 2016.

EPS for 2017 came in higher at 65.85 kobo as the growth story in the company continued to gain ground.

Investors responded frantically to the strong financial performance, driving C&I share price from a low point of 50 kobo in March 2017 to N2.26 kobo on Wednesday 4th July 2018. The profit growth looks set to continue as Q1 2018 results show that EPS for Q1 2018 rose to 23.07 kobo from 16.75 kobo in Q1 2017.

While other financial services companies like Fidelity Bank and Linkage Insurance were able to grow their profits by more than 100 percent between 2016 and 2017, their stock performance has however lagged equity returns observed in C&I Leasing and NEM Insurance.

Among the 29 publicly traded financial services company, as many as 18 companies outperformed the NSE All Share Index returns of 16.09 percent over the past year.

Hogan Lovells optimistic Africa is fit for future

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lobal law firm Hogan Lovells is set to host its fifth annual Africa Forum in London, against the backdrop of a rapidly-improving investment outlook across the continent.

This year’s forum – themed Africa Fit for the Future – aims to explore, debate, and find solutions that in the long term will make a positive impact in shaping a sustainable and successful future for the continent.

Over 300 attendees will have an opportunity to share and discuss current business challenges and future outlook for those doing business in Africa.

Hogan Lovells is recognised for facilitating business, leading thought-provoking discussions and leveraging its exceptional network.

At a time when more and more countries are declaring themselves open for business, we are seeing green shoots of change. But what does it take to make a difference and reap the benefits of these bold statements? What do the public and

private sector in and outside of Africa need to do to get themselves fit to better utilise Africa’s competitive advantage? These and other pertinent topics will be discussed at the event.

The Forum coincides with the publication of the second edition of the Special Report on Investment in Africa, collaboration between African Law and Business (part of Global Legal Group) and Hogan Lovells. This year’s report expands on the successful inaugural 2017 edition, and provides an in-depth review of the legal framework for investment in a number of African countries, from real estate and employment law to competition, antitrust, and intellectual property law. Each of the 29 country chapters (an increase from up from the original 23 jurisdictions covered in the 2017 edition) is written by leading lawyers in their local jurisdictions, giving readers market-by-market insight into the different legal environments facing investors.

The report also includes

four in-depth sections on finance, natural resources, power and infrastructure, and private equity, as well as additional features on bribery and corruption risk in the context of M&A transactions, arbitration, business and human rights, and recent developments in pan-African trade.

Speaking ahead of the Forum, Andrew Skipper, Hogan Lovells partner and head of the firm’s Africa practice, commented: “This is our 5th Africa Forum and I am delighted that it is now one of most sought after Africa tickets in London and Johannesburg. This year we’re expecting over 300 leading players in the Africa market to join us in London to discuss “Africa Fit For the Future”. We have a fantastic range of expertise and experience in our speakers and panellists covering everything from industrialisation to renewable energy, urbanisation to technological innovation, logistics, value addition and much more. This is an event not to be missed.”

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COMPANIES & MARKETS

‘We account for about 42% of market share with six other operators’ Bayo Adeoku is the chief executive officer of Electronic Payplus Limited (Epayplus) a smart card and payment solution company which has been in operation for the past 13 years. He speaks in this interview with Iheanyi Nwachukwu and Micheal Anih. Excerpt: Your records show you have been in operation for the past 13 years. No doubts you must have seen the ups and down of business. What are they? here have been a lot of challenges, 13 years ago when we started; we started as a Point Of Sales (POS) company working in partnership with Interswitch and the banks to deploy payment solutions at their customer’s location.

Initially, when we started having done our business plan, we felt that POS will be accepted globally but in Nigeria unfortunately, that was not the case after working for about 2 years. And that was why we did a review of our business model and then we went into smart card that was one of the challenges we faced as a business over the last 13 years.

Also, the CBN also realized that there is a challenge and at some point in 2008, came up with a policy that cards at that time was not smart they then mandated all banks to migrate all their payment plan card to trip and pin which is a smart card that requires a higher technology to be able to produce and personalize and that was what prompted Electronic Pay Plus to come into that business because we believe we have what it takes.

Since then, we have been at the fore front of smart cards production in Nigeria.

Again there have been ups and down at some point in 2015, when the federal government of Nigeria introduced an increase in the tariff of smart cards, because then, all of us that were operating in the industry were importing smart cards abroad and all what we do was to personalize them and put customer details on the card but the card production itself were being done by various partners abroad.

So until when they introduced an increase in tariff from 10 percent to 65 percent that became a big challenge but then, as an organisation we decided to do backward integration as we went into local milling and embedding of smart card in Nigeria. We

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had to invest in new machineries, we had to invest in people and we had to invest in training the people that we just employed for that service.

We started that as a Contact card (that is a card that you insert into POS or ATM), which is what majority of the banks in Nigeria issue today.

However, recently, one of the card associates, MasterCard precisely came up with a policy that beginning from 2019 all their cards that will be issued in the African market must be contactless cards (that is, a kind of card that you need not insert into the ATM or POS but you just tap.

We envisage this and working together with one of our banking partners, we then decided to invest in embedded contactless card.

In Nigeria, as of today, Electronics Pay Plus is the only one that does contactless smart card.

We invested in that technology, we brought in the machine late last year and between December 2017 and today, we have embedded close to 3million contactless card locally in Nigeria for two of our banking customer. Again, there is no other card manufacturing company that has done that today.

There have been various challenges however we have turned that challenges to

We take very seriously customers data that comes to our domain so apart from the fact that we have visa, master card and verve certification which is required to do this business, we have also met both physical and logical standard of the business as an organization

Bayo Adeoku

opportunities over the years which has helped us to grow.

Having been in business for the past 13 years, what is your staff base in terms of expatriate and locals?

All our staffs are local we don’t believe in expatriate what an expatriate can do, we can also do it even more better we believe in Nigerians and their ability to deliver and that has been the case it will interest you to know that the visa and master card which are us companies come in here with their auditors to audit us every year and each time they come here they are very surprised at the level of what we do in this company always impressed with what we do the last auditor that came in last year from the UK said that this is the best company he has audited and he has audited in over 25 companies worldwide we have a staff strength of about 100 people and they are all Nigerians.

You succeeded in saving lots of FX out flows by providing cards locally as compared to when these cards were produced and imported from outside.

In terms of numbers what value will you say that you have saved the financial institution in terms of foreign currency?

Averagely today, we can say we have saved our banking customer about N2billion like I said the federal government of Nigeria through the minister of finance and customs increased tariffs from 10 percent to 65 percent if that is the case, banks would have probably been buying the cards at a very exorbitant and then would have been selling to their customers at a price higher than the N1000 that is paid for and what we did was to invest in technology that will help the bank reduce the price despite the increase in Tariffs by the federal government so in terms of saving s annually we would have saved our banking customers nothing less than 2billion on the cost of card and we work with 13 banks.

When it comes to providing e payment solution, the issue of identity theft is always a global concern.

What have you done in that regards?

We take very seriously customers data that comes to our domain so apart from the fact that we have visa, master card and verve certification which is required to do this business, we have also met both physical and logical standard of the business as an organization.

We like to exceed the

minimum we like to go far beyond the minimum standard requirement and what we did was to get the ISO certification for quality management in Nigeria today we are the only smart card production company that has gotten the ISO standard certified.

Nine month ago we also decided that we will not just wait on this so we decided to acquire PCIBSS certification which is the global standard for securing consumer data and again in Nigeria, there is no smart card company that has had that certification, electronic pay plus is the first and the only company in the industry to have that.

Like I said earlier, customers data security is very important to us we believe that if there is any problem within our premises on breach of customer data, it will not only effect on us financially, but might also lead to collapse of the company because it is a small industry and customers talk to each other and so we like to stay ahead of the game and go far beyond the minimum standard.

We have seen instances where holiday makers of business travellers complain that the card given to them don’t work abroad.

What could cause such things happening?

It depends on the particular bank and that is why banks also say that customers should let them know when they are travelling abroad.

The simple issue why your card may not work abroad especially the naira card is when Nigerian economy was having issues with FX and CBN being the sole supplier of foreign currency into the Nigerian economy were not able to give foreign currency to the bank for their card business which made the banks disable their naira denominated card from working abroad.

However, overtime banks have switched it on some say you need to talk to them before you travel so that they can enable their card. What is happening is that customers are not following this instruction so when they get there they find themselves in

that situation.

Apart from that, it could be network issue which is global it happens it is something that happens in the Nigerian economy however, stakeholders are working on this and I can tell you truly that it is improving daily.

What advantage do your clients have that others might not enjoy?

Like I said earlier we are a very innovative company as we like to come up with new ideas so the advantage that our customer enjoys is evident in the fact that we give them innovative products that is product that other company don’t have for instance in Nigeria today, we are the only company that gives out picture card that enables card holders to design the look and feel of their own card.

In this type, you don’t get the normal generic card that the bank gives to you, you can go to your bank to customize your card in the comfort of your home, your house or your office you just log on to your banks portal and you design your card and it will be produce for you and again we are the only one that offers that in Nigeria.

We have about five customers that lash on that product. We also have what we call metal card for high network individual and again electronic pay plus are the only one that is producing that in the country today.

We have about five companies that are issuing that to their top notch customers so we are known for innovation and that is why the customers come to us and like I said earlier, when you talk about contactless in this market today, Electronic Payplus is the only one that has issued it in a very large commercial quantity.

Between December 2017 and today, we have done 3 million contactless card no other company has done it in Nigeria except us so we are always in the fore front of innovation and that is what brings us to the customers coupled with the quality of our product sometimes we are not the cheapest but the customers know that we bring value to them.

Tuesday 10 July 2018

BUSINESS DAY

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COMPANIES & MARKETS

MBN list measures to make access to home ownership easier for Nigerians HARR‎ISON EDEH, Abuja

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he Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, FMBN said there are measures already in place being employed by the Bank to ensure easier access to home ownership for Nigerians as a strategy for closing the housing deficit.

The Bank, however decried the glaring fact that about 79.6 percent cannot own a house except through low scheme initiatives of the federal Government.

Ahmed Musa Dangiwa, the Managing director of the FMBN saidthe bank is more determined that to achieve its targets of making affordable home ownership of the low and Medium Income (LMI) Market segment through some of its housing products.

Speaking at the 2018 edition of the BusinessDay Real Estate Roundtable and Exhibition, Dangiwa said income

distribution of Nigerians makes it difficult for lower middle income and low income category of Nigerians to afford home ownership except through concessionary mortgage.

These constraints Dangiwa said has prompted the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria to initiate products that captures these people, most of whom could not afford home ownership except through concessionary mortgage.

Dangiwa who also gave a breakdown on the income distribution of Nigeria’s population said only 1.7 percent can afford outright cash for a property valued at N2.5million.Further, he also said that only 4.9 percent can afford mortgages at marketdetermined rates to own a 2.5mion house.

He further pointed out that only 13.8 percent of the lower middle income earners can afford a concessionary mortgage.

While listing some of the products the bank is currently working on through National

Housing Fund (NHF), products and services, he said, “There are Ministerial Pilot Housing Scheme, Cooperative Development Loan, Estate Development Loan, Rent to own which is currently being developed, and National MORTAGE Loan.”

On key partnerships the bank is embarking on, he said, “There is currently a Minister Pilot Housing Scheme in the federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, which consist of Public Private Partnership housing construction program to boost housing supply, in addition to 32 mass housing projected, and has delivered about 3000 housing units nationwide” Dangiwa further listed Federal Integration staff housing Scheme of the Head of the Service of the federation, which is part of an inter-agency homeownership program for Federal Public servants in Nigeria. The Banks specific role in this project is to provide mortgage loans and support developers’ access to construction finance.

Business Event

Emeka Muonaka, brand strategy and communications, AXA Mansard Insurance Plc (m) receiving the award for the Outstanding Insurance Company of the Year from Chief Babu Akinbobola, chairman, Media Link Ltd (l) and Ephraim Chimezie, creative designer, AXA Mansard Insurance Plc (r), at the Marketing Edge Brand and Advertising Excellence Awards in Lagos.

CIBN optimistic financial technology will drive efficiency HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

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he Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, Lagos State branch is optimistic that Financial Technology (FinTecch) will bring innovation and drive efficiency in the banking industry.

Fintech represents technologies used by banks and other financial institutions which are disrupting the traditional financial services.

Global fintech investment stood at record $5.4 billion in the first quarter of 2018 according to a report by CB Insights, a tech market intelligence platform.

Also, recent reports have indicated that investment in the technology in the Sub-Sahara Africa was witnessing growth.

This however, has thrown up the need to carry out study on the real threats the growth portends for the nation’s bank-

ing industry and allied service providers.

Consequently, the CIBN Lagos State branch will on Thursday July 12, engage experts to brainstorm on “Big Data, Fintech and the Future Banking”, at the 2018 Lagos Bankers and Stakeholders’ Nite, in Lagos.

“Bankers and stakeholders knight is about how do we move faster, how do we get more efficient without forgetting the break, a car moving very fast still needs his brake pedals, so that’s what it is going to be like, that is why everybody will have to be sensitized”, Kola Abdul Chairman of the Lagos chapter of the CIBN said in a press conference.

The chairman stated further that the branch, in collaboration with its parent organisation, was willing to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to embark on sensitisation of banking industry on the real threats posed

by Fintech.

Abdul stressed that contrary to beliefs that fintech will take over traditional banking roles, “fintechs will change the dynamics of jobs and skill sets in the banking industry”. Speaking further he said, “banks will still be doing business but the way it is done will be different”.

The institute will also be recognizing the role of individuals and corporates to the growth of the financial system as well as a fundraising for its proposed new building.

The Chairman said one of the key objectives of his chapter is to demolish the present building to replace it with a structure that edifies their status.

“We will be selling some of the floors to financial institutions to have their name written in the sand of time because when the bank decides to put its name in an institute structure, it goes beyond that bank.”

L-R: Kayode Adelaja, executive director, Petrolex; Maikanti Baru, group managing director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation; Mohammed Barkindo, secretary-general, Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum when the dignitaries visited the Petrolex booth at the Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference, in Abuja.

L-R: Simisola Abass, legal officer, Lagos State Lotteries Commission;Joy Okuna, assistant director, National Lottery Regulatory Commission Lagos; Goodluck Ikporo, general manager, Bounce News; Susie Onwuka, head, Consumer Protection Council, Lagos office, and Modupe Ogunyemi, head of marketing, Bounce News, during the Bounce Awoof promo final draw to select the Grand Prize winners of all-expenses paid trips to London & Dubai, held in Lagos.

Fets receives ISO9001 certification Josephine Okojie

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ets Limited, Nigeria’s leading mobile money transfer company, has received the prestigious ISO (International Standards Organisations) 9001 quality certification.

The certificate, which is overseen in Nigeria by the Nigerian Standards Council is issued to companies that have demonstrated strong customer focus and a commitment to continual improvement.

“The team at Fets has been

working since September 2017 to secure this important certificate.

It shows that we have a strong commitment to excellence in mobile money services. This ISO9001 is an endorsement of the products and procedures we have implemented over the years,” Omotade Odunowo, chief executive officer, Fets Limited said in a statement made available to BusinessDay. “In receiving this certificate we are particularly proud of the fact that the Fets mobile money platform was built by Nigerian IT experts,” Odunowo said.

According to her, the ISO9001 continues a string of ‘firsts’ for Fets after introducing in 2017 a mobile app in five of the main languages used in Nigeria as well as being the first mobile payment company to sponsor the Lagos Fashion Week.

“We had an unwavering belief that our programmers can build a world class product, and ISO9001 proves we were right.

We are looking forward to continuous improvement in serving our customers and securing our reputation for excellence in mobile money,” she further said.

L-R: Ehi Braimah, his wife Kemi Braimah and Udeme Ufot, Chairman of the event and Group Managing Director SO&U at the induction ceremony of Ehi Braimah as the 58th president of the rotary club of Lagos district 9110 at the Metropolitan club in Lagos.

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Digital innovation is changing marketing paradigms – Udeme Ufot Stories by Daniel Obi Media Business Editor

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n an age when digital technology has interconnected customers and democratized information across markets, there is the urgent need for organizations to embrace digital innovation to equip and acquaint themselves on how customers think, act, express themselves.

Organisations will also understand how to connect with one another in the Digital Age so as to leverage that understanding for better engagement and relations.

Delivering key note speech on ‘Marketing Paradigms in the Age of Digitalization’ at Marketing Edge national stakeholders summit in Lagos last weekend, the Group Managing Director of SO&U limited, Udeme Ufot challenged organizations to be more receptive to digital innovation for marketing because key marketing paradigms have been seriously challenged or transformed, sometimes in ways never imagined.

“Today, technology is democratizing information with its ubiquitous spread and transforming customer choices which are changing the market place”. According to Udeme Ufot, “Marketing is acquiring a very nebulous nature where the marketer is spoilt for choice when it comes to opportunities for consumer engagement but yet hugely challenged by loss of control of what the consumer sees, hears” He continues “At the click

of a button, the consumer can have virtually whatever information he needs, even those he does not seek are thrust before him. At the click of a button, he can literally transport himself to any market he desires, compare offerings, and negotiate the best deals for himself. If he is unhappy with the service he has received, or disappointed with the performance of your brand, he can spread easily the word globally in a matter of seconds”

“Today’s consumer not only receives information, he is a disseminator of information, and co-creator of the brand. Today’s consumers can contribute to building your brand into the most loved and trusted in its category, and can also destroy your brand in seconds. The consumer has become a communication vehicle and given “word of mouth” a new dimension. The customer has transformed into a most unexpected and powerful creature, one that you offend at great peril to your brand” he adds Udeme Ufot challenged agencies to maintain relevance by familiarizing themselves with the transformations in the market place and leading clients through the digital maze. This, they can do by taking a deeper look at how they practice marketing through all the various stages, from ideation through to strategy, internal processes and systems to implementation in order to effectively communicate, connect with and profitably satisfy the needs and desires of customers in the Digital Age.

Marketers should see technology as tool for consumer understanding, engagement – Summit

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anaging director of Unilever Nigeria, Yaw Nsarkoh has cautioned marketers not to be overwhelmed by the disruptive nature of technology to business operations, pricing and consumer engagement but see it as a tool to understanding and serving the consumer better.

Nsarkoh who said technology will continue to have disruptive impact on the world told marketers that what is important is their ability to adapt to digital age to make good use of it. He also restated that marketing is still about understanding and serving people.

Nsarkoh led the discussion on ‘Marketing Paradigms in the age of digitalisation’ at the National Marketing Stakeholder Summit last weekend in Lagos organised by MarketingEdge Magazine.

“Technology is a tool and when you master the tool, it helps you in getting to the destination”, he said emphasising that if organisations must survive they must leverage technology.

The Unilever boss further said that in marketing, brands are essential because they represent ideas pointing out that consumers don’t only follow ideas, they follow them in expectation of material gains.

He therefore said that when brands promise, they must deliver. According to him, brands are built focusing on solutions.

During the panel discussion, Emeka Okeke, the CEO of Media Fuse Dentsu Aegis said that changes will continue to happen and this will have implication for marketers. He said today consumers consume content in multiple devices and this requires creation of content for those channels.

On adaptation of technology, Okeke cautioned marketers to hold on to their old beliefs if they want to, but most importantly they must innovate or die.

On whether serious organisations can leverage social media for marketing purposes, Adebola Williams, a youth development expert who gave statistics of rising internet usage in Nigeria said internet has broken boundaries and any serious business that is not thinking internet is making a mistake.

In his comment, Steve Babaeko, the CEO of X3M Ideas, a creative agency, acknowledged the present democrati-

sation of ideas but noted that technology will come and go, platforms will still come and go but human beings which create and consume will remain.

Also speaking, the marketing director of Friesland Campina Wamco, Chris WulffCaesar said digitalisation is just an enabler but marketing companies still need to do certain things to understand the consumer.

Supporting that view, Feyi Olubodun, the CEO of Insight Publicis said technology is an enabler and does not change consumers but helps them to express themselves. According to him, consumers still consume brands within their cultural frame of reference.

He therefore advised brands to understand consumers and tone their messages to resonate with the consumers.

Looking at place of activations in marketing in the face of digitalisation, Iquo Ukoh, a marketing expert said today companies will not likely move all their marketing budgets to digital because marketers still want consumers to interact with brands.

The importance of diversity when creating communications strategies Warren Moss

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ost marketing and communications strategies are created in a very similar way: a team of trained marketing strategists sit around a table for a few weeks, do their research and then work within a strategic framework, based on what they think will have the most impact in terms of the client’s goals. These goals may be telling a story, communicating the brand’s values or encouraging a specific action from their target audience, among However, it would be argued that the traditional strategic planning approach to marketing campaigns we see around the world these days is a clear example of why this isn’t working. Look at financial services marketing and advertising globally, as an example: if you were to remove the logos and colours in various advertising campaigns, you would find that their messaging was all extremely similar.

This shows that the strategic planning approach to all of these brands, even though they come from different marketing agencies, are all very similar.

Deep level diversity It’s becoming commonly known that what’s fundamentally missing from the brand strategy process is the diversity of the talent. Not just diversity in race and gender but also diversity in experience, background, vocation and even age. A simple example would be the brand “fail” by Doritos with their “ladies chip”, or H&M with their “jungle” kids’ t-shirts - if there had been more diversity among their marketing strategists, perhaps there would have been more debate and discussion among internal creative teams, and these sorts of campaigns would never have been approved in the first place.

Diversity can mean many things, from gender to race, to age, to experience or background. All these types of diversity have been proven to make teams more creative, but it’s worth noting that “deep-level diversity” is one of the most powerful. This term, mentioned in an article by the Harvard Business Review, refers to the diversity of personality, values and abilities – and it is apparently what matters the most.

So how do you get people with different skills, charac-

ters and personalities around that table? At my company when we start the strategic planning process, we bring together participants with deep diversity (example: an anthropologist, an architect, an engineer and a marketing strategist) instead of a team made entirely of marketing strategists. It’s truly fascinating to see how differently these team members approach problems. The way that the anthropologist looks at a customer problem is totally different from the viewpoint of the engineer, and so on. The thinking here is that deep diversity in input drives a more robust and pure output.

Anthropology can help tell the deeper stories Anthropologists are such an important part of what we do, because anthropology is the study of culture and people, observing how they behave and the challenges they face. But it also has many practical applications in a business context, because businesses are about relationships, and about solving people’s problems.

Anthropology also delves into the “grey areas” of problems, for example, the fact that the sales cycle of a product may be longer because the purchase is a series of negotiations, decisions and triggers, rather than a yes/no answer. Anthropology can help tell the deeper stories that ultimately resonate with people.

So, from a team of diverse thinkers, we’ll get extraordinary human insights from the anthropologist, the true resourcefulness of an engineer, the communication skills of a marketing strategist and the design mind of an architect and suddenly: we’ll have an elegant and impactful idea that’s never been done before.

These solutions are typically robust and always more creative than anything achieved the “normal” way.

Why is this important?

Well, audiences all across the globe are diverse – so in order to reach and resonate with those diverse audiences, you need a diverse output.

And that’s impossible if you don’t diversify the creative and strategic team that comes up with the campaign in the first place.

It’s so simple really: diversify the input to the creative process, and you get a different, completely unique and powerful output. That’s why diversity matters in the creative process.

Culled from Bizcommunity

BUSINESS DAY

Tuesday 10 July 2018

Business Process Management key to improving organisation’s efficiency, blocking leakages, says BPMI

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s organisations in both private and public sectors encounter operational complexities, leakages and other challenges, especially in the face of high level of uncertainty and volatility in the business environment, a group of professionals and industry leaders in Nigeria have suggested the adoption of Business Process Management, BPM, by various organisations to deal with the rising issues.

They strongly believe that Business Process Management which deals with continuous evaluation of existing processes in an organisation and the identification of ways to improve upon them, minimises complexities, reduces human errors, and infuses efficiency in operations.

Former president of Nigerian Institute of Management, Nelson Uwaga who led the discussion at the Investiture and induction of members of the Business Process Management Institute, BPMI recently in Lagos said Business Process Management enables an enterprise to align its business processes to its business strategy, leading to effective overall company performance through improvements of specific activities either within a specific department, across the enterprise, or between organizations.

He said that the core mandate of a business process manager is therefore to ensure the establishment, monitoring and maintenance of a robust framework of processes and procedures that guide all de-

cisions and activities of the organization towards target goals.

He was confident that the application of BPM has helped many businesses and organizations take control of ambiguous chaotic processes. “Nigerian businesses face a lot of challenges including lack of infrastructure, corruption, carefree attitude of employees, BPM will help to grow the Nigerian economy by streamlining workflows to become more effective and efficient thereby cutting down on cost, time, errors and workload”.

Uwaga further said that not only does BPM help enterprises run their everyday operations more efficiently, but it helps them realize bigger opportunities for boosting performance.

Citing a research conducted by Capgemini with FreshMinds, a UK-based research

firm on current practice in BPM, he said the research discovered that ‘’there is compelling evidence that BPM can deliver tangible business value. 96% of those who had tried to measure Return on Investment (ROI) from their BPM investment reported a positive return, with 55% measuring a return of at least twice their initial investment.’’

According to him, with rapid advancement in technology, consumers of products and services now have access to vast information at their fingertips than ever before.

Consequently, there is a revolution in customer expectation geared towards speed and flexibility in service delivery.

Managers must therefore build systems that satisfy current yearnings as well as future demands.

“As organizations respond to the challenges of the twenty

first century, the emerging trend is to review and repackage operating systems to enable transition from manual and/or analogue processes to the application of digital tools and techniques. The focus is on quality, efficiency, speed and agility.

“In future, the workplace will be knowledge-intensive and data-driven. It will be characterized by a rapid change of teams, tasks, and goals. Work will be done anytime and anyplace. Further, organizations will increasingly utilize market principles, flatten their hierarchies, and decentralize decisionmaking authorities. To live up to these new developments, organizations will rely on BPM” In his comment, promoter of BPMI, Debo Adebayo said everybody is a process manager as “we have processes tied around people’s lives, the same is applicable in the business community. So a process manager is one who is in charge of managing the process from time to time not only documenting it but to improve on it as change is constant” Adebayo said any organisation that pays attention to process management is positioned to continuously satisfy the customer and when this happens, the customers in turn become marketers of the product or service. “Optimising process also helps organisations cut cost, blocks leakages”, but sometimes compliance level to processes is low and this results to severe consequences.

Ehi Braimah emerges President, Rotary Club of Lagos … Lists projects for humanitarian service

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he new president of Rotary Club of Lagos, Ehi Braimah, has promised to deepen and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise as he listed some major projects to be pursued under his one year tenure.

Speaking after his installation as the 58th president of Rotary Club of Lagos last weekend, Braimah who is also the CEO of Neo Media and Marketing said the projects include donating medical equipment worth N4m to Onikan Health Centre and embarking on roll back malaria project by providing 1,000 mosquito nets to 1,000 households.

“During our year, we also

intend to grow our membership by adding 8 members and contributing at least $15,000 to the Rotary Foundation Braimah who joined the club 6 years ago said he is personally inspired to do good in the society because there is too much inequality and a lot of families are dispossessed due to unfortunate circumstances beyond their control.

In his speech, Group CEO of SO&U, Udeme Ufot who was chairman of the occasion said Rotary is a humanitarian society with objective to do good in the society. He said it is open to all.

Rotary is a volunteer organisation of about 1.2 million business and professional

leaders united worldwide to provide humanitarian service and help build goodwill and peace. “About 34,000 Rotary Clubs in more than 200 countries and geographical areas conduct projects to address today’s challenges including illiteracy, disease, hunger, poverty, lack of clean water and environmental concerns while encouraging high ethical standards in all vocations”.

In his lecture, Yemi Ogunbiyi, the CEO of Tanus Communications advised the Rotary Club, as a philanthropic group to focus its attention to education sector, which he described as the biggest challenge confronting the nation today.

Regretting the rot in edu-

cation sector, Ogunbiyi fears that if the challenges are not addressed, then important organisations cannot function effectively in a nation-space where enlightened minds who understand the intrinsic value in giving back to society are gradually going extinct.

Also regretting that about 30 per cent of Nigerian children 6-11 year do not attend primary schools, with Northern Nigeria accounting for highest number, Ogunbiyi said education is the most powerful weapon to change the world.

No society can really develop unless its citizens are educated; he said and therefore appealed to philanthropists to remember education.

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BD Brand Talk The Power of Diversity in Advertising Mike Umogun

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nclusive advertising is a topic many marketers are talking about. While creating the perfect inclusive ads can be a balancing act, some brands are getting it right. Coca-Cola’s ‘Pool Boy’ and Share a Coke campaign in Nigeria are great examples, but when a brand gets it wrong, it isn’t long before we hear the backlash from consumers on social media, which then migrates quickly to broader media coverage.

Marketing Research by Kantar Millward Brown shows that inclusive ads are 25 percent more effective and more emotionally engaging than non-inclusive ads, and the least inclusive ads are less effective and generate the most negative emotional reactions. Also, more conservative consumers who speak out against ads are loud and vocal whereas the broader majority of people who find the ads engaging just don’t shout about it. In the Nigerian market the grape vine has been very powerful, but social media has given it more power - and when it’s in full steam and the story is negative, the backlash can be massive.

Creating inclusive advertising should be both a business imperative and a moral one. Marketers need to be bold and embrace the opportunity to appeal to a larger audience, to be inclusive of and to better represent the world today. Everyone

is biased in some way. Our brains love a stereotype. Most people don’t actively choose to discriminate but they often do.

Ads are often developed with only the target audience in mind. Marketers need to realise that a much broader base of consumers will see their advertising. This is where testing creative executions across a diverse group of consumers can help identify what resonates, and provides insurance that you’ve got a good ad that will be effective.

The share a Coke campaign created a huge positive buzz and response because Nigerians could effortlessly see themselves in the communication’s narrative. It allowed for some element of co-creation and involvement with the brand. My colleagues bought many pet bottles of the soft drink for me because they found their names on the bottle(s) and were delighted to see mine which they found on their journey of discovery for theirs.

By researching among a wider group, marketers can pick up potential alternative interpretations of their brand narrative and advertising scenarios. We recommend marketers be brave but also be prepared to respond fast if you trigger a negative response.

Please share your thoughts on diversity in advertising and share examples of brands that are getting it right with us.

Michael Umogun , Kantar Millward Brown Nigeria

MAMBA energy drink partners Lagos Traffic Radio to energize commuters

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nergy drink brand, MAMBA has partnered the Lagos Traffic Radio to encourage drivers and commuters to always stay energized while on the roads.

The brand took the lead in nourishing participants at the 3rd Lagos Traffic Radio Lecture Series hosted by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Lagos State, Kehinde Bamigbetan with the theme: “Lagos State Transport Infrastructural Support Systems: The Governor Akinwunmi Ambode Strides” at the Combo Hall, LTV 8 Complex, Agidingbi, Lagos.

The General Manager, MAMBA Drinks Limited, Titilola Adedeji, said the forum was used as a platform to educate participants at the event to always stay energize while driving.

In her words:“We are partnering with the Lagos Traffic Radio on the 3rd Lagos Traffic Radio Series because MAMBA

Energy Drink stimulates the energy in you; so we want to ensure that everybody that needs to be stimulated gets a can of MAMBA. “This is why we pick and choose the types of organizations we partner with so that they fall in line with our vision which is to virtually energize everyone that gets a can of MAMBA Energy Drink.”

According to her, the company deemed it fit to use the occasion to create more awareness about the brand since it was officially launched in Lagos last month.

“This is an avenue for us to create awareness, but the right type of awareness because you need to ensure that everybody knows the right thing to do at the right time. For instance if you are driving, if you are commuting, you need to be energized, so if we don’t bring it to you, no one else will; so that is why we are here.” Adedeji affirmed.

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PhotoSplash Send-forth dinner for founding partners of African Capital Alliance, Nigeria’s premier private equity firm which has to date raised over $1.3 billion in funding.

Pictures by Olawale Amoo

Cyril Odu, CEO, African Capital Alliance, giving his welcome address.

Okechukwu Enelamah, minister, industry, trade, and investment, giving a keynote speech.

Pascal Dozie, founding partner (l), with Christopher Kolade, Nigeria’s former high commissioner to the United Kingdom

Frank Aigbogun, publisher/CEO, BusinessDay, giving his goodwill message.

Niyi Yusuf, MD, Accenture (l), with Dick Kramer, founding partner.

L-R: Paul Onwuanibe, CEO, Landmark; Gbenga Oyebode, former chairman, Access Bank plc, and Mohammed HayatuDeen, founding partner.

L-R: Charles Osezua, chairman, Vallourec, his wife Gloria Osezua; Frank Aigbogun, publisher/ CEO, BusinessDay, and Professor Albert Alos Maneesh Garg, managing director, Afriglobal Commodities (l), with Fabian Ajogwu, principal partner, Kenna Partners L-R: Dave Uduanu, CEO, Sigma Pensions; Jude Njugo, CEO, Beyond Credit Limited, and Funso Akere, chief executive, Stanbic IBTC Capital

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PhotoSplash

Kyari Bukar, chairman, Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG), giving his goodwill message.

Cutting of the cakes, L-R: Okechukwu Enelamah, minister, industry, trade, and investment; Mohammed Hayatu-Deen, founding partner; Dick Kramer, founding partner; Hafusat Hayatu-Deen; Adeyinka Shonekan, representing Ernest Shonekan, founding partner; Chinyere Dozie, her husband Pascal Dozie, founding partner, and Cyril Odu, CEO

Juan Elegido, professor of business ethics, Lagos Business School (LBS) (l), with Emeka L-R: Amina Oyagbola; Chinedu Ebo, chief admin officer/company secretary, KUNOCH, and Femi Ajibola, Onwuka, partner/head of private clients and family wealth practice, Andersen Tax Nigeria. managing director, New Nigeria Foundation

L-R: Elizabeth Enelamah; Okechukwu Enelamah, minister, Industry, trade, and investment, and Horochi Ogan

L-R: Maduka Emelife, CEO, Oasis Management Company; Stanley Egbochuku, editor-in-chief/ COO, OrientDaily, and Funso Doherty L-R: Biodun Disu, executive chairman, Philips, his wife Elizabeth Disu, and Beatrice Kolade

L-R: Chinyere Dozie; Joke Silver, nollywood actress, and Olu Jocobs, nollywood actor

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INTERVIEW

‘Project Monitoring can help bridge the c The Managing Director, and Chief Executive Officer of Independent Project Monitoring Company Limited (IPMC), ROBERT ADE-ODIACHI, speaks with BALA AUGIE and ENDURANCE OKAFOR on the activities of the monitoring Company and how project abandonment can be curbed.

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an you give us a brief background of yourself and your company?

My name is Robert Adeodeachi, I have been an auditor over time and for 37 years now I have been in this audit profession. I have spent most of my time in financial audit, either pre-post or during continuous audit.

So essentially, I have been providing services to the public-private sectors of the economy all through the period. Using the experience gathered from auditing financial statements, carrying out due diligence activities, certifying assets and liabilities and monitoring project management, I am bringing that now into monitoring capital projects.

Although monitoring capital projects is a totally different sphere, essentially we just want to be sure that contracts are executed as contracted such that there is value, cost monitoring, quality monitoring and a time monitoring.

What is the brain behind IPMC and what brought about the zeal to go into this endeavour?

Independent Project Monitoring Company Limited (IPMC) was set up to monitor projects independently, and when we mean projects, we mean projects across the world.

We have infrastructure, telecoms, agriculture, educational and power projects, so it cuts across all.

Anything you want to do is a project and if it is meaningful to you, it is worth monitoring. Every human activity is a project, going to school is a project, and even today we have event managers.

In every sphere of life, there is a project, even doctors when they want to carry out surgeries for instance; there is a way, process, procedure and a review process.

That is why we cut across all the various sectors of the economy and if you look at our staffing, we map out our structure, we have engineers of all disciplines, we have farmers, agric extension workers, financial advisers, we have engineers of all discipline and we couple people together depending on the project that we are working on at any particular time.

It is a multidisciplinary company and everybody comes on board with sectorial experiences.

Have you had dealings with the government at any level in time past?

We have at different levels, we have done some work on the concessions, investigating procedures and processes, carried out diligent reviews, monitoring construction and infrastructure projects with quite a lot of work with the regulators in determining the assets and liabilities, but with the ongoing projects, we have done more with the private sector, like in manufacturing, factory construction, refinery and we are quite busy because they know the value of what we are doing.

We have worked on the side of the owners, the side of the funding, investors, but with government there have always been that aspect that they have monitoring units and they do not have a budget for external professionals.

Is it not meaningful to have a standard professional body by law to monitor the pre-execution phase of a project either for the private or public sector?

You have hit the nail on the head, every-

where in the world, at least most of the advanced countries, it is mandatory that a third party, sometimes it is the office of the accountant general that has the responsibility of appointing auditors to go and look at what is happening there and report back.

It is like extending the due diligence to cover where your budget is really expended.

I mean look at all the elephant projects that we have, look at the badly built completed projects that we have. We would have had less of them, if it was monitored.

You know the monitors also are quantity surveyors, auditors, engineers, so they monitor so that real value is obtained. So from the process of initiating the contract to the process of appointing the contractor, awarding and executing the contract, the whole process needs to be monitored to be sure that it follows the lay down and approved guidelines.

This is because there is no point in coming when the deed is done. You cannot award the contract and expect us to monitor it, yes we will do, but we rather prefer, while you are in the process, we are engaged to ensure that the diligent process already set by law is followed, because appointing the contractor is 60 to 70 percent of the success

of the project.

Hence that process itself has to be monitored and not that you just advertise and fulfill all righteousness and appoint a contractor who probably is not competent, and has never done the kind of job or has costed himself so low that the project is headed for abandonment.

Is there a Certification that makes an independent monitor qualified to monitor any project and can staff of monitoring departments and units of MDAs also get the certification to certify them as qualified?

Monitoring a project has norms you have to look at the process, the procedure of every level. You have to look at the approval level, award process and every bit of it. I did mention that we are a multi disciplined firm and everybody is certified in his own aspect of the work. I am a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, I have been monitoring project for 25 years and I have been a financial auditor for 37 years.

My colleagues are certified members of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, they are COREN registered, they are members of the Institute of Quantity Surveyors, they

are certified Project Management Professionals, depending on the sectors where we are using; Agricultural Extension colleagues, they are also certified in their work and are qualified with doctorate degree or else with a minimum of 15 years experience so that the key subject person is related to that industry.

So if you are monitoring a project that is related to a refinery like we are doing now, all our consultants in that project have worked for all the International Oil Companies in Nigeria (IOCs) for a minimum of 15 years. So they understand what it is, but then, they now have to work with accountants who also understand processes and procedures and then they also have to work with project managers who also know about managing a project.

We have five different institutes that certify us individually, because it is a professional service, we carry individual liabilities and then we are thinking of even going further by providing guarantees of the projects being monitored. Like providing the contract terms at headways, providing a guarantee that the project will be executed to contract. So the owners of the project can go to bed while we carry the burden of delivering the project. So long as the contract terms are executed. You know sometimes projects fail, either because there is no proper study, dimensioning,

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INTERVIEW

country’s infrastructure deficit’ inadequate funding, and lack of continuity in governance and the fact that contracts are not sacrosanct as much as they should be, so projects fail along those lines.

In addition to all of us being professionals and being certified by our various professional bodies, we also build capacity in our team and in the public at large. Presently, we will be having a program on monitoring projects and we are bringing experts from Europe to come hold a six-day clinic; two-day class of ten each in Lagos here to help us build capacity, not solely for ourselves but also for people who monitor projects, people who have responsibilities of delivering projects.

What are the challenges you have encountered in the course of you monitoring projects?

First of all it is a hostile environment, because the contractor does not want you around, and where you have a project execution team, those are the people who designed the project initially, the consultant who brought the project to be, maybe architect, the quantity surveyor, the mechanical and electrical engineers, people who designed how the project should run, they are involved in the project execution team. The project monitoring is not, it is just another level of assurance for the owners for things to be done properly.

So sometimes there are errors on the part of the consultants or on the part of the owners of the project themselves. So you are now a monitor to report back to whoever sent you. So people are receptive to you, because you are like a monitor to them, and in that area, you first meet with a hostile environment.

Nigeria is generally known for abandoned projects. What would you advise policyholders to do in order to reduces cases of abandoned projects?

Projects are abandoned because of inadequate arrangement. When you talk about arrangement you are talking about continuity policies of the government. And when you are looking at the availability of adequate funding for the project, you are not waiting for some budgetary provision that may not come.

You are waiting for some cash release availability which they try to do now, they do not award contracts now without having a cash banking and doing the cost step stages some projects are inoperable, you do not get right of passage or right of way, land issues or environmental issues while the project is on, all of these things must have been completed before executing the project.

So what major project successes has IPM recorded in the past that makes them a credible source to entrust major projects in its care?

I really do not want to start mentioning my claims, but I will tell you we have done sugar, flour, IDP, disaster management projects extensively, and we are currently working on one of the biggest refineries in the world and yes, it has not been easy, but we are getting our picks right now.

It is not for me to say how well we have done but the people who have used us are pretty much happy with what we have done, we believe that we would do much better, if we are part of the inception of projects, then we would have been able to contribute to the award of the project, see the project cycle through, know what the objectives are and be in the position to evaluate to see whether the outcomes actually meet the objectives.

execution?

They have done pretty well, but there is still a lot to be done, that is what I will say. There is still a lot to be done as they are trying to improve the project procedures and project cycles and people term that as to be that they are delaying, they are slow, but in actual fact they are not.

But given time, we will be able to see the benefits of what they have done manifesting, but right now, it will seem like they are slow but I can tell you, with the processes that are being put in place in project delivery, procurement, ensuring that contracts are not awarded without adequate funding, without taking too much on their plate at the same time, with a more effective budgetary procedure that does not allow the budget to be delayed for half of the year. I think they’ve done pretty well but a lot still needs to be done.

What other countries of the world have had success stories of independent monitors in evaluating and surveying countries’ annual budget and what can Nigeria learn from these countries?

Every country that you know, has enviable infrastructure, it is the only way to go. In everywhere, they must have somebody report any project differently from the executors before payment is made. It is an assurance, you do not want to invest in a company unless you see what the management of the company is like, unless you see what the asset they claim to have are true or not.

If you look at Australia, South Africa, Canada, America, England, you find out that they all have an office of the Auditor General. What he does is project monitoring and he appoints auditors for any projects above N500 million should be monitored.

No matter what capital project, it is a project, and as such cannot afford to fail, you cannot ask the contractor what has gone wrong, and you cannot ask the ministry what has gone wrong. It is a third party that you can hold responsible, because it is on the basis of that party’s certificate that you make payment, at least it is another assurance level so there is nothing stopping you outside of having the initial project consultant, contractor and you the project owner going to see what is happening plus an independent party, and even when the owner is feeling the pain of meeting the contract terms.

Nigeria currently has a huge infrastructure deficit. How can this deficit be

What do you think the government should do, what policy should they implement that will help bring in external professional monitors?

You see there are inhibitions; we have to have the law amended to have room to appoint independent monitors for capital projects that will allow a provision to be made for their payment, because right now people say they do not have the money to set aside for that.

But if they are statutorily mandated to have that, because now you must statutorily appoint a financial auditor, a lawyer, and qualified engineers to do things. But now you must also statutorily appoint a monitor because it is important who pays for it, because you cannot pay me to come and report or monitor your project, because I am going to be reporting on you as I will not be independent.

So they could sponsor a bill to the National Assembly to assign a monitor to project above a certain level, N500 million in the first instance to be monitored, because even the oversight of the assembly is akin to monitoring, but there are constraints.

How far can you asses this administration in terms of project delivery and

bridged and how can project monitoring ensure that this deficit is bridged?

Budgets are mere intents and no matter how good your intention is, the actual performance on the ground is what we can talk about, monitor or quantify. Over the years, we have just being hearing 2 trillion expenditure, they have told us they have released so much percentages, which is not infrastructure development.

We only hear of expenditure, nobody independently tells us of performance. They will do this road and they have budgeted so much, nobody comes back to say that road has been done, or has not been done. When you go to Ministry of Finance, they tell you the performance of the budgeted is monitored in percentages of quantum of monies released not in actual execution in measurement quantifying projects on hand.

Project monitoring if independent will ensure that expenditure is translated into investment. You don’t just spend the money; you have something to show for it. For every naira, there is equivalent cubic of cement, which means you can quantify what is on the ground. We don’t do that in Nigeria, we have never published the projects that we have budgeted for in this country, I stand to be corrected.

You will just hear that they have released so much for a 140km road, nobody tells you at what cost or when it will be completed, and when the next budget comes nobody tells you that the 140km road, we have only done 50 percent, so we forget about it and they now go on to do for a new roads.

So when we match expenditure with performance, then we start working towards reducing our deficit in infrastructure. You see can never have enough infrastructure for the populace, because the populace is a growing populace, but what we need to do is to increase the value derived from the expenditure.

How do you see this industry going forward, do you see the government setting aside policies for it and what benefits do you see from it?

We really do not have a choice; if we must progress you do not look at infrastructure alone, you look at education, telecoms, and agriculture.

Somebody must take you up on all the promises you have made and you must look to an ombudsman to report on that promise.

I guess that is what BusinessDay is doing when they say that those promises are not being kept, but they are reporting post anteafter the event.

No, that alone cannot be done, there is a lapse of time, money has been spent and more promises have been made. No, we should ensure execution and we can only do that independently, physicians must not heal themselves, they go to a third party to tell you that you are doing okay or that you are doing terribly and you do not go after the fact then you will just become an auditor, a forensic auditor, an investigator and you are of no use to the system and you are more like primitive, historical of no value.

We are talking of concurrent work. You are there when it is going on, you are reporting to the owner as the work progresses, payment is not being made unless the brick that was supposed to be laid is been laid. In audit they say, where there are structures or controls, you reduce the risk of thought, because there is project consultant who designed the project, there is a contractor, sometimes the man who designs the project has made an error and is being covered up by the contractor, so you are there to control.

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INTERVIEW

‘Cambridge provides a global bench mark in countries where it operates’ Juan Visser is the Regional Director, Sub Saharan Africa, Cambridge International. Visser has a strong understanding of the education sector. He holds a degree in Psychology and an MBA (Master of Business Administration) from the Wits Business School in South Africa. In this interview with Ifeoma Okeke, he speaks on the British Council Recognition and Outstanding Cambridge Learner Awards and how the awards recognise exceptional learner achievement in Cambridge examinations.

What were the criteria used by the British council to pick the outstanding students awarded?

The outstanding learners being awarded were selected by Cambridge. We run these awards in other top countries globally. So, this has given us significantly large number of entries, including countries in Sub Saharan Africa like South Africa and Kenya. We also run it in other countries globally including the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia to name but a few. For the outstanding global category, the winners are selected by Cambridge. We operate in 160 countries, with over 10,000 schools. The learners write the same exams, so they are all competing with each other. The winners here have been selected with all others globally to have had the base standard exam submitted to Cambridge. So, it is a very excellent achievement for Nigerian learners. It also means that the schools within Nigeria are also able to train and teach learners the same quality standards as top schools in any other places. So, it is a very important statement about the schools here; they are all world class to be able to offer Cambridge and get these top results. We are very proud of them.

How does Cambridge impact the educational sector in Nigeria?

Cambridge operates globally; it also sets a benchmark for the standard within a country. So, if Cambridge is able to have schools that can produce learners and winners that take the Cambridge exam, it has to be at a global standard. This also applies in other countries that we operate. A lot of the materials that are available in Cambridge schools are also available on the Cambridge public website. So, it means that even non- Cambridge schools can benefit from that as well. We invite any school to visit it. There is a lot of information on our public website. If any school is interested in being accredited as a Cambridge school, they can do so in Nigeria, via the British Council. The process is relatively simple and it is not an exorbitant cost, it is actually very reasonable.

They can get in touch with us, they can also visit our website, and contact details are there on how to contact the British council via us. I will invite schools to consider the Cambridge curriculum. Cost

our contribution in any country we operate including Nigeria is to have an international and a global bench mark operating in schools. In some countries and some schools we operate national curriculum as well as Cambridge but having that benchmark, which is operating in 160 countries globally means that you can compare yourself in terms of local education in schools with other countries.

This also means that you have centres of excellence that can write the same exams that are written in the US and UK. In some areas of the world, we work very closely with the government to run the national exam system. One of them is Singapore for example. Cambridge works very closely with Singaporean Education Authority to help deliver the exams within their country. So, we work very closely with governments as well and that knowledge that we get from working in national education systems also filters back into our development. Cambridge spends a large amount of our returns that we get from having the exams in developments and research. We operate as a not for profit organisation, we are a not teaching department of the University of Cambridge.

Cambridge assessment has three arms which include Cambridge International Exams and Cambridge English.

Juan Visser

wise, it is not exorbitant to keep it operated by the British Council.

What is your financial commitment to this initiative?

The awards are sponsored by the British Council and Cambridge.

Cambridge international and British Council operate in Nigeria by a partnership. They have an associate agreement. All our exams are distributed and administered by the British Council. So the costs of the award have been carried by both British Council and Cambridge.

How long have you done this and what plans do you have for future expansion?

So my advice for learners wanting to go for universities on scholarships is to spend some efforts and time in plans on entering university

This is the second edition of awards we are having but Cambridge have been operating in Nigeria for many years now. This is the second awards event that we are doing to recognise the learners’ prestige within this country. We plan to hold this as an annual event. We find out that every year Nigeria produces top quality results and marks. This is in comparison to countries like USA, China, South Africa and Zimbabwe amongst others. To get these awards, they really have to be tops and we are really proud of them.

What difference will what you are doing make in the Nigeria education sector?

As I mentioned earlier, I think

Are there scholarships available for the awardees to take?

Scholarships will come by the universities themselves. As with most universities, they will look for the top learners. So, doing well in their results at schools will open up doors for the learners. So the best advice I can give is that there are thousands of universities globally, they can check the websites and do it early. When you like to enter a university, start checking for the sponsorships and scholarships. There are also many organisations including British Council that offer scholarships. So my advice for learners wanting to go for universities on scholarships is to spend some efforts and time in plans on entering university. Study and search the web and also discuss with the British Council in Nigeria. They can assist you with the agencies to apply for. There are lots of opportunities out there but the most important thing is to be successful in studies at school.

BDTECH

BUSINESS DAY

Tuesday 10 July 2018

25

In association with

How chatbots can transform businesses in Africa Stories by JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWANSON

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he rise of electronic business activities in Nigeria, its substantial contribution to the growth of the economy as well as the significance of constant development of new age technology cannot be over emphasized.

A lot of information technology (IT) companies who have monitored the growth of businesses in Africa as a result of improved technology have predicted that the next phase of business of revolutionisation will be due to an increased adoption of artificial intelligence, blockchain and of course chatbots.

Although there has been some adoption of chatbots since late 2017, especially amongst e-commerce and telecommunications companies, oracle predicts that the use of chatbots will become more popular by the end of this year.

The Chatbot also known as a web chat robot is a software application that runs automated tasks over the internet through messenger apps.

In order to increase knowledge on the impact of these technologies, Oracle recently hosted its chatbot Week Africa in different cities across the continent to drive awareness of chatbots for different industries and to demonstrate the power of the

technology.

According to Craig Nel, mobile & cognitive experience (MCX) leader at Oracle Middle East, Africa and Turkey, ‘Companies from a range of industries will be impacted by intelligent chatbots in a similar way to the rise of mobile devices. Business to consumer use cases for chatbots are being seen in retail, financial services, travel and hospitality and even in utilities, for service-related and transactional conversations.’

The roundtable discussions which were hosted in South Africa (Johannesburg and Cape Town), Mauritius, Kenya, Nigeria (Lagos and Abuja), Senegal, Ivory Coast and Ghana from July 2 to July 6, 2018, offered a number of demon-

strations and real-world examples as well as discussions around the business opportunities that chatbot technology can bring for organisations in each country.

‘Technologies such as artificial intelligence, natural language processing and machine learning come to the fore in African countries with their many cultures and languages,” says Nel. ‘In South Africa we have eleven official languages, but take a country such as Ghana where more than 250 languages and dialects are spoken.

One way to attract new customers in Africa is through intelligent chatbots that better understand and process customers’ needs, desires and requirements, in a language preferred

by the user,’ he says.

Just last month, Oracle announced the availability of its nextgeneration Oracle Cloud Platform services featuring built-in autonomous capabilities, including Oracle Mobile Cloud Enterprise.

With embedded artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), this platform automates operational tasks to enable organisations to lower cost, reduce risk, accelerate innovation, and obtain predictive insights.

In addition to the self-driving, self-securing, and self-repairing foundational capabilities that are shared by all Oracle Cloud Platform services, additional autonomous capabilities by functional areas now include Mobile and Chatbots.

In the rapidly expanding mobile economy, businesses are looking for smart and personalised ways to engage with customers via mobile devices. With an estimated five billion mobile phones used worldwide, Oracle says it is helping enterprises meet growing customer demand by being able to seamlessly build, integrate, and secure reliable mobile services.

As user behaviour dramatically shifts to mobile and messaging platforms, it is critical for enterprises to evolve to support stakeholders’ preferred channels.

‘We are continually improving algorithms around user sentiment,

image analysis, language translation, self-learning and behavioural analysis, to both simplify chatbot development and enhance users’ experience. In Africa, we will soon see chatbots that will add significant value related to ease of use for healthcare and education amongst many others,’ says Nel. According to Oracle, its intelligent bots use cases range from the public to private sector. Public sector organisations benefit from Facebook messenger chatbots that enable citizens to book appointments online, which reduces call center costs. Citizens benefit by having an easier way to access services and shorter waiting times. Similarly, a Facebook messenger chatbot can help citizens access election results.

In the conference industry, web personal assistants enhance the conference experience by helping attendees with everything from pre-registration and the agenda to a map to the event and how to get there.

In the healthcare industry, chatbots answer frequently asked questions around diseases and hospitals using chatbots now interact with patients and families in new ways to give a better service, reduce waiting times and maximise service hours.

All these use cases were built in the past year using Oracle Intelligent Bots.

Konga debuts compliance platform for prompt complaint resolution

K

onga has taken another step to address the issue of trust and guaranty satisfaction from customers who shop online, by launching Konga Compliance – a feedback/compliance mechanism through which customers can directly reach out to the chairman of the board and executive management of Konga on issues affecting various aspects of it business relationship with the customer.

The e-commerce company says it pioneered the launch of a compliance platform in order to further uplift ethical standards in Africa’s e-commerce space and

raise the bar in customer satisfaction which is a major concern for online shoppers.

Apart from the online feedback platform, compliance@ konga.com, Konga compliance will also incorporate a dedicated phone line for calls and SMSs. The company says that all feedbacks, complaints and enquiries generated on the email platform will be monitored directly by the chairman and other management executives for immediate resolution.

As such, the platform will present a useful mechanism for customers to report errant drivers and delivery men who over-speed or flout traffic rules in the course

of duty, wrong or improperly delivered items, product quality concerns, instances of poor customer service online or at any Konga retail store, collection center or touch-point, late deliveries, pass comments/suggestions on new product lines/innovations or likely improvements they would like to see and other issues affecting stipulated service level agreements or areas of compliance.

Bearing in mind the need to lay a framework for its gamechanging ideas and innovations for the e-commerce market, the new management at Konga has decided to institute a high level of ethical standards and compli-

ance within the company which will not only boost user experience and satisfaction, but help create a closer bond between the company and its ever-increasing customer base.

Konga says it is keen to revolutionize the e-commerce space in Nigeria and beyond - a factor that has seen the new management of the company work round the clock behind the scenes to put in the requisite structures and infrastructure needed to elevate standards in the sector.

BusinessDay gathers that these initiatives which are set to be unveiled from early August will see the new Konga, which emerged

after the merger with Yudala in May 2018, leverage its composite structure and fusion of online and offline to ensure an unprecedented level of world class customer experience, improved standards and growth in the Nigerian and African e-commerce eco-system.

A business model that is hard to replicate in view of its considerable human and material resources requirements, Konga’s bold fusion of online and offline is one that has set it apart and contributed to its widespread and growing reputation as a trusted name for genuine products, secure payment options and unmatched speedy delivery timelines.

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BUSINESS DAY

Tuesday 10 July 2018

BDTECH

E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

Cyber-security; crucial for business

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echnology is everywhere around us, connected to almost everything that we own.

The wave of technology innovation such as cloud computing, social and corporate networking and next generation mobile computing being rapidly adopted not just by individuals but by businesses and other institutions is creating unmatched levels of access and connectivity across people, information, systems and assets worldwide. This unparalleled level of access has raised the importance of cyber security.

Research from the latest PandaLabs report shows that cyber criminals are evolving to more sophisticated agendas such as espionage, dis-information, data manipulation and disruption of infrastructure in addition to the common data theft, extortion and vandalism. A major challenge for businesses today is loss of data due to cyber-attacks, as data is one of the most valuable assets, and most often the most vulnerable. More businesses are digitized thus exposed to an increasing number of threats, hence the need for security to be the top priority in any thriving company.

Cyber-attacks will continue to occur, but only the prepared and informed entities can contain losses. Also, proper protection needs a concerted effort across people, processes

L-R; Samson Ikhiede, Key Account Manager; Olumide Ojo, Business Leader, Information Technology and Mobile; Olugbenga Awomodu, Marketing - all of Samsung Electronics West Africa at the launch of Galaxy J4, J6 and A6+ into the Nigerian market at Samsung Office in Lagos recently.

and technology.

According to the Serianu Africa Cyber-security Report in 2016, Africa is one of the most affected continents in the world, and Nigeria, being the largest internet user in Africa, is one of the most targeted countries in Africa.

Proper education paves way to better informed decisions and operations. Numerous organizations have taken initiative and are attempting to ensure proper awareness on cyber-attacks and cyber security strategies. Cisco, is one of such organizations determined to reveal guidelines that will better prepare organizations for such attacks.

According to Cisco’s 11th Annual Cybersecurity Report, malware has become more vicious and harder to combat.

Likewise, attackers are developing more skill in creating malware that can evade traditional sandboxing.

Supply chain attacks are increasing in velocity, complexity and impact. They can now affect computers on a massive scale, persisting for months or even years. Cisco researchers observed a twofold increase in malicious web traffic volume in roughly over 12-months. The report stated that the level of malware evolution last year alone demonstrates that cyber adversaries

continue to learn. The report goes on to emphasize the need to raise the bar now – top down leadership, business led, technology investments, and practice effective security.

Cisco’s Annual Cyber-Security report not only identifies problems in businesses as regards cyber-attacks, it highlights solutions to these problems. Some actionable steps proffered to stay ahead of adversaries are: implementing first-line-of-defense, adoption of advanced security technologies that include machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, adherence to corporate policies and practices for ap-

plication, system, and appliance patching.

There persists a potential risk of using software or hardware from organizations that do not appear to have a responsible security posture.

Attackers are taking advantage of the fact that security teams are having difficulty defending evolving and expanding cloud environments. As a solution to reduce supply chain attacks, Cisco, in its report, highlights the need to review third-party efficacy testing of security technologies and significance of an advanced security system. The use of cloud-based security technology has been a key factor in helping Cisco to drive and keep its median TTD (median time to detection) to a low level. Faster TTD helps defenders move sooner to resolve breaches.

Adequate preparation is a necessary ingredient in the fight against cyber-attacks, as is the availability of professionals. Cisco is helping address the skills gap with the Cisco Networking Academy program that also offers dedicated cybersecurity courses.

No organization, regardless of size or industry, is immune to cyber-attacks.

A single breach of security could cause significant financial, reputational or regulatory consequences, therefore, businesses must increase their focus on cyber-security with the purpose of protecting sensitive data and systems.

Tecno Mobile ranks 7th of Africa’s 100 most admired companies JUMOKE AKIYODELAWANSON

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ecno, one of Nigeria’s top mobile phone and tablet manufacturers with huge presence in Africa’s technology market has ranked 7th out of the top 100 most admired brands in Africa for 2018.

In the recently released table ranking by Brand Africa, Tecno was recognised for its reputation, competitiveness and inspiration to Africa’s business world, beating other prominent mobile brand competitors such as LG, Sony and Nokia.

The brand moved up seven spots from its 14thposition ranking in 2017, to clinch the seventh position on the top 100 most admired brands in Africa this year, behind Samsung which was ranked at number two, down one spot from its number one rating in 2017.

Thebe Ikalafeng, founder and chairman of Brand Africa noted that the companies showed ‘an incredible

consistency with 60 percent of the top brands being present in both the unprompted and prompted surveys.’

Ikalafeng said Brand Africa 100 is a valuation and ranking of the best brands in Africa.

‘The valuation is a multitier royalty relief methodology that blends a brand’s financial performance and consumer admiration to create a unique index and ranking.’

He explained that the study was conducted by Brand Africa partners, GeoPoll, leading research firm in emerging markets, with analysis and insights by Kantar TNS, the world’s largest insight information research firm and Brand Leadership, Africa’s premier branding advisory firm.

Since establishment in 2006, the premium mobile phone brand has continued to increase its presence in Africa, growing in leaps and bounds as a result of constant innovation and development of cutting edge technologically advanced mobile devices.

Tecno is fully established in over 40 African countries with the largest market share in Africa’s fastest growing economies including Nigeria which is till date, its biggest market.

Industry watchers have attributed the rapid increase in Nigeria’s mobile subscription to the low cost smartphones introduced to the market by OEMs such as Tecno, which has in turn led to Nigeria being labelled as a mobile first nation.

‘Mobile subscriptions are currently growing by around 25 percent year on year, increasing by approximately 240 million in the first quarter of 2017 alone.

The total number of mobile broadband subscriptions around the world is now around 4.6 billion.

This of course is majorly as a result of increased smartphone ownership due to availability of lower cost devices from manufacturers such as Tecno, Infinix, Itel and the likes,’ Subomi Sodipo, a Telecoms industry analyst told BusinessDay. The Tecno brand is highly

recognized as the first dual SIM handset supplier in Africa and is uniquely identified with creating crystal clear camera features in all of its devices. From finger print scanning technology, to Iris recognition and prolonged battery life, Tecno is dedicated to transforming state of the art technologies for emerging markets, providing tailor made localized products under the guideline of “Think Globally, Act locally.” Its p780, the first truly dual SIM mobile phone in Nigeria was a huge success as it addressed the need of Nigerian telecommunications consumers who use multiple SIM cards and are subscribed to different telecom networks at a time.

In the recently released ratings by Brand Africa, Tecno’s sister company, iTel mobile moved up nine spots on the list from last year and was positioned in 16th place on the 2018 ranking for the top 100 most admired brands in Africa.

Industry stakeholders say that the recognition and top rating of Tecno mobile

is well deserved as the company has established itself through commitment and dedication to the African continent.

Jesse Oguntimehin, Tecno’s PR and strategic partnership manager told BusinessDay that; “For years the company has continuously worked to understand the different needs of consumers, with appreciation that culture, climes and economic situations all come together to affect the lives of the people. This understanding, combined with the focus to pioneer mobile technology innovations in Africa, has helped us to deliver products that many consumers feel drawn to and love to own. So this rating means a lot to everyone at Tecno Mobile, and for the most part of it, it feels rewarding that we’re able to make better the experiences of the African people.”

Tecno Mobile remains one of Africa’s leading Original Equipment Manufacturing (OEM) companies with main focus on the needs of customers.

Ericsson hikes cellular IoT connection expectations KAVIT MAJITHIA, Mobile World Live

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ricsson doubled its five-year forecast for cellular IoT connections to 3.5 billion and tipped 2018 to prove historic for the industry due to the first commercial launches of 5G. In the latest edition of its mobility report, Ericsson significantly increased its forecast for cellular IoT from the 1.7 billion connections it predicted in November 2017, citing large-scale deployments in China, and increasing interest in low power wide area (LPWA) networks using NB-IoT and LTE-M technologies as factors.

Ericsson said there were 700 million cellular IoT connections in 2017, so the 3.5 billion figure represents a compound annual growth rate of around 30 per cent.

With China leading the surge, Ericsson said North East Asia is anticipated to account for 2.2 billion of the 3.5 billion connections in 2023, while “new massive cellular IoT technologies, such as NB-IoT and Cat-M1 [LTE-M] are also taking off”.

5G use cases The predicted increase in cellular IoT connections was the stand-out figure from the June 2018 mobility report, as Ericsson’s predictions for 5G uptake remained unchanged at 1 billion subscriptions by the end of the forecast period: it expects the technology to account for around 20 per cent of all mobile data traffic at that point.

Operators will launch with enhanced mobile broadband as its first use case, said Ericsson, with the US set to lead.

“Significant 5G subscription volumes” are also expected early in markets including South Korea, Japan and China, while global 5G network deployments are set to occur from 2020.

Pivotal year With the first rollouts of 5G expected this year, Fredrik Jejdling, EVP and head of business area Networks at Ericsson said 2018 “will likely go into the history books as the start of an even bigger societal change” than 2009, when mobile data traffic surpassed mobile voice.

However, he warned the change will require a combined effort from the industry and regulators to align on spectrum, standards and technology.

“Securing the right spectrum for 5G in low, mid and high bands will be especially important in the near-term”, he said. “Global spectrum harmonisation will be key to securing broad adoption of economies of scale in of 5G.”

Tuesday 10 July 2018

C002D5556

BUSINESS DAY

27

Energy Report Oil & Gas

Power

Renewables

Environment

MV Vowgas, others warn on lack of job sustainability in O/G industry OLUSOLA BELLO

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perators in the oil and gas servicing industry have expressed concerned over the lack of jobs in the industry and cautioned that this situation may adversely affect the drive for the development of local content in the country.

They therefore expressed the need for both the service providers and oil producers in the industry to come together and find solution to the job drought being experienced in the industry.

According to some of the servicing providers that spoke at the just concluded Nigeria Oil and Gas conference and exhibition in Abuja, they said lack of jobs for the servicing industry could sound the death knell to the much advertised local content development in the industry which has helped to stem down capital flight from the country.

They also wondered how it would be possible to transfer technology to Nigerians if there are no jobs that can improve their skills. The

L-R: Osagie Okunbor, managing director, Shell Petroleum Development Company and Country Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria; Mohammed Barkindo, secretary-general of OPEC; Simbi Wabote, executive secretary, Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board; Maikanti Baru, group managing director, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation; and Emmanuel Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, during an inspection of Shell stand at opening ceremony of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition in Abuja… on Tuesday.

upstream sector is lacking activities that could provide jobs for the servicing industry.

Godwin Izomor , group managing director of MV Vowgas said lack of jobs for the service companies is now making some of them to look into doing some other things that can keep them afloat stressing that companies are certainly

going to be forced to send their hard trained personnel home if there are no jobs for them to do.

“MV Vowgas has more local personnel in its operations but painfully we have let some of them go because there are no jobs to keep them. We have to scale down the number of these personnel because our operations have reduced”,

Godwin Izomor said.

He urged the industry to look at those servicing companies that have built capacities and give them considerations in terms of jobs. He also want the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring and Board (NCDMB) to intervene in the situation if those highly trained personnel are to be retained in the country by

Nigeria unlikely to take advantage as coal prices hit six-year-high STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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igeria is illequipped to take advantage of rising coal prices, which hit a six-year-high of $120 per tonne in the week ending July 5, data analysed

by BusinessDay show.

This has been compounded by last month’s failed talks between Tohoku Electric, a major Japanese utility, and Glencore, the world’s biggest exporter of seaborne thermal coal, on their annual Australian supply contract.

“Spot cargo prices for coal from Australia’s Newcastle terminal have risen to $120 per tonne for the first time since 2012” Reuters reported July 5.

No, Nigeria will not benefit from high coal spot prices despite its coal reserves because it is unable to develop and satisfy the local coal market. Nigeria’s total recov-

erable coal reserve is 209.439 Million Short Tons; its recoverable hard coal - anthracite and bituminous reserve is 23.149 Million Short Tons and the recoverable lignite reserve is 186.291 Million Short Tons, data from the International Energy Statistics of February 2015 show.

At the peak of Nigeria’s coal age, production increased annually from 583, 487 tonnes to an all-time high of 905, 397 tonnes before 1960. After 1959, production decreased significantly each year, until today no production is recorded on book. This was mostly consumed by the Nigeria Railway Corporation and the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria.

Nigeria’s coal exports hit an all-time high of 50 thousand short tonnes in 1987 from zilch in 1980, back to zero by 1992 and have remained in this territory to date, according to data compiled by BusinessDay.

With failed talks between Tohoku Electric and Glencore regarding their annual supply contract, the coal market might be likened to a ship with a broken compass. This is because, traditionally, the contract between these two companies served as benchmark for coal prices.

This means companies that were relying on the talks to set a price for their previously delivered cargoes and future shipments under their April to March contracts now lack a reference for netting out prior payments based on temporary prices.

Without this year’s deal, utilities need to find another reference price for their annual supplies or they can buy in the spot market.

“Because Tohoku already signed some deals with smaller suppliers when spot prices were lower, they were not willing to pay significantly more for coal from their biggest supplier, Glencore,”

Olusola Bello, Team lead, Analysts: Isaac Anyaogu, Stephen Onyekwelu, Graphics: Joel Samson.

one source with knowledge of the matter who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak publicly about commercial deals, told Reuters.

“Glencore had the opposite view. They were unwilling to agree to a supply deal significantly below spot market prices,” the source added.

Glencore has interests in 26 operating coal mines across Australia, South Africa and Colombia. In 2017, it produced 120.6 million tonnes of saleable coal and marketed 106.3 million tonnes of thermal coal via its marketing business.

About 85 percent of the coal it produces is exported, the majority of it to countries where coal continues to play a leading role in power generation given its reliability and affordability. The remainder of the coal produced is used in domestic power generation in Australia and South Africa.

taking the necessary actions that would ensure that the fabrication yards get jobs.

MV Vowgas, he said, will soon be building boats and other equipment for Ministry of Defence as part of it diversification process in order to keep afloat.

According to him, if there is no sustainability of investment in the industry, a lot of would-be investors would be discouraged.

Another managing director of a fabrication company who spoke to BusinessDay but does not want his name mentioned, said both the service industry and the oil producers have to join hands to find out what is responsible for lack of jobs.

The situation he said is not getting better as most fabrication yards in the country are currently inactive.

“We must jointly address those things that are not allowing us to have jobs.

The lull is a huge part of the commercial circle and if our strategy is to empower the locals through technology transfer then something must be done very fast by all stakeholders,” he said.

Also speaking on job creation and local content development in the oil and gas,

Naboth Onyesoh of NCDMB said the agency, in conjunction with some investors, is trying to establish industrial parks in some states in the Niger Delta.

The scheme, he said, would create about 300,000 jobs and promote in–country retainership. “The parks are to be used as vehicles to solve unemployment problems”.

He said what is most important about the scheme is that there is the need to increase the capacities fabrication companies in the country.

Iroghama Obuoforibo, chief operating officer, Starz Investment Company Limited however wondered how the products from the industrial parks are going to be sustained in view of the complaints in the industry of lack of job sustainability.

Speaking in the same vein, Alfred Okogu , group managing director of ARCO Group asked the promoters of the industrial parks if it would work. He said industrial parks are necessities for growth and important but that they must be properly structured so that they can be sustained.

NGPTC’s will deliver new gas pipeline Projects on time - NNPC …As Company Posts N6.11billion Profit after Tax

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he Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Maikanti Baru, has described the Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company (NGPTC), a subsidiary of the NNPC, as an entity that is primed and well attuned to deliver its vision to be the natural gas processing and transportation company of choice in Nigeria.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 2017 Annual General Meeting of the Company, Baru who also functioned as the chairman of the AGM enthused that the Corporation was relying on the NGPTC’s competence to deliver the 614km AjaokutaKaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline project.

The landmark endeavor which has been dubbed as the single biggest gas pipeline undertaking in the country is to be constructed through third party contractor financing and construction model with almost $3bn dollars of foreign

direct investment coming into the country.

He said apart from the AKK project, the company was also busy putting together new pipelines like the OB3 projected to come into operation later in the year alongside other significant gas pipeline projects across the length and breadth of the country designed as an integral part of the bigger transNigerian gas pipeline system.

The NNPC boss commended the management and staff of the company for recording a profit after tax of N6.11 billion in its first year of operation under the new structure which has seen the company refocused solely on gas transportation.

He said the NNPC Management was looking forward to a bright future for NGTPC as it continued to show great promise and positive performance despite operating in an environment laden with incessant pipeline vandalism and condensate evacuation challenges.

Email: energyreport@businessdayonline.com, Tel: +234-8023020011; +234-7037817378;

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Energy Report

NLNG’s award of LPG ship contract to local coy receives NCDMB nod OLUSOLA BELLO

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he Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has commended Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) for awarding the contract for the provision of a new build Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) ship to a fully indigenous company, E.A. Temile Development Company.

The vessel will serve as the chartered ship by which the NLNG will deepen the delivery of LPG, commonly known as cooking gas into the domestic market for improved availability and scale.

In line with the contract, E.A. Temile Development Company signed an agreement on Friday in London with Hyundai Mipo Dockyard, South Korea for the construction of the new LPG vessel.

The Executive Secretary NCDMB, Simbi Wabote was a guest at the ceremony and described NLNG’s award of contract to the local firm as

a confidence building move and a bold endorsement of local capacities and capabilities.

He added that the development was a manifestation of the progress that had been made in the local content journey and challenged other industry stakeholders to come up with similar initiatives. “I expect several operators and service providers to get inspirations from this milestone event

and see the possibilities in our local content practice rather than the difficulties.”

He also congratulated E.A. Temile Development Company for clinching the important contract and breaking the stereotyped glass ceiling that had often stopped indigenous companies. He further charged the company to keep within the terms of the contract and deliver safely.

Speaking further, Wabote

Chevron highlights role of partnerships in combating oil theft and pipeline vandalism

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he v ro n Nig e r ia limited (CNL) has emphasised the value of participatory partnerships in combating the menace of oil theft and pipeline vandalism in the Niger Delta.

The company noted that every international oil company (IOC) in Nigeria has been affected in one way or the other by the activities of oil thieves, engaging in illegal bunkering and “local refining” operations adding that their activities continue to cause significant damage to the environment and affect revenue streams leading to loss of benefits.

Esimaje Brikinn, General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs, (PGPA), Chevron, while contributing to the panel discussion on “Innovative Strategies – Combating Crude Oil Theft & Pipeline Vandalism” at the Nigerian Oil and Gas conference and exhibition (NOG) in Abuja, stated that Chevron evolved a proactive approach

to combating the issue of oil theft and pipeline vandalism by involving relevant stakeholders including the government security forces, the relevant state governments and the Regional Development committees (RDCs) under the Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU), a community-driven multistakeholder participatory partnership model for community engagement and sustainable development in our areas of operations.

According to him, the platform known as the Community Pipeline and Facilities Surveillance Programme (CPFSP) with strong governance has become a model for enhancing the fight against oil theft and pipeline sabotage, enhancing multistakeholder partnerships and collaboration and providing sustainable social license for oil and gas operations.

He said that in the 13 years of its implementation, the GMoU has recorded significant achievements

especially in areas of education, health, and economic development. The NNPC/ CNL JV has contributed over NGN20.6billion to the RDCs to implement projects and programmes for about 600,000 beneficiaries in more than 400 communities.

“In terms of managing conflict and enhancing peace in communities, the GMoU story is one we are very proud to tell, and has resulted in very impressive footprints in various communities and the model has helped improve CNL’s relationship with its neighboring communities, as it created a clearer and more predictable channel for dialogue,” he noted.

He commended the commitment of the traditional institutions, the Government security forces, the community and RDC leaders for driving the multi-stakeholder collaboration for asset protection and stressed that CNL continues to work to strengthen relationship with these stakeholders. “The community leaders have shown great commitment to this process and has seen the connection between CNL’s operations and their livelihood. They understand that an enabling environment for our operations translates to continuous benefits to the communities in terms of our contributions to their socioeconomic development,” he explained.

demanded that Hyundai must look seriously at domiciling key aspects of its activities in-country. “There is a lot of repeat business and the opportunity is huge with the massive infrastructural deficits in the LPG values chain. You should partner with local businesses for increased in-country value addition especially in the area of maintenance of vessels.”

He stressed that NLNG’s efforts to deepen the pene-

tration of cooking gas tallies with NCDMB’s interventions to utilize oil and gas resources to improve the quality of lives of Nigerians.

The Executive Secretary regretted that the current level of LPG penetration in the country was still very low, at roughly 1kg per capita consumption compared to Ghana at 4.7kg, Senegal at 9kg, and Egypt at 85kg.

“The addition of this vessel will surely address part

of the challenges bedeviling LPG utilization in the country. It is expected that the NLNG market share of domestic LPG will increase significantly from the current level of 40 percent and ultimately lead to stoppage of importation of LPG into the country.”

He also stated that NCDMB had commenced discussions with some investors to address challenges around accessibility to LPG. “We are looking at initiatives around bulk storage depots and establishment of LPG cylinders manufacturing companies including provision of support for reopening of moribund ones.”

He noted that one of such in-country facilities have an installed capacity for the production of one million 12.5kg LPG cylinders per annum and 400 gas cookers daily and can provide 1000 jobs at full capacity, yet it was shut down, leading to a deluge of imported cylinders and accessories. “We will play our part to reverse this trend,” he promised.

Court convicts three vandals of EEDC electricity assets ISAAC ANYAOGU

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hree vandals were last week convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment each by Justice I.B Garfai at the Federal High Court 1 Awka, Anambra State for conspiracy, unlawful damage and stealing of electricity cables belonging to the Enugu Electricity Distribution Company (EEDC) in August, 2017.

The vandals, identified as: Onyedikachi Nwosu (18), Chinonso Ezenwanne (18) and Chizoba Ezedalu (22) committed an act contrary to the provisions of the Miscellaneous Offences Act, Cap.M.17, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 and Section 390(9) of the Criminal Code, Laws of the Federation 2004 according to the suit.

This conviction is coming just few weeks after the duo of Amaechi Joe and Ejike Chigozie were sentenced to three years imprisonment by Chief Magistrate, Onunkwo Esquire, at the Chief Magistrate Court of Anambra East Magisterial District, holden at Otuocha, Anambra State for vandalising the Ring Main Unit (RMU) handle of an Injection Substation belonging to the EEDC in Aguleri, Anambra State.

“We appreciate the effort of the Judiciary in ensuring speedy trial of these vandals, and hope that this will serve as deterrent to others who indulge in same act of sabotage which impacts negatively on the quality of service we render to our customers,” says Emeka Eze, head Communications, at EEDC in a statement made available to BusinessDay. It further said, “As a business, we have committed millions of Naira in restoring vandalised transformers and this is not a sustainable practice. We therefore continue to apppeal to our customers to join hands in protecting these installations serving them.

“We are not relenting in our engagement with communities and critical stakeholders on the need to be vigilant and join hands with EEDC in protecting these installation in their neighbourhood; and to re-

port any suspicious activity to their respective Feeder Manager or to the security operatives.

“We therefore commend the support of vigilante groups and security agencies such as the Civil Defence Corps, the Army and the Nigerian Police towards ensuring that this ugly menace is addressed and perpetrators brought to book.”

Vandalisation of electricity assets is a major concern of electricity distribution companies. Two years, Eko DisCo said it lost N50million every month on destruction of their assets. Other DisCos report losses in millions of naira monthly.

While some convictions have been secured against these vandals, the practice continues hence the DisCos are calling on security agencies to ramp up efforts in security vital electricity assets.

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In association with

How investors, developers are responding to improvement in macro-economy CHUKR UROKO

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hough the economic recovery in Nigeria remains slow and fragile, real estate investors and developers in the country, who had been relatively quiet in the last 24 months, have started showing confidence in the economy by kicking off new projects across major city centres.

The investors who play in the residential, commercial and hospitality segments of the property market look set to validate analyst’s prediction of a positive outlook for the sector this 2018. They are really optimistic and confident.

Based on the improvement in the macro-economy and the positive projections for 2018, Adetokunbo Ajayi, CEO, Propertygate Development & Investment Plc, sees hope for real estate, hinging his optimism also on the post-recession positive performance of the economy and growth forecasts.

“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts a GDP growth of 2.1percent for the country in 2018; and the economy is already living up to that forecast, as it recorded a growth of 1.9 percent in Q1 2018. Other economic forecasts, global and regional, are positive”, Ajayi posited Another source of optimism for the sector also derives from IMF’s projections which anticipate global economy to grow 3.9 percent in 2018; growth of 4.9 percent for emerging and developing economies, with expectation of a rise to 5.1 percent in 2019; and 3.4 percent growth for Sub-Sahara Africa.

But the real estate sector has, in the last 24 months, grappled with sharp supplydemand imbalance, widening vacancy rates and falling rents, high cost of building materials, rent arrears and reduced take-up of new office and retail spaces. The sector has not performed well in the last nine quarters.

A quarter one 2018 report by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics shows that the sector plunged deeper into recession in this quarter. A breakdown of the report shows that the sector contracted by -9.40 percent in Q1 2018 from -5.92 percent in Q4 2017 and -4.12

Newly delivered One6 Towers on Kingsway Road, Ikoyi.

percent in Q3 2017. This contraction is -6.3 percentage points worse than the -3.10 percent reported in the comparable period of 2017.

This, estate intel says, means that the real estate service sector is the worst performing economic subsector in over two years, after a few sub-sectors that include manufacturing, post and courier services, motor vehicle and assembly.

However, a shift from this trend looks imminent. Developers and investors like Ajayi, have expressed confidence in the economy by commencing a handful of residential projects.

A recent report by the African Property Investment (API) Events predicts increased demand for investment opportunities, especially in the real estate sector in the continent, given the macroeconomic indicators released by IMF which points to a surge in real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of five percent across 18 economies in subSaharan Africa.

Damola Akindolire, Executive Director, Real Estate at Alpha Mead Group, agrees to this, explaining that in Ni-

geria, the demand for land in developing areas such as Lekki in Lagos is gradually scaling up. He noted that this has led to an upward swing of about 10 percent-15 percent in land prices in some choice locations.

Akindolire added that activity in the hospitality sector is also gaining momentum with investors showing positive signs towards investing in hotel apartments, especially with the opening of Golden Tulip in Oniru and Radisson Blu, both in Ikeja.

“We will continue to see a strong run in this space with delivery of additional 1,000 rooms in 2018”, he assured.

BusinessDay, in a recent report, revealed that the Ogun State Investment Corporation (OPIC) was making vigorous effort to create a housing hub along the Lagos – Ibadan Expressway.

The new housing hub is aimed at assisting the state government to create a mega city footprint by providing housing units in the massive New Makun City housing project at the Shagamu interchange and the MTR Garden Estates at Isheri end of the expressway.

In a similar scenario, the Rivers State government has sealed a partnership deal with private real estate developers to deliver about 3,000 housing units in the next few years under the Port Harcourt mega city initiative.

In Lagos, the state government has commenced negotiation with relevant stakeholders for the redevelopment of Adeniji Adele Phase I – V in the city’s central business district. The project is expected to see the transformation of the current estate into highrise buildings of different house types.

An Abuja based property developer, reputed for developing 3,500 housing units in Life Camp, Abuja, has shown interest in veering into the Lagos real estate market. Sources say the firm is partnering with the Lagos State government to develop 618 housing units at the Jubilee Estate in Iganmu area.

Real estate analysts say the increasing number of projects echoes investors’ confidence in the economy which, expectedly, could serve as the ‘kick’ as activities gradually peak in West Africa’s most vibrant property market.

NMRC’s 13.80% Series 2 Bond issuance means lower mortgage rate for Nigerians — Experts ENDURANCE OKAFOR

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t seems the end is in sight for Nigeria’s housing challenges as experts in the Nigerian mortgage industry, going forward, expect a low mortgage rate for those who will be funding their home acquisition through mortgage loans.

This is on the basis of NMRC’s Series 2 Bond issuance which was at a lower cost compared to the initial issue in 2015.

“Going forward, NMRC should be able to lend at a cheaper cost because, if they borrow at a cheaper cost, it means they will be able to refinance mortgage lenders at a cheaper cost, which the ultimate beneficiaries are the individuals that are taking the mortgages,” an industry expert, who did not want to be named, said.

The opinion of another expert was not different as he reasoned that, in generally, the impact of the issuance would mean that the cost of mortgage lending will come down.

“This means that people that are trying to get mortgage will be able to access the loan at a lower interest rate,” the expert who also asked not to be named said on phone.

Meanwhile, the mortgage interest rates in Nigeria range between 6-10 percent for the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) supervised National Housing Fund (NHF) and between 1525 percent for commercial mortgage institutions which, analysts say, is one of the highest in the world.

However, NMRC says it has completed its N11billion 13.80 per cent Series 2 Bond Issuance under its N440 billion Medium Term Note Programme, adding that this is part of its primary mandate of providing liquidity mortgage system.

The net proceeds of the

exercise will be used to refinance eligible mortgage loans originated by the participating primary mortgage banks (PMBs) and other mortgage lending institutions.

This is coming after its inaugural N8 billion 14.9 per cent Series 1 Bond issue in July 2015 which was fully deployed towards refinancing legacy mortgage loan portfolios of the participating and eligible mortgage lending banks.

The Series 2 Bonds are unconditionally and irrevocably guaranteed by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) and thus ascribed an ‘AAA’ rating by both Global Credit Rating Co. and Agusto & Co. The order book was subscribed by over 200 percent. The bonds were subscribed to by domestic investors with the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) representing over 70 per cent of the investors.

The federal government has, however, disclosed plans to inject N500 billion ($1.4 billion) into FMBN over the next five years in an effort to spur home ownership that has failed to take off in the country.

When experts in the mortgage industry were asked the overall impacts the NMRC Series 2 bond issuance and the federal government plans to inject N100billion will have on the entire industry, they said it was in two different angles but overall it means more fund for the sector.

Kehinde Ogundimu, the Managing Director of NMRC, said in a statement that the bond issuance reinforces NMRC’s commitment to encouraging and promoting homeownership in Nigeria by linking the capital markets with the housing sector and establishing an operating and viable secondary mortgage market to support the primary mortgage market

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Novare Real Estate scales up investor confidence in economy …opens $54m mixed-use facility with 7,178sqm retail space Stories by CHUKA UROKO

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t a time when many investors are folding their arms and watching the economy in its slow, fragile and vulnerable recovery from a 15-month recession that has been adjudged the worst in 25 years, Novare Real Estate Africa is upbeat, adding to its portfolio of retail projects in the Nigerian property market.

The firm has just completed a $54 million mixed facility known as Novare Central Mall which will be opened for business next week to offer new and unrivalled retail and office experience to the public in the Wuse area of the Abuja central business district (CBD).

This, according to close market watchers, is a bold and courageous step given that, though the wider economy is recovering and showing positive growth, real estate is still in recession and, in the last nine quarters, from the last quarter of 2016, the sector has been in negative growth.

The economy, according to Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) first quarter (Q1) 2018 report, expanded positively by 1.95 percent in Q1 2018, a stronger growth when compared with the -0.91 percent in Q1 2017, indicating an

increase of 2.87 percentage points.

Conversely, real estate sector within the same period contracted by -9.40 percent in Q1 2018 from -5.92 percent in Q4 2017 and -4.12 percent in Q3 2017.

The quarter contraction was -6.3 percentage points worse than the -3.10 percent reported in the comparable period of 2017.

But Novare Real Estate say they are not deterred or discouraged by short term limitations because, according to the chairman of the company, Fabian Ajogwu, a professor and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN, “we are not here for short term; we are here for the long haul”.

Ajogwu who spoke at press conference he addressed along with Peter Bamkole, a director, and Kelvin Erhonsele, the company secretary, added that they have a long term view of both the economy and the real estate market which explains their investment of over $500 million in retail development, creating over 5,000 jobs and direct tax revenue to both state and federal governments.

“Novare has over a decade of real estate development, working with local partners and in tandem with the government.

We contribute to infrastructure development, create jobs and

L-R: Kelvin Erhonsele, company secretary; Fabian Ajogwu, chairman, and Peter Bamkole, director, all of Novare Real Estate Africa, at the press conference on Novare Central Mall in Lagos recently.

revenue for the government; our efforts are driven by our desire to reach the unserved members of the public”, he said.

Before Novare Central Mall, the company had developed the 8, 267square metre Novare Apo Mall which is located about 18 kilometres from the Novare Gateway Mall to the south-east of Abuja. In Lagos, the property consortium equally developed the 22, 000 square metre Novare Lekki Mall, the largest mall in Lagos, which opened for business in

August 2016.

The new Central Mall consists of 7, 178 square metres of retail space on the ground floor with A-grade offices occupying three floors. Its strategic location within the central business district of Abuja which is witnessing rapid development and is home to various government departments such as the Foreign Affairs Ministry, the Wuse General Hospital and the Nigerian Customs Services means retailers and office space occupiers have a lot to ben-

efit from, including high footfalls and increased sales.

The modern architecture and the strategic location of this mall has attracted the attention of major retail brands, including Africa’s largest food retailer, Shoprite.

Other stores in the centre include PEP, Office Everything, Active Leisure, Timekeepers, Kilimanjaro and Miniso. A growing number of established retail brands and big corporates are also expressing interest to take up space at the centre.

Tackling poverty, housing investment Why real estate is investment haven, professional destination across many value chain. But we espite the slowdown and Estate’ in Lagos recently. in focus as stakeholders gather for AHS challenging times which the “Real estate”, he added, “allows have to continue to innovate; Nige-

H

ow to tackle poverty through investment in housing will be the focus of discussion as housing sector stakeholders gather for the Abuja International Housing Show (AHS) next week. Expectation is that the stakeholders, coming from diverse backgrounds in the housing sector, will offer insights for profitable investment in housing which is grossly undersupplied in Nigeria.

AHS is currently the largest single real estate expo and exhibition in Nigeria, drawing participants and exhibitors from the West African sub-region and the continent at large. In the last 11 years, the Show has brought together over 50,000 housing sector stakeholders from both public and private sectors to point the way forward for the sector.

This year’s edition, which is the 12th in the series, anticipates about 15,000 participants and 250 exhibitors in various types of building materials. Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, will declare the Show open on Monday, July 16.

“How government could create a conducive environment and look into outstanding housing laws at the National Assembly which include Land Use Act, foreclosure laws and mortgage banking law, and how these would attract more investment in real estate will also be discussed”, Festus Adebayo, the convener, said in an interview.

“Our expectation is that once government plays that role, we can use housing to fight poverty,

bearing in mind that at every construction site, jobs are created and many people are engaged including professionals, artisans and labourers. Through this, wealth is created and the economy is better for it”, he added.

Hope of homeownership, especially for civil servants, is increasingly becoming a remote possibility.

This is why this edition of the Show is not planned as a talk-show but a forum for exchanging ideas from leaders, and enabling people to acquaint themselves with the latest developments in the housing sector.

“This forum is also aimed to strategise for practical solution to housing problems in Nigeria. It will assist people to get building materials at discounted rates from manufacturers who will be exhibiting their products here,’’ he said.

About 26 speakers from different African countries and international organisations including the World Bank, African Union of Housing Finance, UN Habitat and India Federation for Housing are expected.

Also expected are the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola as the Chief Host, and FCT Minister, Mohammed Bello, Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State and Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger State.

Some ministers expected from the African countries include the Deputy Minister for Works and Housing, Ghana, Freda Prempeh and the country’s members of parliament who will also be in attendance.

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real estate sector in Nigeria is passing through at the moment, investment analysts, players in the sector including portfolio and equity investors are agreed that of all the various investment asset class, real estate remains top in consideration.

For investors, especially the patient ones who have long term view of the market, real estate is a haven while, professionally, that is, in terms of a profession to pursue, it is a destination. This is the only investment asset whose value, especially land, never goes down even in a recessing economy.

Today, this sector represents 8 percent of Nigeria’s GDP; its market value is estimated at N59 trillion and that, in turn, represents the value of investment opportunity open to investors in the sector. Again, at the moment, 81 percent of global wealth is held as real estate.

Many students of Estate Management, for instance, have frequently, at one point or another, stopped to ask themselves what really is in real estate for them.

But professionals and sundry practitioners assure those with mindset that there is a lot for them in that sector.

“Real estate encompasses the thing you are passionate about; the thing you are good at, and the thing you can earn a living from”, explained Tayo Odunsi, CEO, Northcourt Real Estate, who spoke at a gathering of budding real estate professionals on ‘Why I Love Real

me to harness all my many interests into one career”. This means that even as a real estate professional, one can still do other things where one’s interest is strong such as technology, fine art, marketing, interior desig and others.

This is because, back in the days, real estate was just a blend of construction, economics, law and accounting, but today, it goes beyond that. Real estate is now a blend of construction economics, law, finance, technology, design, marketing, and branding.

It is, therefore ,a professional destination, especially for students who have strong bias for technology. There is new technology in real estate which encompasses the Big Data; Internet of Things (IoT); Drone Technology; Artificial Intelligence; Machine Learning; Visual Positioning System (VPS); Building Information Modelling (BIM), and Smart Cities.

Besides technology, real estate also incorporates art & design through which a professional can do interior design, graphics design or fine art. Marketing is also a profitable aspect of real estate and so, a professional marketer can find a place in real estate market.

As a course of study, Real Estate is broad and therefore exposes a learner to vast and varied disciplines. As an investment asset, it has many value chain from which people can earn a living. “Nigerians like investing in real estate; the sector is good because it can work

ria should learn to develop its own brand of real estate for themselves and for buyers”, Olayinka Ogunsulire, CEO, Orange Island, advised at the gathering in Lagos.

In real estate business, there is need to imbibe culture of excellence which, Ogunsulire explained, gives a developer more money than he could get by doing it otherwise.

“To be excellent, you have to go extra mile and in delivering your product as a developer, you must consider buyers’ lifestyle”, she advised.

Gbenga Olaniyan, CEO, Estate Links Limited, who said he found himself in real estate by default and has remained in it because it is the best profession and gives a lot money, agreed on the value of excellence, adding that there was also need for professionalism. “Don’t compromise on this because you get more by being professional”, he said.

Integrity is yet another value that professionals must not compromise on and Modupe Anjous, CEO, Rydal Mews , insisted that this must be accompanied by attention to detail, especially on documentation.

Though it is not easy out there, there is every need to remain focused and this was the advice of Rogba Orimalade, Chairman, Lagos State branch of Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), who also advised on commitment and patience in any chosen career, including real estate business.

BUSINESS DAY

Tuesday 10 July 2018

EDUCATION

Weekly insight on current and future trends in education

Primary/Secondary

Higher

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Human Capital

Private sector leads discourse on tackling challenges of basic education in Nigeria Stories by KELECHI EWUZIE

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he general consensus of both private and public sector stakeholders, who converged at the 2018 Oando foundation organised private sector roundtable session was that by neglecting the problems in basic education, the country is compromising the integrity of her socioeconomic existence.

It was against this backdrop that both the private sector operators and managers of the universal basic education across the country seek to collaborate in proffering workable solution to the lingering problems of out of school children and inadequate skilled teachers bedevilling this important level of education.

The Roundtable session which is in line with the Oando Foundation’s commitment to improve access to basic education for the Nigerian child was organised in collaboration with the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), the statutory body responsible for implementing Basic Education interventions, providing greater access to, and ensuring quality basic education across Nigeria.

Adekanla Adegoke, Head, Oando Foundation, in her address at the event, observe that it is imperative that private sector actors and affiliates come together with a unified front in order to assist the Government in achieving its goal as entrenched in the Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 17.

Adegoke said that the challenge is much greater than simply enrolling young people into classrooms. It is determining the most efficient distribution of resources to keep them in school and ensure that they receive quality education necessary for future economic empowerment and life-long learning.

She said that the foundation in collaboration with the Universal Basic Education Commission will continue to explore opportunities for increased private sector participation in basic education delivery.

Speaking further on the initiative, Adekanla said: “Anybody above the age of 40 most likely would have attended a public school, and can attest to the quality of education. It is not the same anymore, and it is the sad reality we have come to terms with. We appreciate the uniqueness of the private sector in galvanising technical expertise, human and financial resources for the urgent transformation required in the sector, gov-

ernment must realise and tap into this.

She further said that the overall objective of the roundtable is to create a network of private sector leaders within the Basic Education space to explore methods and techniques for supporting basic education through partnership with the Universal Basic Education Board in Nigeria.

This network will serve as a platform for further engagement for UBEC and private sector players.

Hamid Bobboyi, executive secretary, Universal Basic Education Commission in his presentation at the event said basic education sector represents the foundational stratum upon which all other tiers, of our educational system are predicted on and nurtured.

Bobboyi observe that it is equally important to take cognisance of the fact that basic attitudes and behaviour as well as skills and competences are imbibed at this basic stage of our educational development.

In his presentation titled ‘Imperative of Organised Private Sector support in the development of basic education in Nigeria’, Bobboyi said the Organised private sector are immediate business/development beneficiaries of the education sector, adding that lack of quality education, especially at basic educa-

Igbajo poly sacks acting rector over certificate Saga BOLADALE BAMIGBOLA, Osogbo

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he board of Igbajo Polytechnic, Igbajo, Osun state has sacked Akinola Olugbenga Olaolu, acting rector of the institution following discovery that some of the credentials he paraded were fake.

Inaolaji Aboaba, vice chairman, Board of Trustees of the polytechnic while speaking to newsmen said when the news broke out that Akinola was parading a fake Doctoral certificate, the Governing Council, wrote to University of Ibadan, demanding it to authenticate or disprove Akinola’s PhD.

“The outcome of the verification from the University of Ibadan indicates that the Certificate purportedly issued to him was misrepresented and therefore did not emanate from the University.

According to him, “The Governing Council met on Wednesday, 4th July, 2018 on the letter received from University of Ibadan and decided that the services of Akinola Olugbenga Olaolu will no longer be required in Igbajo Polytechnic.

“However, we commend the efforts and contributions of the former Acting Rector, while he was with us,” Aboaba said.

Aboaba, urged news-

men to assist the community to positively project the institution, said even with the unfortunate incident involving the former acting Rector, the polytechnic has recorded many success stories that deserve media attention.

According to him, Saheed Bello has been permitted to function in the capacity of Rector of the institution until a substantive Rector is appointed.

He added that already 15 applications have been received from people interested in working as Rector of the institution and assured that thorough checks would be carried out on whoever will be appointed as rector.

L-R : Modupe Mujota, commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Ogun State; Hamid Bobboyi, executive secretary, Universal Basic Education; Adekanla Adegoke, Head, Oando Foundation and Lawal Buhari, executive chairman, State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Kaduna State at the Oando Foundation/Universal Basic Education Commission private sector dialogue in Lagos.

tion level affects the quality of services and product of the private sector.

He opines that the Commission is keenly interested in developing an active partnership with the Organised Private Sector in the development of basic education in Nigeria.

To him, the opportunity being offered at the private sector roundtable meeting is indeed a landmark, signalling a brighter future for the UBEOPS partnership.

On her part, Morris Atoki,

senior manager, sustainability development goals and climate change at PricewaterhouseCoopers Limited (PWC) said that the coming together of both private and public sector to address the huge challenges in basic education has very huge potential.

According to her, “I think for one it is the opportunity to scale impact for greater growth, if private sector come together because right now there are individual contributions and com-

mitment, but if they come together for that genuine reason to move basic education from where it is now to where it should be, there is a tendency that they would impact more”.

The roundtable meeting spanned half a day with sessions focused on presenting an evidence-based case for private sector involvement in education policymaking and funding, and exploring approaches for actioning a collaborative approach to achieving these.

LPSS deepens out of classroom learning for pupils ...host Arts and Music programme

L

agos Preparatory and Secondary School (LPSS) as part of its strategic plan to deepen the concept of out of classroom learning recently held a programme where pupils performed a show stopping production of the famous Lion King musical.

This event was open to members of the public, providing an opportunity for both entertainment and inspiration.

The students in Year 6, some of whom will be progressing to boarding schools perform a musical each session. The musical production is part of the ‘graduating tradition’ to reflect a culmination of all they’ve learnt

particularly in the area of music and drama during their time at LPSS. Nicholas Barrett, Headmaster at LPSS observe that this year’s event was special because the very active PTA subsidised the cost of the show to enhance the production values and support the fine work put in by the students. This was important as it was performed to members of the public outside the LPSS community and hopefully inspired them to implement similar performances in their own communities.

According to him, this is one of the many ways the PTA has partnered with the school in recent times. They have supported science by

donating a Fume Cupboard, a Van de Graaff generator and an Accurate Measuring Balance; encouraged sports by purchasing over 25 boxes of sporting equipment for the children and aided IT by providing numerous tablet computers to be used by the children in the school. This production has given the PTA an opportunity to extend their generosity to the general public.

Caroline Disu, director of Music adapted the story to create opportunities for every single child in Year 6 to play a part in the production. The Choir and Orchestra made up of other members of Key Stage 2, supported the play with their musical performances.

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BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 10 July 2018

EDUCATION INSIGHT ‘Investment in vocational education to spur next generation’s productivity’ Stories by KELECHI EWUZIE

I

ndustry professionals in the field of education says investment in vocational education plays a developmental role in spurring next generation of leaders to be more productive.

They observe that a lot has been written and said about the problems plaguing the nation’s educational system over the years, but what might not be getting so much attention is the role that vocational training play in boost youth employment in the long run.

While statistics reveal that the population of students in tertiary institutions across the country is on the increase, there is however no corresponding embrace of vocational education training, a situation which is triggering an alarming rise in Nigeria’s unemployment and crime rates.

Industry close watchers argue that the country must as a matter of urgency give the needed attention to Vocational and Technical Education (VTE) adding that in addressing failing sectors of Nigeria’s economy, government need not neglect vocational and technical education.

Matthew Ozoemena, an

M

icrosoft Nigeria in collaboration with Sidmach Technologies has introduced into the Nigerian education market three world-class technological innovations that can aid effective management in schools.

These products will afford proprietors, principals, head teachers, IT directors and other high level school administrators, first hand encounter with Microsoft’s Imagine Academy, Sidmach’s Smart School solution and SEAMs. Jordan Belmonte, educations programme manager, Microsoft Nigeria, introduced Microsoft’s “Imagine Academy” - an IT package with over 700 courses including data and computer science, IT infrastructure to enhance productivity in schools.

According to her, the package will aid learning and prepare schools for a digital literacy curriculum.

While explaining how technology can be utilised, Jordan said, “It is good that we

education analyst, observes that skills development is a vehicle for attaining sustainable development. “A skilled man is employable.

VTE makes a man employable; an educated man who lacks skill has no advantage over an uneducated man.

VTE is indispensable if Nigeria is to make meaningful progress in local technology, which can be a source of revenue for the country”, he averred.

Ozoemena added that the National Policy on Education should be reviewed to address the seemingly stigmatisation associated with vocational institutions.

“The policy should provide for VTE to be run as an educational programme in which students will start at a basic level and terminate at senior level, equivalent to senior secondary school. Students from Vocational and technical colleges can then be admitted into universities or colleges of technology to study in VTE areas necessary to advance Nigeria’s technology base”, he said.

Despite the difficulties that VTE face in the country, the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) realised the value because of the skills it provides for graduate employability, Ezendu Nwokocha, a research fellow observed.

He further added that to achieve this, the curriculum

L-R: Toni Kan, guest speaker; Munachi Mbonu, author of the books title “ Concealed and The Child of Destiny”, her mother Ify Mbonu, and Nicolas Okoye, president/CEO, Anabel Group, during the books presentation in Lagos.

Pic by Olawale Amoo

of technical schools should have content that enables the learner in VTE to solve problems encountered in their immediate environment.

It should be formulated in such a manner that familiar learning content that address real life situations can be addressed noting that this will help the students to apply the content to their own real life situation.

Nwokocha however noted that adequate facilities that

are relevant to delivering the learning content and working in the present time should be provided. “Without facilities, there will be a disconnect between the learning content in the classroom and real situations that exist in work places. Without facilities, teaching will be all about theorising. This should be discouraged in VTE for relevant problem-solving skills to be acquired in the end”, he said.

To him, Teachers and administrators in VTE programmes need to be high quality personnel, possessing relevant qualifications for teaching in VTE. Teachers in VTE should be good in their course areas and possess the ability to deliver their course content to learners in various areas.

“It is a fact that the quality of an educational system is as good as the quality of its teachers. Recruitment

and placement of teachers and administrators in VTE should not be done in a manner comparable to putting a square peg in a round hole.

The need arises for quality assurance in teacher preparation programmes in VTE” he added.

He further urged that VTE needs to have its pride of place in Nigeria to move the country up the technology ladder among other nations of the world.

Microsoft, Sidmach new education offerings strengthen effective school management have technology out there, but it is important that we put the individuals through on how to use it.” She also added that Imagine Academy helps schools compete globally with international standard.

Ohwofasa Imoh, Educations Strategic Business Unit Manager Sidmach, in his presentation on Smart School an online portal which aids competitive thinking, cloud computing and organisation of information stated that schools can get free trials of the software based on their interests, while webinars will be available for interested schools to break the barrier of distance.

Imoh opines that the solution will encourage real-time interaction among teachers, parents, students and other stakeholders of the school to monitor the administrative activities.

Akintunde Opawole, head, creative marketing and brand communications Sid-

L-R: Akintunde Opawole, Business Head, Creative Marketing & Brand Communications, Sidmach Technologies; Oluseyi Odusanya, Head, Education Strategic Business Unit, Sidmach Technologies; Jordan Belmonte, Education Programmes Manager Microsoft; Ohwofasa Imoh Educations Strategic Business Unit Manager, Sidmach Technologies, and Olayemi Oladiran, Head Sales & Marketing Sidmach Technologies at the recently concluded event Digital Transformation in Education held in Lagos

mach said the Simple Electronic Assessment and Marking System (SEAMS) another technology solution can aid academic management.

According to him, SEAMS is a transformation in assessment, testing and computer based training (CBT) that helps digitalise examinations that are taken manually, as well as help curb the lack of alternatives in digital examinations.

Opawole further said that SEAMS doesn’t aim to replace teachers but enhance their performances as they can do more from the comfort of their homes and offices as some of its features include answer script capture, submission portal, real-time examination submission.

The event offered opportunities to seven winners who won three Sidmach Windows 10 Smart Slate Tablet and four branded Sidmach-Microsoft shirts through lucky dip respectively.

Tuesday 10 July 2018

C002D5556

BUSINESS DAY

Tips & Talking Points

Harvard Business Review TALKING POINTS Slam Dunk?

93%: A survey looking at communication across industries found that on average native English speakers understood the phrase “slam dunk” as suggestive of a 93% probability, while nonnative speak‑ ers place that likelihood at 81%. + Do Conservatives Shop Differently Than Liberals?

2.2 times: According to a study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, conservative American consumers were 2.2 times more likely than liberals to purchase products marketed with a message of superiority over those that signaled uniqueness. + The Challenge of Strategic Thinking 96%: In a survey by Rich Horwath from the Strategic Thinking Institute, 96% of business leaders and managers re‑ sponded that they did not have enough time for strategic thinking. + Climbing the C-Suite 50% to 60%: Within the first 18 months of executive hire or promotion, 50% to 60% of managers fail, according to Cas‑ sandra Frangos, author of “Four Paths to the C‑Suite.” + Working Dads Seek Balance 73%: A Promundo and Dove Men+Care survey reports that 73% of fathers work‑ ing in the U.S. believe there is limited support for dads in the workplace.

To motivate a midcareer employee, offer a change of scenery

Use if-then thinking to change your behavior

The midcareer crisis is a real phe‑ nomenon. Research has shown that people’s satisfaction bottoms out when they’re in the middle of their careers. As a manager, you don’t want to lose these valuable employees just because they fall into a slump.

To keep them engaged, consider of‑ fering a change of scenery through remote work or even a relocation. Re‑ mote work can let them change their personal lives without hurting their professional progress. A relocation to a different office could make sense

e all have habits and behaviors we wish we could change.

But just being aware of a bad habit isn’t enough. To truly fix it, start by considering your goal (say, “I want my team to know that I trust them”) and the obstacles you expect to face along the way (“I struggle to delegate”). Next, frame what you will do about the ob‑ stacles as if-then statements.

To address the delegation obstacle, for example, you could tell yourself: “If I start to feel uncomfortable about not completing the work myself, then I’ll ask for updates on it in our next team meeting.”

Eventually the link between the cue (the “if” part of the statement) and the action (the “then”) will become strong enough to help you change how you react. By using if-then statements, you can think through what will get in your way and make a plan to overcome it.

W

for both the company and the employee if that office needs the employee’s skills. Of course, a relocation is a big life change for the employee, so the company should be ready to assist with the move. In offering these options, you can help an experienced employee who still has years left in their career rekindle their enthusiasm for work.

(Adapted from “Many Employees Have a Midcareer Crisis. Here’s How Employers Can Help,” by Serenity Gibbons.)

To deal with distractions, retrain your brain to focus

Show compassion when an employee cries in front of you

Managers, deliberately encourage and reward collaboration

Focusing is hard — and blaming that on the con‑ stant distractions around us is easy.

But trying to get rid of distractions isn’t enough to fix the problem. We also have to retrain our brains to concentrate. For example, when your work is interrupted by email, the real issue isn’t email; it’s that being tethered to your inbox makes you expect an inter‑ ruption every few minutes.

To help your brain relearn to focus, try “single-tasking”: Open only one window on your computer screen, or give your full attention to a single task at a time. Also, practice noticing when your attention veers off course and then gently guiding it back to

anagers of‑ ten feel un‑ comfortable when an employee cries. It may be tempt‑ ing to press on with the conversation as if nothing is happening, but a better response is to demonstrate compassion. The tears don’t mean the person is an emotional wreck or having a break‑ down; they’re just the way their body is react‑ ing to pressure. You might say, “Let’s take a quick break, and then we’ll figure things out.”

You can suggest the employee take a short walk or get a coffee, or if the meeting is in your office, you can leave for a few minutes to let the

here are a lot of reasons why someone might refuse help from a colleague. Some employees prefer to be self-reliant, others don’t want to feel obligated to return the favor, and still oth‑ ers don’t trust their co-workers’ motives. But these attitudes can increase employees’ risk of burnout and hinder social connections at work. As a manager, you can en‑ courage and recognize collaborative efforts by calling attention to them and explaining how they contribute to the organization’s goals and mis‑ sion. Be sure to demonstrate your willingness to accept help when you need it; employees are more likely to do it if they see their leaders doing it. And be careful not to send mixed messages: If employees who go it alone advance more quickly

M

what you’re doing. If you think of something important while you’re doing focused work, jot it down on a notepad and come back to it later. Practic‑ ing attention management like this will build your “attention muscle,” which will give you greater control over distrac‑ tions.

(Adapted from “To Control Your Life, Control What You Pay Attention To,” by Maura Thomas.)

T person calm down. Don’t offer pity or try to fix the situation; say something simple like, “I’m sorry that upset you.” And resist get‑ ting upset yourself, even if you’re frustrated. If you stay calm and focused, you can help the employee move past their emotions and back to the work at hand.

(Adapted from “How to Manage an Employee Who Cries Easily,” by Liz Kislik.)

c 2017 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate

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than those who give and receive support, people will pick up on that discrepancy — and they’ll go back to looking out for No. 1.

(Adapted from “Why We Don’t Let Co-Workers Help Us, Even When We Need It,” by Mark C. Bolino and Phillip S. Thompson.)

34

BUSINESS DAY

Tuesday 10 July 2018

STRATEGYBRIEFING IDEAS THAT POWER HIGH PERFORMANCE

The strategy of happiness BRIAN REUBEN

C

onventionally, it is thought that increased pay leads to increased productivity. But a recent study by economists at the University of Warwick found that happiness led to a 12% increase in productivity, while unhappy workers proved 10% less productive.

According to Professor Andrew Oswald, one of three researchers who led the study, companies that invest in employee support and satisfaction tend to succeed in generating happier workers. At Google, employee satisfaction rose 37% as a result of those initiatives—suggesting that financial incentives aren’t enough to make for highly productive employees.

Your most important assets are human beings and intrestingly man is more of an emmotional rather than intellectual being. The biggest and most profitable companies in the world understand this truth and are as such committed to the emotional stability of their workforce. Lara Harding, People Programs Manager, Google gave an insight into how Google look at their people when he said, At Google, we know that health, family and wellbeing are an important aspect of Googlers’ lives.

We have also noticed that employees who are happy ... demonstrate increased motivation ... [We] ... work to ensure that Google is... an emotionally healthy place to work.

Perhaps one of the most important things business leaders must accomplish is shaping the perception of their workforce in the direction of their corporate vision. When workers see themselves as a part of the company, when they feel at home, are happy and take pride in their job they can withstand any pressure at work.

The happiness of your workforce is directly linked to their productivity. The truth is that even one unhappy employee can negatively impact on your organisational performance.

So you want to have happy and satisfied employees because that’s good for your business. Ironically being the highest paying company in your industry does not guarantee a happy workforce. It takes an intelligent mix of mission, culture and management to create happy employees.

Mission A mission defines what a company live for. It begins by a clearly defined and effectively communicated mission. Such that every one in the organization from the CEO to the Janitor understands clearly, believe in and are excited about. A mission the workforce so believe in that it shapes their life and work attitude.

Such as the apocryphal story about a janitor at NASA who when asked by someone what he was doing, replied ‘I’m helping to put a man on the Moon.’ How could the Janitor think that way? The answer is simple. The leadership at NASA did a good work in communicating their mission to

the entire workforce.

People are glad to be a part of something meaningful. They put their best effort in a mission or goal that excites them. This is where you begin. Clearly every successful organisation has an exciting mission that is so well communicated thateven their security men understand it. For Coca Cola, it is to refresh the world in mind, body and spirit. To inspire moments of optimism and happiness through our brands and actions. For Microsoft, it is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Need we be surprise then these companies make it into the list of the best companies to work in?

Culture “There’s no magic formula for a great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.” – Richard Branson The corporate culture is the core of any businesses and it is as important as getting in the sales. According to Investopedia, a corporate culture refers to the beliefs and behaviours that determine how the company’s employees and management interact and handle outside business transactions.

You should let your corporate culture inspire happiness among your workforce. The advice of Mr Branson sums up the secret of creating a culture that will make the heart of your employees to sing. Following his advice delivers the magic of happiness in your organisation. Imagine

for instance, an organisation where the CEO understands how to be firm as well as laugh freely with the employees. That’s just like a good daddy.

The staff are glad you are there, not scared. Consider Facebook which targeting a ‘frictionless’ workplace has everyone working together on big, white, communal desks.

Even Mr. Zuckerberg doesn’t have an office. Instead, opting to work alongside the other employees in the ‘bull-pen’ like workspace.

Potentially having an intern work alongside the boss is incredibly daunting, yet motivating. This surely adds to the corporate culture at Facebook, as equality is not only preached, but practiced.

So think about your peculiar case and create a culture that inspires your employees to believe in your company. Be a mentor rather than a superior.

Be unassuming, employees like it.

Besides that, find ways to make people laugh freely at the work place.

Nothing beats creating a happier corporate culture by bringing smiles

and laughter into the work place.

Management.

According to Hal Rosenbluth in his book Customers Come Second, “Profits are a natural extension of happiness in the workplace.” Your employees will care about your business to the degree you care about them. Part of management’s responsibility is to manage the total well being of the employees. You can’t close your eyes and insist on performance when a staff is weighed down by emotional issues. You can’t act like you don’t know someone looks depressed when you should as a matter of fact observe the disposition of your people. Show enough concern in the affairs of your people and they will be happy to give you their commitment.

Finally, it matters how happy your people are. Their productivity depends on how happy they are.

When you care about your people they will care about your business.

If you neglect that you will watch profits go down the drain.

Brian is an author, advisor to business leaders, keynote speaker and an entrepreneur. He has trained and advised senior executives at renowned organizations including Africa Reinsurance Corporation, UAC, United Securities Limited, BusinessDay among others.

Brian is the Director of BusinessDay Training and sits on the board of a number of organizations in Africa.

Venue: Westwood Hotel, Ikoyi Lagos.

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This Page Is Open For Sponsorship, for details call 0708 234 5251.

Tuesday 10 July 2018

BD

C002D5556

BUSINESS DAY

Markets + Finance

35

‘Providing proprietary research, commentary, analysis and financial news coverage unmatched in today’s market. Published weekly, Markets & Finance provides all the key intelligence you need.’

These charts show CCNN is efficient and profitable BALA AUGIE

T

hese charts show any fir m that merges with Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) Plc has made the right investment decision as the cement maker has the financial strength to underpin a synergy.

Investors are upbeat that about the Sokoto based cement maker’s expansion plans and consistent earnings growth as evidenced in share appreciation.

In the company’ favor are the expectations for economic growth, with Nigeria showing signs of recovery after contracting in 2016 with the economy forecast by

the International Monetary Fund to grow 2.1 percent this year.

The gradual economic growth and the expected uptick in cement volumes mean CCNN’s future earnings will be in an upward trajectory.

Financial Performance for Q1 2018 The historical first quarter financial performance of CCNN shows the company’s focus and market penetration strategies have paid off while investors and shareholders who have invested their money and time in the company are guaranteed a high return on investment.

Sales stood at N5.39 billion in the first quarter of 2018, from an all time low of N3.56 billion as at March

of 2016, a period when the nation experienced its worst economic downturn.

Similarly, profit after tax stood at N1.08 billion in March 2018 as against N243.12 million recorded as at March 2016. See Chart.

The year 2016 was horrendous for companies in Africa’s largest economy as a severe dollar shortage saw the country slip into its first recession in 25 years.

Cement makers were hard hit as weak demand for the product, stoked by a slow down in capital projects by government and the political unrest in the North East part of the country undermined top lines (Revenue).

CCNN has been able to turn each Naira invested in sales in generating higher profit as evidenced in improved efficiency level amid a tough and unpredictable macroeconomic environment. This means the company has proven that there exists relationship between efficiency, profitability and stock performance.

Net margin hit a five year high of 20 percent in the period under review, from 14.05 percent recorded in 2014.

CCNN is efficient in producing each unit of product

and its products are profitable as evidenced in improved gross profit margin.

Gross margin stood at 41.95 percent in March 2018, from an all time low of 22.61 percent as at March 2016.

This means that for every Naira of sales the Sokoto cement maker generates, it earns 65 cents in profits before other business expenses are paid.

CCNN is spending less to produce each unit of product as cost of sales fell to an all time low of 58.03 percent in March 2018 as against an all time high of 64.82 percent as at March 2014.

The cost savings underscores the firm’s investment in alternative energy mix to lower cost of production after a disruption to gas pipeline by Niger Delta militants in 2016 caused input costs to go up.

The Sokoto cement maker said last year that it has discovered coal in commercial quantities, which it intends to use as fuel for a 40 megawatts (MW) power plant being constructed as part of a $300 million project.

The new cement factory will use both coal and low pour fuel oil (LPFO) will source its power needs from

the plant with the excess power generated to feed to the National grid.

Coal is a flammable black hard rock used as a solid fossil fuel, while LPFO, also known as black oil is a fundamental input in steam generation in many industries.

CCNN has been able to utilize the resources of shareholders in generating higher profit as return on equity (ROE) increase to 7 percent in March 2018, from an all time low of 2.30 percent as at March 2016.

The firm has been able to minimize costs directly attributable to product as gross profit increased to N2.26 billion in the period under review from an all time low of N807 million recorded in 2016.

Share Performance and Valuation CCNN’s share price has grown by 160.40 percent (one year return) since last year to close at N24.10 as of 2:00 pm on Friday July 5.

It has a market capital capitalization of N30.28 billion while total shareholders’ fund stood at N15.49 billion as March 2018.

The Sokoto cement maker is trading at a price to earnings ratio of 9.70 times while price to book ratio is 1.95 times.

CCNN, BUA’s Kalambaina Cement set to merge The Board of Directors of Cement Company of Northern Nigeria (“CCNN”), owners of the 500,000 metric tonnes per annum Sokoto Cement Plant, announces that it has informed the Nigerian Stock Exchange of its proposed merger with the BUA Cement-owned Kalambaina Cement Company Ltd. Kalambaina Cement owns the newly built 1.5million tonnes per annum Kalambaina Cement plant in Sokoto State.

This disclosure was made known in filings to regulatory authorities and is subject to various approvals. If approved, the combined entity will have a total installed capacity of2million metric tonnes per annum.

Disclosing the proposed merger, Managing Director

BD MARKETS + FINANCE (Business Team lead: PATRICK ATUANYA - Analysts: BALA AUGIE and LOLADE AKINMURELE)

of CCNN, Ibrahim Aminu, said the merger will position CCNN for better competitiveness within its home market.

He said the merger will also enable the company to utilise the more modern plant and equipment of the Kalambaina Cement Company Ltd to boost its market penetration and export potential.

“Over the years, we have always delivered exceptional value to all stakeholders and this proposed merger is in continuation of that.

We have consistently outperformed the industry in key metrics such as capacity utilization but growth has been hampered over the years due to limited expansion and lack of alternative fuel sources.

“Kalambaina Cement’s 1.5million metric tonnes per annum multi-fuel (coal, heavy oils and gas) powered cement plant solves that issue with limited downtime and further opportunities for growth and expansion.”

According to the statement, CCNN further alluded that the proposed merger provides a compelling opportunity to capture significant synergies and create value for the benefit of the shareholders of both companies in the form of stronger competitive position of the enlarged company, economies of scale, enhanced operations and administrative efficiencies which are expected to accrue.

“This is in view of various challenges that had prevented CCNN from maximizing the opportunities present in its local markets where it is hampered by limited access and high cost of heavy fuels which CCNN’s Sokoto Cement factory operates on,” the company said.

It was also disclosed that the shares of CCNN will be issued and allotted to all shareholders of Kalambaina Cement in exchange for their shares in Kalambaina Cement at an agreed ratio based on CCNN’s 30-day volume weighted average closing price to 22 June 2018 of N25.99 per share.

36

Tuesday 10 July 2018

BUSINESS DAY

THE BIG HEART DIGEST In association with Delta State Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Developement Agency (DEMSMA)

Delta AG asks FG, others to introduce STEP/YEGAP to take youths off streets, decongest prisons MERCY ENOCH, Asaba

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he Delta State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Peter Mrakpor, has made case for the introduction of the Skills Training and Entrepreneurship Programme (STEP) and the Youth Agricultural Entrepreneurs Programme (YAGEP) all over the country, saying that is the best way to reduce prison congestion and improve the socio-economic lives of youths and the nation’s economy in general.

“The best way to reduce prison congestion is to introduce the YAGEP/STEP programme all over the country to lure youths off the streets because an idle man eyes the success of another man, hence he decides to steal”, he said.

Mrakpor believes that instead of creating more prisons, government at the federal level should consider the STEP and YAGEP programme.

He insisted, saying “We must break the circle because if the convict comes to the prison, what is his future?”

Mrakpor spoke recently when he appeared at the ongoing 2018 press ministerial briefing at the conference hall of the ministry of information.

As it is the case in other states across the country, the AG, revealed that the figure of inmates in prisons across the state was frightening and that they were between the ages of 25 and 45. He described the situation as a major challenge and it was difficult to disclose the number of the inmates because people, especially the youths go to prison everyday.

It seems there is a breakdown of values, he observed.

Revealing parts of the achievements of the ministry in ensuring safety of lives and property of Deltans, the commissioner, said the ministry’s department of public prosecution ensures that criminals are swiftly and adequately prosecuted to ensure the

safety of life and property. He disclosed that the department at present (as at May 14,2018) has a total number of 3,436 criminal cases handled by lawyers at the headquarters and zonal offices in the High Court of Delta State. He added that in the last one year, the department has secured 123 convictions.

He pointed out that Governor Ifeanyi Okowa based on the recommendations of the advisory council on the prerogative of mercy ordered the release from prison custody of five inmates who were sentenced to various jail terms including death sentence.

Thirty other inmates on death row were granted pardon by the governor. The exercise, he said was aimed at decongesting our prisons.

The justice commissioner noted that the youth is a major component of the society and that something must be done about them.

He believes strongly that in order to solve the problem of prison congestion, everybody should go back to work.”

Looking at the number of persons going to prisons, its like people are looking and watching this breakdown. You don’t know who is responsible for this breakdown”, he observed.

He maintained thus, “Not just government alone should do the STEP and YAGEP programme, individual, religious bodies, NUJ etc, should introduce such schemes for youths.

The AG said that if the advice is ignored, 20 years down the line, Nigerians would regret it more than we do today.

Five PwDs Sisters benefit from STEP A total of 3069 youths have benefitted from the STEP/ YAGEP since three years the pilot scheme took off. This number include the 80 persons living with disabilities (PwDs). This gesture seems to aim at encouraging them not to live at the mercy of the society as been the case in most major cities of the country.

Governor Okowa

Twenty nine years old Chiedu, her four other sisters namely Rita aged 27, Franca aged 25, Amanna aged 22 and Linda aged 20 are all PwDs and had no viable means of

livelihood even to take care of their kids.

The five sisters who hail from Okolie family in Ibusa, Oshimili North LGA of Delta State, had been trained as

hair-dressers but they were still jobless because they couldn’t practice their trade as are result of lack of equipment and apartment to run their enterprise.

Gov Ifeanyi Okowa during his town hall meeting in their council headquarters heard their pathetic appeal to be given sustainable means of livelihood. He immediately directed that they be enrolled into the Brown STEP for the 2017/2018 cycle and that directive was followed by the office of the Chief Job Creation Officer. The result is that the five sisters have been retrained in their choice enterprise, hair-dressing and thereafter empowered with starter packs containing all the basic tools to start up their trade, including two caravans mounted in front of their premises to serve as apartment for their saloon.

The programme may have lured them off begging for alms on the streets.

Three square meals a day inside Delta orientation camp attracts youths to STEP/YAGEP Terry Ogolor, a graduate of Biology/Chemistry from

College of Education, Agbor, Delta State, who hailed from the Udu LGA of the state had concluded plans to go into crime but mother fate saved him through the YAGEP. He had remained unemployed since 2009 when he graduated from the university. “I thank God that through the SMART agenda of Governor Okowa my life has been transformed and I have been liberated from being a job seeker to an entrepreneur” he confessed.

His persistence in applying for the programme resulted in his being invited for an interview for which he was considered for the training and empowerment programme thereby ignoring the crime option.

He narrated that on the streets, to feed was a problem. “At the camp, I had three square meals daily throughout the one week we stayed for orientation programme.

For the first time in my life, it was unbelievable I could have three meals daily. After three days at the camp, my friends called and told me it was time to execute our plans for the crime, but I called it off, telling them I had travelled. I was no longer interested in crime because I was comfortable with life at the orientation camp.

In fact, I had a rethink and decided to get serious with my life after the Orientation and Personal Effectiveness Training (OPET)”, he said.

After three month internship, he became grounded in fish production and was empowered with starter packs consisting all the items he needed as a start up.

He is now an employer of labour and a consultant in fish production and see no need to search further for employment and grateful to the governor for initiating the scheme.

Most youths are into crime because of joblessness.

Ogolor’s story seemed to have proved Mrakpor’s theory right and Nigerian government and the people are expected

CREDIT (CMC) 4. STEP SMART CREDIT (SSC) 5. YAGEP SMART CREDIT (YSC) 6. GEEP SMART CREDIT (GSC) 7. MICRO RETAILERS CREDIT (MRC) 8. BUSINESS SUPPORT CREDIT (BSC) 9. AGRICULTURAL CREDIT (AC) 10. COTTAGE INDUSTRY

DEVELOPMENT CREDIT (CIDC) The fourth: STEP SMART CREDIT (SSC) Product description: This is a specialized soft loan intended to finance STEP (Skills Training Entrepreneurial Programme) graduates under the Delta State Government Job Creation Programme. Artisans and other skilled workers are the target for this product.

Terry Ogolor lured off planned crime, now an entrepreneur.

Editorial coordinator’s corner:

Delta State MSME 10 credit products IGNATIUS CHUKWU

First, the good bye, for now! his special page dedicated to the economy of Delta State has run for 49 weeks. Incidentally, it has to be rested after the 50th, this Tuesday. The partners, Delta State Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises Development Agency (DEMSMA),

T

wish to have a break. They have been wonderful all these past 50 weeks, striving to boost the economicallyactive-poor in the state in the quest to tune up the bottom of the pyramid. They want to create wealth in a bottomup approach, which is what the United Nations has been preaching for African nations over the years through the UNEP. We respect their decision to take a break and

wish to thank them for the opportunity to create massive awareness of their work and opportunities in their state over these past months. This is what well-meaning state governments should be doing to boost their economy.

Now, we may no longer be able to treat each of the 10 products that DEMSMA is using to create wealth for the people of the state in the prosperity for all programme

of the Ifeanyi Okowa administration. We would treat only the 4th product and merely mention the rest six. The others may be treated in BD Sunday one of these days.

Thank you all.

The 10 products: 1. SMART VOCATIONAL AND TECHNICAL CREDIT (SVTC) 2. LEATHER-WORKS CREDIT (LWC) 3. COLD CHAIN MICRO

BUSINESS DAY

Tuesday 10 July 2018

37

Live @ The Stock Exchange Top Gainers/Losers as at MMonday 09 July 2018 GAINERS Company

Market Statistics as at Monday 09 July 2018

LOSERS Opening

Closing

Change

Company

Opening

Closing

Change

ASI (Points)

37,647.93

DANGCEM

N225

N227

2

NASCON

N21.8

N20.65

-1.15

FLOURMILL

N30.7

N31.5

0.8

WAPCO

N39

N38

-1

FO

N26.35

N27.15

0.8

STANBIC

N52

N51

-1

CCNN

N22.25

N22.9

0.65

DANGSUGAR

N18.5

N17.8

-0.7

VALUE (N billion)

N29.5

N30

0.5

CONOIL

N27.5

N27

-0.5

MARKET CAP (N Trn

JBERGER

DEALS (Numbers) VOLUME (Numbers)

Dangote Cement, 18 other stocks spur market uptrend … Year-to-Date returns still negative Stories by IHEANYI NWACHUKWU

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hough on a milder note, Nigerian equities joined a global rally on Monday that began in Asia as investors set aside concern about escalating political tensions to focus on the coming earnings season.

Dangote Cement Plc, led the rally after its share price gained N2 or 0.89percent from N225 to N227. At the close of trading, 19 stocks gained as against 25 losers.

The value of listed Nigerian stocks moved up from N13.630trillion to N13.637, indicating an increase of N7billion.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) also increased by 0.06percent to 37,647.93 points from 37,625.59 points the preceding trading day. The stock market’s Year-to-Date (YtD) returns stood negative at -1.56per-

cent. In 3,422 deals, stock traders exchanged 155,172,476 units valued at N1.991billion. Access Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc, FBNHoldings Plc, Transcorp Plc, and United Bank for Africa Plc were actively traded stocks on the Nigerian bourse.

“This week we expect investors to take advantage

of bargain hunting opportunities in some market bellwethers following their attractive entry prices”, said analysts at Lagos-based Afrinvest in their stock recommendation for the week.

The analysts’ equitywatch list for the month of July remains Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Dangote Cement Plc, Okomu Oil Palm Plc,

Zenith Bank Plc and Nigerian Breweries Plc. Flour Mills Nigeria Plc also advanced after its share price gained 80kobo or 2.61percent, from N30.7 to N31.5. Forte Oil Plc gained, from N26.35 to N27.15, also up by 80 kobo or 3.04percent. Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc rose from N22.25 to N22.9, up by 65kobo or 2.92percent.

Julius Berger Nigeria Plc rallied from N29.5 to N30, up by 50kobo or 1.69percent.

NASCON Plc led the losers table after its share price declined from N21.8 to N20.65, down by N1.15 or 5.28percent. Lafarge Africa Plc followed after its share price declined from N39 to N38, down by N1 or 2.56percent. Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc also lost its share price, from N52 to N51, down by N1 or 1.92percent. Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc declined from N18.5 to N17.8, down by 70kobo or 3.78percent, while Conoil Plc lost 50kobo, from N27.5 to N27, down by 1.82percent.

Prudential Zenith Life Insurance launches new products

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rudential Zenith Life Insurance has launched a suite of new life insurance products. The new products include My Savings Plan and My Family Protection Plan.

This follows the launch of Prudential Zenith’s bancassurance business on May 21, 2018, which has enabled customers of Zenith Bank to purchase life insurance products in over sixty branches in Lagos State., According to the company, My Savings Plan is designed to help customers meet their long-term savings needs and My Family Protection Plan provides peace of mind to customers and their

loved ones by paying a lump sum on the death of the policyholder.

The new product launches are the latest development following the entry into Nigeria of Prudential Plc, one of the oldest and most capitalised life insurance companies in the world.

Prudential Zenith said it aimed to redefine the Nigerian insurance sector by providing a range of affordable life insurance products that are designed to meet the protection and savings needs of Nigerian consumers – and the new products are the first step in enabling Prudential Zenith to become a one stop shop for all Your

insurance solutions.

Prudential Plc, one of the oldest and most strongly capitalised life insurance companies in the world, last year acquired a majority stake in Zenith Life Assurance, to form , Prudential Zenith Life.

Alongside its entry into Nigeria, Prudential also formed an exclusive Bancassurance partnership with Zenith Bank in Nigeria and Ghana.

The vision of the company is touching lives, providing access to life insurance for everyone, while its mission is “ the face of insurance, giving you peace of mind and helping you plan for a better brighter future.”

3,422.00

Its core values are: prudence, security, integrity, empathy and initiative.

Prudential Zenith underwrites with the support of strong and viable reinsurance companies and brokers to ensure its risk management is always optimal. It also consults with reinsurance companies and brokers on technical issues/alliance.

“Our reinsurers are: Africa Reinsurance and Continental Reinsurance and we are proud to be of service to companies in all sectors. Our clientele base spans across all major industries including oil & gas, transportation,” the company said

155,172,476.00 1.991 13.637

FCMB offers free training for SME customers

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irst City Monument Bank (FCMB), a leading financial institution has organised another programme in a series of free training interventions in its impact planning project for small and medium business owners and operators.

This is in pursuit of the lender’s resolve to support and nurture small and medium enterprises to achieve growth and stability in business. An integral aspect of the Bank’s agenda towards the nation’s economic development, the lender re-assured its customers it would sustain the tempo of support to existing and upcoming SMEs through increased lending, capacity building, free advisory, value-added products, as well as providing them services capable of increasing overall performance in business.

At the event which held in Lagos on Friday June 29, 2018 and tagged “Business Empowerment and Sustainability Training for SME Customers”, the Bank focused on budgeting, cost and budget management. Facilitators also took participants through the intricacies of raising capital for business and getting businesses ready for loans as well as preparing them for other investors’ invitation in partnership.

Addressing the participating SME customers of the Bank, Felicia Obozuwa, Divisional Head, Corporate Services, FCMB said the bank recognised the role of entrepreneurs in the society and their capacity in driving growth and sustaining the economy.

She added, “This is one of the ways we support the growth of our SME customers. We are conscious of the fact that many small businesses could have the dedication to succeed, but lack adequate training and experience to make the business thrive. This gap is capable of hindering operation and thereby limiting the achievement of targeted results. Business acumen and day to day operational skills are

very essential for business owners particularly when venturing into new or sustaining already existing businesses. Our training programmes are specially packaged for the SMEs to establish solid foundations for growth, learn new skills, better serve their customers, and stay relevant to their niche”.

First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has a number of special offerings designed for its customers with a lot of benefits to the SMEs segment of the Business community. Among them is the e-invoicing platform – a unique solution, designed to help businesses monitor and control their cash management, especially

as it affects payments, receivables, reconciliation and other financial transactions, through the internet and other mobile channels among others.

The Bank also offers free banking transactions for a period of three months for new-to-FCMB SME customers. This was discovered to be one of the strategies of the Bank towards continuous building of bridges between SMEs and investors, national and international developmental agencies to facilitate and unlock opportunities for SMEs. Participants expressed their immense gratitude to the Bank for providing such a very valuable platform without charges, appealing to FCMB Training School to consider making the periodic free training for SMEs, a full blown coaching programme to accommodate other small and medium scale business operators in Nigeria, even if they are not FCMB customers.

38 BUSINESS DAY NEWS

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Regulators stifle consumer firm’s growth....

Continued from page 1

not even have a managing director in Nigeria, as they now run all of their activities from Dubai, while distribution is done in Nigeria.

UAC, Promasidor, GSK and P& G have also laid-off staff, according to BusinessDay investigations.

Nigeria climbed 24 spots to 145 from 169 on the World Bank ease of doing business ranking in 2018, but most of that improvement is elusive.

Doing business in Nigeria is difficult starting from the point of product registration. It now takes between 9 to 12 months to register a company today in Nigeria, the source said. Before now, it would take before now 3- 5 months.

“When government officials go to India for factory inspection, instead of checking equipment and factory environment for required manufacturing standards like their

counterparts from other countries do, they ask for bribes and display a high level of ignorance as regards globally accepted standard checks,” the source told BusinessDay. “In the face of all these regulatory inefficiencies, it would seem as though the government is not aware, but if we must make progress, they must acknowledge that there is a problem.

Bala Yesufu, an executive member of the Manufacturing Association of Nigeria Export Promotion Group (MANEG) said “The problems these agencies pose to doing business is worrisome. You would expect that these agencies will make things easy in line with the federal government’s position on the ease of doing business, but it’s not the case,” Yesufu said in a phone interview.

“To benefit from the ECOWAS Trade Liberalization Scheme (ETLS), for example, you need

to register your product at the ECOWAS secretariat and you are issued with a certificate. Recently, these government agencies tell you there is a special ETLS certificate you must obtain from the ministry of finance. What then is the essence of the ECOWAS protocol?”

Weak consumer demand is also yet to make way despite Nigeria’s slim exit from recession and a consistent decline in inflation, putting a lid on the production volumes of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies.

Between 2015 and 2017, average product volumes of five of the largest FMCGs- UACN, Cadbury, Nestle, GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever, cumulatively dropped by 13.6 percent to 209 million units in 2017 from 242 million units as at year end 2015. The trend may explain why profitability has been flat despite an industry wide price increase which ordinarily should translate to higher profit.

GlaxoSmithKline’s net income

dropped by 49.5 percent and 88.4 percent to N486.4 million in 2017 from N965.05 and N4.2 billion in 2015 and 2016 respectively.

UACN saw profit decline by 67.96 percent to N956.07 million in 2017 from N2.98 billion in 2015, which also represents a 74.5 percent decline from the N3.75 billion profit booked in 2016.

In the same vein, Cadbury posted a loss of N296.4 million in 2016 but was able to grow net income back to N300 million in 2017. That was however a 74 percent decline compared to a 2015 profit of N1.15 billion. Unilever and Nestle however bucked the trend with a 524.8 percent and 42.07 percent profit growth respectively over the twoyear period.

The consumer’s persistent woes are reflected in the regression of the Consumer Confidence Index, which in the second quarter of 2018 printed at -6.40 points.

“Consumer companies have not yet seen consumers shift back to

Tuesday 10 July 2018

bigger packages of a product from the smaller packs they downsized to during the crisis,” said Yvonne Mhango, sub-Saharan Africa economist, Renaissance Capital.

“The ability to push through price increases for consumer goods is limited. Consumer companies believe that for demand to strengthen, the Nigerian consumer needs an income boost and this may come in the form of the proposed minimum wage hike,” Mhango said.

Consumer companies are however expectant that liquidity will improve as the elections approach, which they expect will boost consumption, as deduced from their investor presentations.

“Government should work out medium and long term plans that ensure that companies such as P&G don’t continue to flee the country by keeping them afloat to be able offer the best of service to consumers in the country,” the source concluded.

Battle for 2019 set as PDP merges with 39 parties Continued from page 1

mote a positive reaction to the above listed failures of the present regime and to give hope to all our people, the Parties shall ensure

L-R: Chuks Oluigbo, assistant editor, BDSunday; Bill Okonedo, deputy editor, BusinessDay; Jumoke AkiyodeLawanson, head, ICT desk; Frank Aigbogun, publisher/CEO; Chudi Ubosi, principal partner, Ubosi Eleh+Co.; Patrick Atuanya, news editor, BusinessDay, and Chuka Uroko, property editor, during the BusinessDay knowledge sharing lecture series in Lagos, yesterday.

Pic by Olawale Amoo

Fashola directs NERC to stop DisCos’...

Continued from page 1

Power Sector Reform Act (EPSRA) which bars DisCos from exerting absolute control over a franchise area hence opening up the sector for private investments.

In a strongly worded policy statement sent to BusinessDay yesterday, the minister, in exercise of powers conferred on him by the law, directed NERC to ensure DisCos improve on their distribution equipment and capacity to take up the available 2,000MW in order to optimize the use of the electrical resource produced by the Generating Company’s or GENCOs. “Enforce the contract of DISCOs to supply meters and act to ensure the urgent speedy supply and installation of meters with a view to eliminating estimated billing and promote efficient industry and market structures,” Fashola directed.

“Stop DisCos from threatening private entrepreneurs from entering the market to supply consumers whom the DISCOs cannot supply and to license such persons subject to terms and conditions in order to promote competition and private sector participation and avoid a private monopoly of power.”

Analysts say such a strong regulation has been missing in the sector which has helped to create a monopoly for the DisCos,

and hindered private investments the sector.

“This is good news for the sector, this is in fact what we have been hoping for,” says Ernest Akale, the managing director of Elec3city, a solar energy firm based in Abuja.

The DisCos have argued that by virtue of their license, they own absolute control over franchise areas. Nigeria’s geographical territory is divided among 11 DisCos who have failed to improve investments in the assets they purchased in 2013 to improve distribution in these places.

On June 13, NERC granted a 9.5megawatts embedded electricity generation licence to Ariaria Market Independent Power Plant Limited an Independent Electricity Distribution Licence to distribute power within Ariaria Market, in a franchise area allocated to Enugu DisCo citing ‘public interest’.

Enugu DisCo went to court seeking judgement to stop the plan. In their reaction, Enugu DisCo through its spokesman Emeka Eze said, “This act is in clear contravention of the regulatory provision that no company can set up a distribution network within a franchise area of a distribution company where there is already an existing and active distribution facility in the area.”

Chuks Nwani, an energy law-

yer who has worked for one of DisCos argues that what the DisCos purchased when they acquired the license was not just a territory but the electricity supply services that can be rendered to people living in those franchise areas and excising part of that market is a violation of the contract.

Last year, Babatunde Fashola declared ‘eligible customer’ a provision in the power sector that allows heavy users of power (2MW) to buy power directly from generation companies. The DisCos kicked against the move saying they could lose up 60 percent of their choice customers, mostly industrial areas and large estates.

However, the DisCos have done little to improve distribution. They have failed to make investments in metering to improve collections and are merely content on exacting estimated billings which the regulator NERC has preferred to turn a blind eye to.

To handle this challenge, the NERC issued a (MAP) Meter Asset Provider regulation to allow third parties provide meters as DisCos say they cannot afford the cost.

Sunday Oduntan, executive secretary of Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors (ANED) said DisCos could not provide meters because they are forced to sell lower than the cost of producing it.

Continues on wwwbusinessday online.com

that the coalition is committed to working together in support of the single Presidential Candidate to contest the 2019 Presidential election in order to successfully enthrone a true democrat who will salvage the nation from the misrule of the APC Government.

“THAT the Parties shall promote acceptable core values for the restructuring of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, secure lives and property, rebuild and redirect our nation’s economy back onto the path of growth, respect human rights and freedoms, protect and uphold the cherished values of democracy and the democratic institutions and generally put right the country which unfortunately has now been dangerously divided along ethnic,

religious and tribal lines.

“THAT the Parties shall encourage State alliances between themselves to ensure that the cooperating parties under the grand alliance emerge victorious at State Governorship, State Legislature and National Assembly elections.

“THAT the Parties accept the policy of zoning political and elective offices between the six geOpoliticat zones of the Federations.

“THAT the Parties shall ensure that the emergent President under the grand alliance shall treat the presentation of an Executive Bill on Restructuring and Devolution of

powers to the National Assembly a major priority”.

In his goodwill message, the R-APC National Chairman, Buba Galadima, said he is certain that President Buhari would lose his deposit in the 2019 poll, even as he advised him nor to recontest.

Continues on wwwbusinessday online.com

Construction of N976bn fertilizer plant begins...

Continued from page 1

ficiency levels with almost 100 percent production levels. They later

obtained funding from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to built a fertilizer plant that now produces 4,000 metric tons of Urea fertilizer per day or 1.5 million per annum, which it supplies to Nigerian farmers nationwide, and exports the surplus.

Now, the company has flagged off construction of its second fertilizer of 1.5mmt plant to shore up its position as leader in the fertilizer and chemicals industry while looking back at competition from Notore (formerly Nigerian Fertilizer Company, NAFCON) and looking ahead at the coming of the Dangote plant in petrochemicals, refinery and fertilizers.

Indorama-Eleme produces urea but looks to its newly acquired fertilizer plant in Senegal (ICS) for phosphate and sulphuric acid to produce NPK of different grades according to soil type to boost farm yield in Nigeria and for export. The company has capacity to produce 1.4mmt but and plans to boost production of urea in Nigeria and phosphate in Senegal to become the biggest fertilizer company in the world.

At the foundation-laying event

in Eleme, sources present at the ceremony said the Senate president tacitly endorsed the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, for a second term when he declared he would be in office in 2021, when the Train 2 of the fertilizer plant would be commissioned. Indorama has always met its deadlines since it stepped into the petrochemicals plant in Eleme.

Performing the flag off, Saraki said with $3.2 billion invested in Rivers State by the foreign investors, it showed that Rivers people were receptive to investors. “I am congratulating the people of Rivers State for creating the right environment for this investment. I like the example that Rivers people are setting for others to follow,” he said.

He noted that the successful production of urea in Rivers State, which is used mostly by northern farmers, underscores the need for national unity. “Urea Fertiliser products are used by farmers, especially in northern part of the country. That tells us that we must unite. We must support ourselves irrespective of party affiliation. Without peace, there will be no urea. For all of us in Nigeria, let’s work in the interest of our country.”

Continues on wwwbusinessday online.com

Tuesday 10 July 2018

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MTN refutes NLC’s claim of poor staff welfare … as NLC determines to continue 3-day nationwide picketing JOSHUA BASSEY, JUMOKE LAWANSON & SAMUEL ESE

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TN Nigeria has reacted to the outburst by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) members, accusing the telecoms firm of casualisation of workers and poor staff welfare, saying the accusations are false and there is absolutely no need for the violence and destruction of property by the NLC members in MTN offices nationwide.

As early as 7:30am on Monday, July 9, 2018, members of different chapters of the NLC rallied round MTN service centres in Enugu, Kano, Bayelsa states and its head office in Lagos, carrying placards and singing solidarity songs to protest the alleged victimisation of MTN workers in Nigeria.

Hundreds of workers led by Ayuba Wabba, the NLC president, in Lagos, barricaded MTN head office at Falomo, Ikoyi, Lagos, as early as 6am, to demand unionisation of workers, stoppage of casual employment and other anti-labour practices.

The chairman of NLC in Bayelsa State, John Ndiomu, who addressed newsmen during the protest, said, “We are here to fight for the rights of not just workers but for the rights of Nigerians; for the rights of innocent workers who have been

deprived their rights - their rights to form unions, their rights to belong to unions, which is the constitutional right of every human being in this country.”

In Enugu, Virginus Nwobodo, NLC chairman, who led the picketing in the state, said the management of MTN had refused the workers to join labour movements, and that its Nigerian workers were being exploited daily.

However, in a statement signed by Tobechukwu Okigbo, MTN’s corporate relations executive, the company denied all allegations, saying, “We do not prevent our employees from associating among themselves as they deem fit and owe our employees the obligation to ensure they are not compelled to join associations. MTN supports the freedom of association as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution.

“The company takes workers’ safety and well-being seriously. All workers have rights that should be protected. We work hard to not only ensure that this is done but also to ensure that our company is a Great Place to Work. We will continue to champion our peoples’ rights, whether they are part of a union or not, and work hard to minimise disruptions in service to our customers.”

BusinessDay sources at MTN

say that the protest was more of a forceful invasion and conquest rather than picketing, as MTN properties were destroyed, its flags were pulled down to hoist NLC flags and some MTN employees were attacked for trying to capture footages with their mobile phones, and in the cause sustained injuries.

But Wabba, who fielded questions from journalists, decried the continuous deprivation and slavery of Nigerian workers from good condition of service.

According to the NLC president, the picketing, which will run for three days (Monday to Wednesday), is being organised simultaneously in all states where MTN has offices, since the company has refused to adhere to labour rules and allow workers exercise their rights.

He said Nigerian workers deserve occupational health safety and NLC would not allow MTN to continue to abuse workers right.

“In MTN, all the workers are casuals, they have no right to social protection, and they are not allowed to freely bargain for a better work condition. A worker is sacked after working for about three to four months.

The worker is asked to re-apply.

This is unfair and we will not continue to allow it,’’ the NLC president said.

hampering Not Too Young To Run BUSINESS DAYlaw 39 P. 4 NEWS

Akeredolu bags NMA distinguished community service award

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ife of the Ondo State governor, Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu,hasbeen honoured with a Distinguished Community Service Award by the Oyo State chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) in an event at Ibadan Civic Centre, Idi Ape. In her acceptance speech, Akeredolu expressed delight at the honour, and lauded members of the medical profession in the country who stayed back home to practice despite the knowledge thatpasturesweregreenerabroad.

“You know what, you have the skillstotakecareofusyourpatients and world-class health care is possible in Nigeria,” she said, but lamented that one of the obstacles to attaining quality health care in Nigeria was lack of enabling work environment.

Sharing her medical experiencewhilebattlingbreastcancerin 1997, Akeredolu, a proud survivor of 21 years, noted that she got her treatment and care in Nigeria, adding that she did not travel once to seek treatment in any other country.

On Breast Cancer Association of Nigeria (BRECAN) effort at lobbyingforgoodpolicies,Akeredolu, whoseadvocacyhasgonebeyond the shores of Nigeria to the Capitol Hill in the US, called on the members of the medical community to remain an ally of BRECAN in galvanising action against breast cancer.

in association with

World Cup: Mandzukic confident World Cup Result Croatia will 1defeat Sweden - England S/ Korea 0

ANTHONY NLEBEM, Reporting from Moscow

Belgium 3

- Panama England 2 - Tunisia

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roatia will on Wednesday, July 11, at Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, lock horn with England in the second semi-finals game of the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The two teams are seeking a place in the World Cup final, facing each other in the last four on Wednesday.

Mario Mandzukic insists Croatia will give their all against England, because they cannot then be blamed if they lose.

The two countries will contest a World Cup semi-final on Wednesday, with each seeking to earn the right to face either France or Belgium in the final this weekend.

The Three Lions beat Sweden 2-0 to progress to the last four, while Mandzukic and his teammates needed a penalty shootout to progress past hosts Russia.

It has been suggested that

World Cities Summit: Obaseki, Singaporean president, global city leaders examine barriers to smart city initiative

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do State governor, Godwin Obaseki, President of Singapore, Halimah Yacob, MinisterofNationalDevelopment and Second Minister for Finance, Singapore, Lawrence Wong, with over100representativesofnational and municipal governments as well as leading private sector players in cities development, at the weekend began deliberations on how to eliminate challenges to sustainablecitiesattheWorldCities Summit in Singapore.

The meeting of experts, organisers say, “is an exclusive platform forgovernmentleadersandindustry experts to address liveable and sustainable city challenges, share integrated urban solutions and forge new partnerships.”

Jointly organised by Singa-

pore’s Centre for Liveable Cities and Urban Redevelopment Authority, the biennial summit, features the Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize; the annual World Cities Summit Mayors Forum; and World Cities Summit Young Leaders Symposium.

Inhiscontributionsattheglobalsummit,Obasekimadeacasefor smarter cities that would rely on information and communication technology (ICT) for the efficient management of cities’ assets and resources.

Thegovernor’ssmartcityproposition, according to experts“ is an urban centre that uses different types of electronic data collection sensors to supply information whichisusedtomanageassetsand resources efficiently.

“This includes data collected from citizens, devices, and assets that is processed and analysed to monitor and manage traffic and transportation systems, power plants, water supply networks, waste management, law enforcement, information systems, schools, libraries, hospitals, and other community services.

“The smart city concept integratesinformationandcommunication technology (ICT), and various physical devices connected to thenetwork(theInternetofThings (IoT) to optimise the efficiency of city operations and services and connect to citizens. Smart city technology allows city officials to interactdirectlywithbothcommunity and city infrastructure and to monitor what is happening in the

city and how the city is evolving.”

Organisers explained that the “World Cities Summit Mayors Forum is an annual by-invitationonly global event for city leaders to discuss pressing urban issues and share best practices with one another.

“The peer-to-peer platform invites mayors and senior leaders from international organisations and the industry to exchange experiences in developing integrated urban solutions, building economic and environmental resilience, engaging with communities and sustaining a high quality oflifeinurbanregions.Participants will hear from each other on innovations and changes they are implementing in their cities, and how these are managed.”

0 1

Vida, Vukojevic apologise for racial comments after victory over Russia

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L-R: Gambo Wuryo, zonal head, Kaduna, of First City Monument Bank (FCMB); Kande Nana-Bage, permanent secretary, ministry of education, science and technology, Kaduna State; Lukman Mustapha, regional head, Abuja/North of the bank; Adamu Mansur, permanent secretary, ministry of local government affairs, and Michael Ologunoye, chief operating officer, Green Energy and Biofuels Limited, during the donation of solar-powered reading lanterns by FCMB, in partnership with Green Energy and Biofuels to secondary schools in Kaduna State.

England have had the easier side of the draw than the likes of Les Bleus and the Red Devils, having faced the Swedes and Colombia in the knockout stages.

Mandzukic, though, has vowed that he and his compatriots will fight until the very last whistle against Gareth Southgate’s men.

“Don’t worry, I still have something in me for England,” he said, after leading the line in the 2-2 draw with Russia. “We will all fight until the end. And in that case, even if we lose, no one could blame us.”

Croatia have never reached a World Cup final, their best finish coming in 1998, when they placed third, having lost to eventual winners France in the semis.

Mandzukic has been key to their run, scoring against Denmark in the last 16, and setting up a goal against Russia – both games, of course, ended by going to penalties.

roatian defender Domagoj Vida and national team’s coaching staff assistant Ognjen Vukojevic expressed their apologies for statements made after the victory over Russia in the 2018 FIFA World Cup quarterfinals match in Sochi on July 7, the Croatian Football Federation (CFF) announced on Monday.

Croatia edged host nation Russia on a 4 - 3 penalty shootout to close Saturday’s spectacular match in Sochi.

In a video footage, which was recorded after the match in the locker rooms of the Croatian team and later circulated on social networks, Vida said “Glory to Ukraine,” while Vukojevic added that he dedicated that victory over Russia to people in Ukraine.

“The Croatian Football Federation would like to emphasise that the aforementioned mes-

sages were merely a response to numerous messages of support received from Ukraine during the 2018 FIFA World Cup, considering the deep impact Vida and Vukojevic had in Ukraine when playing for powerhouse Dynamo Kiev,” the CFF said in a statement.

Vida played for Dynamo Kiev FC between 2013 and 2018, while Vukojevic played for the same Ukrainian football club in 2008-2015.

“Nonetheless, Croatian Football Federation has pointed out to both Vida and Vukojevic, as well as all other internationals, to refrain from any messages that could be politically interpreted in the future,” the statement added.

The 29-year-old defender of the Croatian national team said in his statement that he had “no political message” in his statement.

NFF crisis: Football enthusiast says Nigeria risks FIFA ban

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ayowa Ademoyegun, a football enthusiast, has cautioned against interference of government in the affairs and politics of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), which could get the nation banned by FIFA. He called on those who were clamouring for the removal of Amaju Pinnick-led executive to exercise patience for two months, when the tenure of the executive would lapse.

Ademoyegun, who also doubles as CEO of Marigold Brand Solutions, noted that the Pinnick-led board had tried in development of the game.

He said if FIFA banned the country from participating in football events, it would be like

taking backward steps after a lot of achievements under the current board.

Minister of youth and sports, Solomon Dalung, had directed the NFF to comply with the Supreme Court order, which declared Giwa as the authentic NFF president.

Dalung said in a statement that the directive followed a written notification by the AttorneyGeneral of the Federation, requesting the ministry to ensure compliance with the order.

“In my own opinion, election will hold in the next two months, the aggrieved faction has waited this long; they should slug it out at the poll, if they believe Pinnick board has not done enough for sports in the country.

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Nigerians await new development on SmartCity plans JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWANSON

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fewyearsago,SmartCity was the buzzword on the mouth of Nigerians, as the country looked to information communication technology (ICT) as a favourable option for economic diversification.

However, the big dream on the potentials of technology to transform Nigeria’s economy and the talks on the technology focused innovation hub project, SmartCity, conceived in 2011 for the development of the country, starting with Lagos and Abuja, which was set to create at least 50,000 direct jobs in those cities in its first five years, seems to have fizzled out of the mind of the Nigerian government.

A smart city is an urban development vision to integrate multiple ICT solutions in a secure fashion to manage the city’s assets such as schools, libraries, local department information systems, power plants, hospitals, transportation systems, law enforcement and other community services.

The technology hub, framed to be like America’s Silicon Valley, home to many of the world’s largest tech corporations and tech start-up companies. It is beyond doubt that Silicon Valley is the world’s leading hub for

high-tech innovation and development, and has been pivotal to the global information technology revolution.

When asked what was going on with the smart Nigeria project and why we continue to hear less about the high prospect project, Umar Danbatta, executive vice chairman, Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), said, “Nigeria currently does not have the necessary technology required to achieve smart cities.

“The smart city is the vision for the communications ministry. The translation of this vision into reality will require the deployment of necessary technology, maybe even on a pilot scheme so that Nigerians will be able to see the benefit of doing things in a smart way.”

He however said that some aspects of the country’s system were starting to be technology driven; “We have now started to hear about the smart electricity grid, smart electricity meters, smart antennas and so on.

“The benefits of going the smart way outweigh its disadvantages. So, I subscribe for Nigeria to go the smart way so that we can see and appreciate efficiencies in services delivered.”

The last that has been heard about the progress of the Smart Nigeria proposed hub was in January 2016, when Demola

Aladekomo, chairman, SmartCity Resorts plc, said, “The Agrade technology development infrastructure will prime the local technology industry for global competitiveness, galvanising it from crass consumerism towards innovation and world class manufacturing standards.

“Upon completion, it has the potential to create about 50,000 direct employments in its first five years.”

Although a few months ago, Adebayo Shittu, minister of communications, held a retreat with the stakeholders where he identified major steps to be taken to get Nigeria to becoming a smart digital country.

However, experts say that visible signs are yet to be seen with government taking the necessary steps for a smart country.

Dare Ogunlade, general manager, English West Africa Cisco, said the reason why there was hindrance in the deployment of smart cities around the country was because of centralisation in Lagos State alone, which was the only state that seemed to be developing as far as ICT was concerned.

“It is virtually only Lagos State that has interacted with the minister for communications technology as regards deploying smart cities. How do you encourage the other 35 states?

Africa CEO Forum launches Women in Business Network

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uilding on the success of the Africa CEO Forum’s Women in Business initiative, the first Women in Business Annual Leadership Meeting, organised by Jeune Afrique Media Group, in partnership with the International Organisation of La Francophonie and ESSEC Business School, brought together 200 influential women business leaders from 32 countries in Paris, between July 2 and 3.

The watchword on everyone’s lips was “Tangible action, real results!”

Building and maintaining your network of influence to develop your company, asserting one’s leadership and managing one’s image in the era of social networks, and successfully expanding a business internationally… These were

some of the themes examined and expanded on through numerous masterclasses, personal stories from women leaders with inspiring careers and collaborative workshops.

The highlight of the two days devoted to strengthening African women’s leadership was the launch of the Women in Business Network, the first regional influential network entirely dedicated to promoting meetings and interaction between women managers with business interests in Africa.

“We are complementary to the national networks to which most of the women CEOs already belong, and we intend working closely with them,” Yves Biyah, deputy managing director in charge of Development at Jeune Afrique Media Group, says.

“The Women In Business Network also brings two new value propositions to the continent: on the one hand, a new, regionally based organisation that allows, for example, a Nigerian manager to be permanently connected to her Ivorian or Senegalese colleagues, in order to be able to carry out joint projects; and, on the other hand, the support of Jeune Afrique Media Group, through its publications and events, that lend power and exposure to the network’s projects and its action in favour of women’s leadership.”

The mission of each regional cluster is to promote contact between members of the same region by organising quarterly events and initiating a flagship action to support women’s leadership.

LBS among top 50 executive MBA in Economist 2018 ranking KELECHI EWUZIE

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agos Business School (LBS) has emerged as the only school in Africa to be listed among the top 50 business schools in the world in The Economist magazine’s 2018 EMBA ranking.

The LBS Executive MBA programme ranks as the 48th best in the world out of 65 schools featured in the annual ranking of the world best providers of the Executive MBA programme based on two broad measures namely - personal development/educational experience and career development.

Enase Okonedo, dean, LBS, while speaking at a press briefing in Lagos Monday, said the ranking was an indication

that the corporate world recognised the value of an EMBA qualification from the school.

According to Okonedo, “This is a testament of the high quality of business and management education which we offer at the school and a result of our consistent and conscientious hard work.”

The schools were judged based on the quality of their EMBA participants, work experience, the number of industry sectors from which they applied, career progression, quality of faculty, and percentage of faculty with PhDs, among other criteria. In the percentage increase in pre-EMBA salary on graduation, the Lagos Business School is ranked third in the world. LBS EMBA graduates record a consider-

able increase in remuneration upon graduation from the programme.

Uchenna Uzo, director, MBA, LBS, said the school management was that their work at LBS is being acknowledged across the globe. “We are committed to doing even more to transform business education and management practice in Africa and beyond by producing quality graduates who will change the status quo,” he said.

Lagos Business School is ahead of world-class institutions such as the University of Maryland, University of Pittsburg, University College Dublin, University of Melbourne and several others in The Economist magazine’s 2018 EMBA ranking,

Tuesday 10 July 2018

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FINANCIAL TIMES US jobs data spur welcome shift in market narrative

The soft-Brexit Chequers deal: What it means

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Trump set to reveal Supreme Court pick on prime time Reality star-turned-president ready to try and revive show business skills KADHIM SHUBBER

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s a reality television star and now as president, Donald Trump has proved to have a keen sense for spectacle. On Monday night, he plans to put those skills on display again as he announces his nominee to the Supreme Court.

Mr Trump has made a broadcast event of his nominations to the nation’s highest court like no US president before. Last year, when he nominated Neil Gorsuch to the court, the suspense was stoked as rival candidate Thomas Hardiman drove east from Pittsburgh on the day of the announcement, appearing to head towards Washington. When the president revealed Justice Gorsuch to applause in the White House that night, he asked, “So was that a surprise, was it?”

Judge Hardiman is again a contender as the president, following the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, prepares his second nomination to the court. He is one of four leading candidates for a Supreme Court position that could give conservatives a long-lasting majority.

The four — Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Judge Raymond Kethledge and Judge Hardiman — are all staunch conservatives who hew to a legal philosophy that emphasises interpreting the constitution based on its original meaning and text. To progressives, they are a threat to the abortion rights guaranteed by the court’s landmark 1973 decision, Roe v Wade.

“Republicans are holding four lottery tickets, and all of them are winners,” said Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Fox News on Sunday.

The announcement scheduled for 9pm eastern time on Monday will come just 11 days after Justice Kennedy said he would step down from the bench. The speed has reflected the desire of Republicans to have his successor confirmed before the midterm elections in November, when they risk losing their narrow control of the Senate to the Democrats and, with it, the ability to install a justice of their choosing. For now, progressives can only criticise and hope to persuade a Republican senator or two to vote against their party.

The fight over the nominee will be vicious whomever Mr Trump selects.

Conservative and progressive groups have geared up to spend millions of dollars on campaigns to support or oppose the nominee. Democrats are planning to use the battle to rally voters at the midterms, taking a leaf out of the playbook of Mr Trump, who won support from some traditional Republicans in the 2016 presidential election by promising to put conservatives on the Supreme Court.

On Monday evening, ABC is expected to interrupt The Bachelorette to go live to the president’s announcement.

An appeals judge on the influential Washington DC circuit, Judge Kavanaugh, 53, has the strongest establishment Republican credentials of all the frontrunners. A graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, he worked on Kenneth Starr’s investigation into Bill Clinton and later joined the George W Bush White House as a staff secretary before President Bush appointed him to the appeals court. His association with the Bush family, who Mr Trump has often attacked, may count against him, while some conservatives have criticised him for his dissent in a 2017 teen-immigrant abortion case, in which he did not make a more sweeping argument against abortion rights. His political history will provide ample fodder for Democratic lawmakers to attack, which could complicate the nomination process.

A favourite of the religious right, Judge Barrett’s Catholic faith featured prominently at the confirmation hearing for her nomination to an appeals court position last year, with Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein declaring: “The dogma lies loudly within you.” At 46, she is the youngest of the four frontrunners and has the shortest experience as a judge. After studying at Rhodes College and then Notre Dame Law School, she clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a hero among conservatives, taught law at Notre Dame and was appointed to the seventh circuit appeals court in 2017. On Sunday, Leonard Leo, Mr Trump’s outside adviser on his Supreme Court pick, told ABC News that Judge Barrett, along with Judge Kavanaugh, had the appropriate namerecognition to rally the president’s base and improve his electoral chances.

Trump and Putin face nuclear options at Helsinki summit Crumbling arms control treaties a priority at meeting of US and Russian leaders HENRY FOY, KATHRIN HILLE AND DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO

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onald Trump and Vladimir Putin will have plenty on their plate when they meet for their first full summit in Helsinki next week, including one pressing topic that so preoccupied their predecessors: how to avoid a nuclear war.

Asked last week what should be on the agenda of the two leaders’ discussions, Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin’s spokesman, quickly replied: “Arms control, most definitely!”

Security experts in Russia and

the US agree, warning that the total breakdown in dialogue and mutual trust over the past four years has left the two nuclear superpowers at risk of unmanageable escalation in case of a crisis, while a new generation of weapons and cyber warfare capabilities could leave the existing arms-control treaties in tatters.

“We’ve gone away from a place where there were rules and arrangements, and a belief that you need them,” said Olga Oliker, director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at CSIS, Continues on page A4

President Trump revealed his last Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, at a televised spectacle © AP

David Davis resigns as Brexit secretary in blow to Theresa May Leave-backer Dominic Raab tapped as replacement to manage UK’s exit from EU

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avid Davis has delivered a heavy blow to Theresa May’s authority by resigning as Brexit secretary, warning that he will fight any move by the prime minister to make further concessions to Brussels.

Dominic Raab, a Brexit supporter who was previously a minister for housing and planning in the Home Office, has been appointed as his replacement.

Mr Davis followed his late night resignation by claiming that Mrs May had sold out to Brussels with her new “soft Brexit” strategy agreed at Chequers last week. “We have given too much away, too easily,” he said.

The former minister said he hoped his resignation would prove to Mrs May that her party would not tolerate any further dilution of her

Brexit plan. Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, he declared: “No further.”

Mrs May’s authority and her Brexit plan now hang in the balance. Downing Street hopes that the resignation of Mr Davis and Steve Baker, a junior minister, will be the end of the drama.

Her effort to hold onto other Brexit hardliners was evident in the appointment of Mr Raab, a prominent Leave campaigner during the 2016 EU referendum and co-founded Change Britain, an advocacy group that evolved out of Vote Leave. The group warned Mrs May last year that Britain should not be “kept in the EU by stealth”.

Mr Davis insisted he was not urging fellow ministers to resign and that Mrs May was “a good prime minister”, but Downing Street is on alert for any signs of the start of a concerted push to destabilise her.

Mr Davis was among the Eurosceptic ministers who endorsed the new Brexit plan at Chequers but he said that at the weekend he concluded he could not sell it to either parliament or other EU capitals.

“It was known I had concerns about it,” he said. “I had to do something I didn’t believe in and didn’t think that would work.”

Mr Davis said that Mrs May’s plan to follow EU rules for goods created an “illusory” sovereignty and that her new customs plan will not fly in Brussels. He said he now feared the EU would come back for more concessions.

Tory MPs suspect that the prime minister will soon be asked to climb down on issues including free movement of people and EU budget contributions; Mr Davis and Mr Baker will be dangerous foes on the backbenches.

US banks count on tax cut windfall to boost profits World trade nerves and mortgage slowdown threaten revenues

ALISTAIR GRAY

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ig US banks are counting on a tax cuts windfall to deliver a profit surge, as world trade jitters threaten demand for corporate loans and a slowdown in the domestic mortgage market puts revenues under further pressure.

The extent to which the sector is relying on tax reforms to boost bottom lines will be laid bare on Friday, when JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo kick off second-quarter results season.

Aggregate net income for the big four, which also includes Bank of America, is expected to jump about 16 per cent from a year ago, according to Financial Times calculations based on analyst forecasts collated by Bloomberg.

On a pre-tax basis, however, total earnings are forecast to tick down about 2 per cent. Gains at JPMorgan and Citi are expected to be offset by weakness at Wells Fargo, which has been hurt by successive compliance problems, and Bank of America, in part because of one-time accounting items.

Executives will face questions about

the impact of rising global trade tensions on corporate America. US banks’ commercial and industrial loan books expanded only 0.3 per cent in May after a 12.5 per cent rise in April, according to Federal Reserve data.

“There’s concerns about a potential trade war,” said Jim Shanahan, financials analyst at Edward Jones. “Banks seem to be saying that businesses are reluctant to borrow and invest.”

Bankers have nevertheless talked up the prospect of a profits rebound, aided by financial deregulation and higher interest rates as well as lower taxes. Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan’s chief executive, indicated last month that the sector was on the cusp of a “golden age”.

Earnings season comes as investors are becoming more jittery about the sector. The S&P 500 financials index last month hit its longest losing streak on record, having declined for 13 consecutive sessions. It now stands 12 per cent below its January peak.

“It’s important for investors to start to see better top-line growth — and for banks to show that the earnings growth is not simply driven by tax reforms,” said Saul Martinez, banking analyst at UBS.

In spite of concerns that a flattening yield curve could compress margins, large banks have so far managed to avoid passing on higher interest rates to regular savers. At the same time they are charging borrowers more and pocketing the difference.

Other factors are expected to weigh on second-quarter performance, however. Rising interest rates are putting homeowners off refinancing. Home loan originations dipped 3 per cent in the second quarter to $447bn, according to Mortgage Bankers Association estimates.

Top bankers have, meanwhile, said revenues from sales and trading on Wall Street will change little from last year.

John Gerspach, Citigroup’s chief executive, said last month that he expected them to be “flat-ish”, as bond trading weakness offset strength in equities.

Analysts have tempered expectations for bank earnings by reining in their forecasts. Consensus net income estimates are 6 per cent lower for BofA than they were three months ago, 5 per cent lower for Wells and 2 per cent lower for Citi.

“A significant portion of revenues don’t look particularly strong,” Mr Shanahan said.

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FT Trump and Putin face nuclear options at Helsinki summit...

Xiaomi blames lacklustre debut in part on US-China trade war

Continued from page A3 the US think-tank. “And there’s a lot of distrust and belief that the other side is actively trying to destabilise the situation.”

An agreement to begin talks on the future of strategic stability — a Cold War concept of deterrence through balanced nuclear capabilities — is essential during next week’s summit in Helsinki, say officials, diplomats and analysts, given that the two key remaining US-Russian arms control treaties are at risk.

Both sides accuse each other of violations of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, an agreement signed by the US and the Soviet Union in 1987 banning land-fired missiles with a range between 5005,500km.

And the two sides have yet to begin any discussions on what to do when the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), under which the two countries cut their nuclear arsenals to 1,550 deployed warheads as of February this year, expires in early 2021.

Finding a fix is critical. The US and Russia possess 13,300 nuclear warheads between them, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 92 per cent of the world’s stockpile. For the past 50 years, Moscow and Washington have set the world’s nuclear weapons rules in order to avoid atomic war.

“It is very unsettling to see the way that the Russians and the Americans are talking past each other on defence and non-proliferation issues,” said one Moscow-based ambassador from a US ally.

Jon Huntsman, US ambassador to Moscow, said arms control would be a “prominent” issue on the agenda in Helsinki, including talks on both the INF and New START treaties.

Mr Huntsman said the leaders were likely to discuss New START and whether both sides should extend the treaty for another five years beyond February 2021, which is allowed under the current arrangement.

“We will have to make a decision on whether or not there [will] be a re-upping for five years, as is written into the agreement — whether the New START agreement will actually be extended by another five years,” said Mr Huntsman, who said issues of compliance would also likely be on the agenda.

The world has been here before.

Arms control was one of the key aspects of President Barack Obama’s policy for a “reset” of relations with Russia a decade ago. Helped by his strong personal relationship with then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, New START was agreed.

That bonhomie is now long gone.

Russia’s military action in Georgia and Ukraine and its alleged meddling in US elections has drastically reduced the potential for bilateral co-operation.

In Moscow, things have also changed significantly since Mr Putin returned to the presidency in 2012. “[Mr Medvedev] had a genuine desire for getting on with Obama, he really enjoyed it and his outlook included Russia as part of the west,” said a person close to Mr Medvedev. “With Putin, that is radically different, as is the Kremlin’s view on arms control.”

Mr Putin spent almost half of his state of the nation speech in early March boasting about a number of new nuclear-capable weapons that he claimed could penetrate the American missile defence systems he had campaigned against in vain for more than a decade. The animated video presentation featured a video of a nuclear-powered missile homing in on Florida.

Tuesday 10 July 2018

Tech group’s founder cites relations as shares fall 1.2% below opening price YUAN YANG AND EDWARD WHITE ?????????

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The soft-Brexit Chequers deal: What it means Policy shifts in UK prime minister’s EU divorce plan and how the EU is likely to respond ALEX BARKER

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heresa May’s attempt to strongarm her cabinet into backing a new vision for a softer Brexit has prompted the resignation of the minister in charge of her negotiations.

The trigger for David Davis to quit as Brexit secretary was a three-page government statement, issued after a marathon cabinet meeting on Friday at the prime minister’s Chequers country residence.

It represents one of the most significant expositions of UK economic policy since the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU, offering concessions designed to resuscitate negotiations in Brussels.

But Mrs May’s vision remains incomplete, and her statement is peppered with ambiguities that she must eventually confront as she battles to win round the EU without losing the support of the Conservative party, parliament, or any more of her cabinet.

What are the big policy shifts?

The UK position crucially “evolves” in two ways that would allow for a Norway-style Brexit deal covering at least part of the EU single market.

The first is Britain’s proposal for a “free trade area for goods” involving the UK and the EU that in effect

continues existing regulatory and customs arrangements for manufacturing and agricultural products after Brexit. This is achieved by the UK becoming a rule-taker, with a treaty-based commitment to “ongoing harmonisation with EU rules on goods”.

Just as important is Britain’s concession on enforcement. UK courts would pay “due regard” to European rulings in cases relating to EU-set rules. In other words, while Britain is a separate legal jurisdiction after Brexit, the European Court of Justice would be supreme in interpreting the UK-EU goods rule book.

There are caveats — for example the British parliament could veto changes to the rule book if it accepts the “consequences for market access”. But taken together, the safeguards offer no more freedom than Norway enjoys as a member of the European Economic Area. In his resignation letter Mr Davis dismissed the sense of parliamentary control as “illusory rather than real”.

Which issues are fudged?

Many policy issues remain ambiguous, or unaddressed.

This is most obvious in the area of customs and trade. Britain wants a “facilitated customs arrangement” with the EU, which allows the UK to

control tariffs and pursue an independent trade policy. But in practice Britain also wants to continue “as if” it were within the EU customs territory. One senior EU official called the hybrid model “the fudge of the century”.

Services, which cover 80 per cent of Britain’s economy, are largely skirted over. The cabinet agreed to retain “regulatory flexibility” and accept less EU market access as a result.

The UK stance arouses suspicion in Brussels, with negotiators arguing it is hard to detach services from goods trade. They note that in areas such as financial services Britain still seems to want to replicate single market-style access from outside.

Britain’s stance also splits the four freedoms of the single market. Asked about the viability of continuing free movement for goods while limiting access for services, capital and people, one EU Brexit negotiator said: “No way, no way, no way.”

Mr Davis feared British policy in these areas was so flawed, and its negotiating hand so weak, that further big concessions would be “inescapable”. He warned these would effectively mean Britain never left the single market and customs union.

What are the other policy battlefronts?

Strategic sponsorships, partnerships key to music talent discovery in Africa

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wype Global Ltd, a UK digital startup has made a strategic entry into Nigeria with a 50% investment in SGLSwypatune Nigeria Limited, leveraging Nigeria’s potential as a technology market hub to attract attention from international organizations. This entry is in a bid to properly harness the potentials of music talents in Nigeria and Africa using digital technology.

The entrance serve as a catalyst for strategic partnerships with relevant stakeholders who are poised to embrace the vision of leveraging digital technology, primarily focused on eliminating the barriers impeding the growth of upcoming artistes in Nigeria.

Peter Atorough, CEO, Swype Global Music in a statement said, talent discovery in Nigeria still hinges on a traditional media model, a situation which creates limited access, ambiguous criteria and lack of transparency, as opposed to a digital based platform

which provides more transparency, equal access to contestants and eliminates stage fright.

According to Atorough, Swype Global Limited has laid out a strategic roadmap to solving the common problems faced by upcoming artistes before, during and after a music talent show, having developed an intuitive digital platform dubbed SWYPATUNE - an App which will be available on the Google Play and Apple Stores by 2019.

“We have developed partnerships internationally with key technology and monetization content developers, but we are interested and actively searching for local business partnersand sponsors who will key into this vision and help transform the economic landscape of Nigeria.

We have had interesting discussions with established artists like Ice Prince and major potential sponsors like Zenith Bank and Fidelity Bank.

“As a specialist in Digital Con-

sumer Behaviour and Supply Chain Management, I think of the 360-degree business model: the whole idea is to eliminate multiple intermediaries through a digital based concept, and to bridge all the barriers encountered during the process of a talent show while offering value to all partners, sponsors and App users,” said Atorough.

Peter is however not ignorant of the fact that some developers are already building quick fix Apps which do not address local needs.

But he explains that while the likes of international app publishers like Facebook and Snapchat do not put the African cultural orientations, environmental factors, as well as perspectives into consideration, Swype Global Ltd is founded on the philosophy that digital mobile technology represents the biggest and boldest opportunity to transform the economies of Africa.

hinese technology group Xiaomi has blamed the USChina trade war in part for its lacklustre debut after its shares fell 1.2 per cent below their opening price by the end of its first day of trading in Hong Kong.

The world’s fourth-largest smartphone maker had initially aimed to raise roughly $10bn, making it the biggest Chinese tech listing since 2014. But troubled market conditions and a lacklustre roadshow meant it raised $4.7bn at a valuation of $54bn, barely half the $100bn target just six months ago.

“At this critical moment in SinoUS trade relations, the global capital markets are in constant flux,” said Lei Jun, the Beijing-based company’s founder and CEO, alluding to mounting China-US tariffs.

“Although the macroeconomic conditions are far from ideal, we believe a great company can still rise to the challenge and distinguish itself,” Mr Lei added.

After a difficult roadshow in which some investors questioned the high pricing proposed by Xiaomi, the company guided the opening price down to HK$17 a share, the bottom of the range it had previously advertised.

But after falling by as much as 5.9 per cent during the morning, Xiaomi shares still finished below their opening price on the first day of trading, at HK$16.8 a share.

“The core reason for Xiaomi’s stock price falls on its first day of trading was the over-valuation,” said Shen Meng, director of investment bank Chanson & Co. “But the immediate stimulus was the stock exchange allowing short selling.”

Short selling, whereby investors borrow shares to immediately sell them, thus profiting if the share price later falls, is usually not allowed on the first day of trading, Mr Shen said, but the exchange made an exception because of the large scale of the IPO. “Stock market investors are the most pessimistic they’ve been for a long time, not just about Xiaomi but about many other tech companies.

This is partly because of the confusion over the regulations concerning CDRs [Chinese depositary receipts], and Xiaomi’s about-turn on them,” said Chen Lin, assistant professor of marketing at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai.

Xiaomi had planned to raise an additional $5bn through issuing China depositary receipts, a new form of stock issuance on the mainland market, but abruptly abandoned its plans to do so last month.

Xiaomi’s listing also marks the first time a company has listed under new rules in Hong Kong that allow dual-class shares with different voting rights. This enables founders to retain their influence after going public.

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@ FINANCIAL TIMES LIMITED

US jobs data spur welcome shift in market narrative Reaction points to return of ‘Goldilocks’ playbook for investors hit by trade tensions MICHAEL MACKENZIE

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nvestors can breathe. A shift in the market narrative for summer appears to be under way, with global equities rallying in the wake of the latest US monthly jobs data after being bruised by trade tensions in recent weeks.

For markets the reaction reflects signs of the “Goldilocks” playbook returning, whereby worries about the US economy heating up and spurring a faster pace of Federal Reserve policy tightening is kept at bay.

A higher US unemployment rate reflecting a rise in the participation rate helps moderate wage pressure and the need for a more active Fed. The rebound in global equities on Monday leaves the FTSE All-World index on the cusp of erasing its losses for the year. More importantly, the benchmark is testing key momentum levels and a break higher should prompt further buying.

Having absorbed the opening punches on trade protectionism between the US and China, investors still think that the risk of escalation is limited and thus the recent rotation towards defensive equity sectors has run its course. Helping matters in this regard, another strong US company earnings season looms and it does appear that investors are leaning towards a July trade whereby Wall Street reignites a bullish trend for shares. Playing the role of a global pacesetter, the S&P 500 has bounced nicely from last week’s test of its 50-day moving average.

But a bigger driver of a better

and sustained global risk appetite rests on a definite turn in the dollar.

As its stands, the threat of further vigour in the dollar has been looking less certain since July began, as some have questioned how rising trade tension can really benefit the US currency. Looking tired after its strong run since midApril, the dollar index, a basket predominantly weighted by the euro, began this week by falling to a one-month low.

Having been hit hard by an appreciating dollar in recent months, emerging markets may well be on the brink of finally catching a much-needed break. Much depends on whether China’s renminbi can find a footing after a worrying slide of late.

Leading the path of recovery among EM currencies this month are Mexico, Argentina, South Africa and even Turkey, with the lira having recovered to its best level in a month. Sustaining that currency bounce will have broader implications for risk appetite.

The pronounced climb that we have seen in high-yielding EM bond yields since February will increasingly look appealing as a buying opportunity should the dollar retreat further, sparking a lot more bullish talk that the window for carry trades is opening.

Investors understandably began the summer fearful that the usual thin market liquidity of July and August entailed a nasty financial accident led by EM and fanned by eurozone political risk. Instead, investors may well be rewarded by thin trading conditions propelling asset prices sharply higher until the current narrative shifts course.

UK stops short of 2040 ban on petrol and diesel vehicles Government publishes its Road to Zero strategy LESLIE HOOK, JIM PICKARD AND ANJLI RAVAL

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he UK has pledged that half of all new car sales will be hybrid or electric by 2030 as part of its “Road to Zero” plan to reduce vehicle emissions, published on Monday.

The new policy outlines for the first time how the UK plans to reach its goal of ending the sales of “conventional” petrol and diesel cars and vans by 2040, but it stops short of a complete ban on petrol and diesel vehicles.

By 2030 at least half of new cars and 40 per cent of new vans sold in the UK must be ultra low emission — defined as emitting less than 50g of carbon per kilometre travelled, a category that includes fully electric cars, hybrid plug-in vehicles, and vehicles that run on new fuel sources such as hydrogen.

The release of the new policy has been delayed for months by intense lobbying, and the document reveals that the government is sticking to the 2040 target for ending the sale of conventional petrol vehicles, despite pleas from British mayors and

climate campaigners to bring the target forward to 2030.

By 2040 the “majority” of new cars and vans sold will be completely zero emissions, and all new cars will have zero emissions “capability”, the document says.

Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, said that the plan showed Britain was “leading the way” in developing new technologies for cleaner vehicles, and pledged that £1.5bn would be invested in ultra low emission technology within the next three years.

The UK has promised to reduce vehicle emissions to zero by 2050, and transportation is currently the biggest single emitter of greenhouse gases in the country, ahead of power and industry.

Environmental groups and the opposition Labour party said that the plan did not go far enough.

“At a time when the planet is threatened by climate change . . . it is dangerous for the government to row back on their commitments to clean up road transport,” said Andy McDonald, shadow transport secretary. “This isn’t a Road to Zero, it’s a road to nowhere.”

China vows to accelerate cancer drug price cuts

Hit film about smuggling of generic drugs adds to pressure on multinationals TOM HANCOCK AND WANG XUEQIAO

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hina has vowed to speed up cuts to the cost of cancer drugs in a move that threatens to dent revenues in the country for multinationals such as Eli Lilly, Roche and Novartis.

Officials will “accelerate price cuts” for cancer treatments, the Communist party-run People’s Daily reported over the weekend. The news comes after China slashed the cost of dozens of overseas drugs by as much as 70 per cent after price negotiations last year.

The report coincided with the release of a box office-topping film about patients forced to smuggle cheap generics, adding to pressure on drugmakers in the country.

China is the world’s second-largest medical pharmaceuticals market after the US by sales, which were worth $123bn last year according to London-based L.E.K. Consulting. It is a key growth market for drugs to treat cancer, with more than 4m new cases diagnosed each year.

Drugs already covered by stateinsurance could have their prices cut by 10 per cent, with reductions of up to 50 per cent for other medications

as a condition of them being added to the state insurance scheme, according to Zhao Heng of Latitude Health, a consultancy.

“Almost all cancer drugs made by multinationals may see price cuts,” he added.

US drugmaker Eli Lilly’s Pemetrexed, along with Letrozole from Switzerland’s Novartis and Roche’s Capecitabine, are among the top 20 selling anti-cancer drugs in China, making them likely targets for the cuts.

Several multinational pharma companies have been invited for talks with government officials over prices this week, according to people familiar with the matter.

“It will be an intense negotiation,” said an executive at one European drugmaker.

The People’s Daily cited an official at China’s newly formed state medical insurance administration, which was created in March to increase the state insurance fund’s influence over health policy.

The report came shortly after the release of Chinese comedy drama Dying to Survive, based on the true story of a Chinese businessman who illegally imported generic cancer drugs from India to sell to

impoverished patients, before being detained for smuggling.

The movie, which has been likened to the 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club, has topped China’s box office since its release last week, earning $200m in four days. It is rare for Chinese censors to approve films presenting lawbreaking in a positive light, suggesting that officials intended its release to send a message to the industry.

The film’s plot revolves around high prices charged by a foreign drugmaker whose Chinese name bears a close resemblance to that of Novartis, and a medicine whose name sounds similar to its cancer treatment Gleevec.

Officials have encouraged companies to cut prices by threatening a switch to cheaper, local generics in state hospitals, where most medicines are sold in China. But in a positive move for multinationals, they have also accelerated approvals for innovative drugs.

Shares in Chinese generic drugmakers such as Anhui Sunhere Pharma rose as much as 10 per cent on Monday, as the film helped increase awareness of the efficacy of generic drugs, according to analysts at Sina Finance.

Senior Barclays executive retires as chair of European banking Makram Azar was one of the most senior bankers to attend Presidents Club dinner MARTIN ARNOLD

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akram Azar, one of the most senior bankers to attend the infamous Presidents Club dinner earlier this year, has retired from Barclays as its chairman of banking in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Barclays said Mr Azar had decided to retire to pursue new business opportunities and spend more time with his family after the recent birth of his son and he would return as a senior adviser to the bank early next year.

He is also stepping down as chief executive of Barclays in the Middle East and north Africa and the bank is due to announce a successor for both roles in the coming days.

A person briefed on the matter said Mr Azar’s decision was not connected to his attendance at the Presidents Club fundraising dinner

in London six months ago, when young hostesses were groped and propositioned by some of the maleonly guests.

There is no suggestion Mr Azar was personally involved in the mistreatment of hostesses. He sat on the top table, hosted by Bruce Ritchie, joint chairman of the charitable trust that organised the event and which has since been disbanded.

After the Financial Times reported on the Presidents Club dinner, banks were split on how seriously they would treat attendance at the controversial event. One said it would be a “firing event” to have attended, but others said it would be unfair to fire someone if they had gone as a guest of a friend or client without knowing what the event was like.

Mr Azar, who joined Barclays in 2010 after a career at KKR and Lehman Brothers, helped to secure

a role for the UK bank as an adviser or financier on several large deals.

He recently advised Qatar on its record $12bn bond issue in April.

Last year, he advised Cineworld on its $3.6bn acquisition of its US rival Regal Entertainment and Altice USA on the cable and telecoms group’s initial public offering.

“MENA remains an important region for the firm and Makram has helped ensure we have a strong management team in place to continue to take the business to the next level,” said Joe McGrath, global head of banking at Barclays, in a memo to staff. “We wish him and his growing family all the best and look forward to working with him again in the new year.”

Other senior advisers at Barclays in Europe include François Baroin, former French finance minister, and Franco Bernabè, former chairman and chief executive of Telecom Italia.

A6 BUSINESS DAY NEWS

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Logistics, personnel shortage mar voters’ exercise … we are short of personnel - INEC espite repeated assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that it was working assiduously to eliminate challenges that have affected the smooth conduct of ongoing Continuous Voter’s Registration exercise (CVR), millions of eligible voters across Nigeria may be disfranchise over poor logistics and shortage of personnel in the various registration centres, according to investigation by BusinessDay. Recall that recently, some groups staged a peaceful protest at the INEC headquarters in Abuja, over the poor manner the commission was handling the ongoing voter’s registration exercise across the country.

However, finding reveals that while there was large turnout of people for the exercise at the various registration centres across the country, they however complained of the slow process of the exercise, charging INEC to provide more machines and personnel to improve the process.

A resident of Alimosho Local Government Area in Lagos, Fatimo Yusuf, who

spoke with BusinessDay, urged INEC to create additional centres, deploy more personnel and machines to the registration centres, stressing that the current arrangement had discouraged several Nigerians from taking part in the registration and acquiring their Permanent Voters Card (PVC).

“The process is slow. Personally, I have been here since 5am to register, and I am still in the queue. Some people have been here for two days, they have not register, INEC should adopt the former method it was using.

That is, carrying out the registration at pooling units. Look at this centre; they are using only one machine in spite of the crowd,” Yusuf said.

A chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos, Wasiu Olushola, bemoaned the shady arrangement by INEC, stressing that some of the current challenges could had been avoided if INEC had conducted the exercise in pooling units.

“The method adopted by the commission is not working, several of our party members, Nigerians have not been able to register despite assurance by INEC that it was tackling the challenges. I have gone round most of the centres, it is just personnel and

Edo Poly - Usen opens central lab for industrial research, capacity building

‘Skills acquisition, entrepreneurship to reduce Nigeria’s unemployment rate’

n line with ongoing tertiary education reforms by Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, the Edo State Institute of Technology and Management (ESTIM), Usen, also known as Edo State Polytechnic, has opened a Central Laboratory for industrial research and capacity building.

Speaking with journalists in Benin City, the rector, Abiodun Falodun, a professor, said, “We opened the laboratory as part of ongoing effort to reposition the Institute to improve academiaindustry collaboration, boost entrepreneurship and skill acquisition, and prepare our students for work in the industries.”

According to Falodun, “with the opening of the Central Laboratory, we are positioning this institution to become a onestop-shop for industrial and biomedical analysis, among others. The academic staff of the institution will get the chance to improve their skills in line with global trends in the use of industrial equipment.”

He said the Central Laboratory would offer services to indigenous industries, tertiary institutions including Universities and Polytechnics and strengthen the relationship between the academia and industries.

“The facilities at the Central Laboratory include: Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (ASS), Infrared Spectrophotometer, UV-Visible Spectrophotometer, Flame Photometer, freeze dryers, Gas Chromatography (GC), FTIR, pH meters, Colorimeter, Polarimeter, Rotary evaporatorsete,” he said.

SEYI JOHN SALAU

INIOBONG IWOK

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logistics issues. I hope this is sorted out on time because election is here, we don’t really have time, except we want to disenfranchise this people,” Olushola said.

An INEC official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in Ikeja, disclosed that the commission was redoubling it effort to register more people, while adding that more machines had been provided to some centres in the state.

“We are aware that a lot of people want to register and we are doing our best to register them. We have gotten more machines and generator to improve the process. We register about 60 to 70 people a day here, but it is not true that we ask people to come 4am and write their names.

“We open here at the centres by 9am and the machines would not work before then.

Nigerian would always complain no matter the method that is adopted for any process,” the official said.

When contacted, the chief press secretary to INEC chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, said the commission had initiated several measures to improve the voters’ registration exercise, adding that the commission had registered over 9 million voters since last year when it began.

NNPC kick-starts gas projects to support 15GW power generation OLUSOLA BELLO & HARRISON EDEH

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major stride in the attainment of national energy sufficiency was achieved in Lagos on Monday with the commencementofatechnicalframing workshopandsubsequentproject signing ceremony of the seven CriticalGasDevelopmentProjects (7CGDP) to deliver about 3.4 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day (bscfd) to bridge the foreseen medium-term supply gap by 2020 on an accelerated basis.

The 7CGDP is an integral leg of the gas development strategy designed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to leverage the full potential of gas to meet the target of generating at least 15 gigawatts (GW) of electricity by 2020.

Maikanti Baru, group managing director of the Corporation, in apresentationattheevent,saidthe projects would not only bridge the projected shortfall in supply upon completion, but would also signal the beginning of the process of closing demand-supply gap in the domestic gas market.

He said NNPC had engaged two world-class project management consultants - DeltaAfrik/Worley Parson & Crestech/ Penspen, who would work with NPDC and NNPC JV partners and other stakeholders to achieve set project deliverables.

He listed some of the responsibilitiesoftheprojectconsultantsto

include: working with NNPC and partners to revalidate and carry out relevant technical studies to proposed development plans, providefinancialadvisoryservices for project funding/financing strategy and appraise the fiscal requirements for viability and advice on interventions that may be required.

The PMT are also expected to study and recommend fasttrack tendering process for field development and project implementation, establish realistic cost benchmark(s) for identified projects and develop project schedules and cost estimates for the respective projects, among others Baru explained that in addition to the above, the NNPC Project Management groups would strengthen oversight function on the seven critical gas developmentprojectsbyensuringprompt decision-making and timely approvals in line with international best practices.

The NNPC boss said the Corporation was working closely with other agencies like the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Nigerian Content Monitoring and Development Board (NCMDB), among others, to ensure timely approvals for the project and also ensure that lease renewals requests related to these projects were supported for renewals by relevant agency.

Monday 09 July 2018

Falz to thrill fans at Trace Live concert BUNMI BAILEY

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usic lovers and fans of unarguably one of Nigeria’s current music rave, Folarin Falana, popularly known as “Falzthebahdguy’ will be in for a swell time as the entertainer lights up the stage at Trace Live concert this Friday, at the Terra Kulture Arena in Lagos.

Trace Live is a new landmark in live music that highlights only the best blend of vocals and musical instruments.

The show, which spotlights one artiste and a band, is the biggest live performance show promoted by Trace TV, Bolanle Austin Peters and Cabal Entertainment.

According to the organisers, The Falz show is the fourth in its series since its first edition which took place on June last year, hosted by Omawunmi.

The second edition, which was hosted by Flavour, took place in September and Adekunle gold hosted the third edition on May 4, this year.

Trace Live with Falz would continue this trajectory with the Rapper’s insightful hit ‘This is Nigeria’ that has generated controversy for its seeming criticism of the Nigerian state.

Son of human rights activist and lawyer, Folarin is one of Nigeria’s most sensational rapper who has over the years, endeared himself to young Nigerians with his dynamic slant of the Afro Hip-Hop genre.

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eneral Superintendent of the Deeper Christian Life Ministry (DCLM), Williams Kumuyi, says Nigeria’s youth population will have to refocus on skills acquisition, human capital development and entrepreneurship to reduce the current high unemployment and underemployment rate.

Kumuyi says the church is wholly committed to the edification and elevation of the human essence and faculties into maximal productive use.

This he said at the Young Professionals’ Forum (YPF) Skill Acquisition Programme (SAP) certificate award ceremony held recently at the church’s headquarters in Gbagada, Lagos.

“Today’s event marks a bold commitment of the DCLM to bringing real meaning and success to the otherwise beleaguered lives of youth. We shall not relent until we boldly help in stimulating the catalysts that will help in drawing down the damning indices of unemployment and underemployment figures, through our single-minded pursuit of the professionally tailored, SAP,” Kumuyi said.

Kumuyi, who was represented by the church secretary, Jerry Asemota, called for collaboration to create a lasting impart with the YPF’s SAP scheme. “We therefore call on government, local and international agencies, to collaborate with us in solving the unemployment and underemployment conundrum,” he said.

L-R: Tonye Cole, chairman, Sahara Energy Group, Omotola Bamigbaiye-Elatuyi, one of the panellist and marketing manager,Guinness Nigeria plc; Debo Adeyewa,vice chancellor, Redeemer’s University; Desmond Ekeh, MD/CEO, Synthesis Communications Limited/ publisher, BrandiQ Magazine, and Parminder Vir, chief executive officer, Tony Elumelu Foundation, at the 2018 Redeemer›s University/ BrandiQ Youth Leadership Forum in Lagos. Pic by Pius Okeosisi

Edo MDAs, Uhunmwode ward devt c’ttees meet, brainstorm on priorities

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onsequent upon the inauguration of ward development committees in Uhunmwode Local Government Area by the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, relevant government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are meeting with the committees to brainstorm and agree on development projects for the council.

The committees, set up few weeks ago by the governor, are a non-partisan platform that aggregates interest of the various wards in the local government and prioritises sustainable projects and initiative for rapid development in collaboration with government agencies.

A brainchild of Governor Obaseki, the committees’ work is being spearheaded by the special

adviser to the governor on political matters, Osaro Idah.

Each ward development committee includes two women, two youth, a traditional ruler, one retired or serving teacher and nurse, one member of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), a member of an opposition party and a religious leader.

Special adviser to the governor on Basic Education and acting chairman, Edo State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), Joan Osa Oviawe, said a team comprising officials and representatives of key MDAs, including Ministry of Infrastructure, SUBEB, Edojobs, Post-Primary Education Board, among others, would continue engagement with the ward committees and a meeting

had already been scheduled to reach a consensus on priority projects.

According to Oviawe, “After Governor Obaseki inaugurated the committees, we have been in touch and are working to align the development imperatives to meet pressing demands.

So, we will be meeting with the committees in Uhunmwode on Tuesday and Wednesday and that of Orhionmwon by Thursday and Friday.”

Idah said, “It is important to emphasis that the committees are non-political in nature. We are going to be holding extensive discussions with them, surveying the environment and developing a shopping list and costing for projects.”

Noting that the delegation

will be working within existing development plans for the communities, he noted, “We intend to align the development needs of the wards with the MDAs’ strategic plans and also prioritise them according to the most pressing of needs. The initiatives are going to be rolled out in August.”

Idah added that the state government was committed to grassroots development, which inspired the setting up of the committees. Noting that the strategy will about coordinated and people-driven development in the grassroots, he urged members of the different wards to work with the committees and the state government in actualising the different projects to be initiated.

Tuesday 10 July 2018

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BUSINESS DAY

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NEWS

Concerns as ship owners fault FG on 15% import duty on vessels AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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orried by the underdeveloped state of indigenous shipping business in Nigeria, ship owners have called for the review of the Federal Government’s fiscal policy that imposes high Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) duty of 15 percent on vessels imported by local ship owners.

According to them, imposing as much as 15 percent import duty on a vessel brought into the country to fly the Nigerian flag will make it difficult for Nigerian ship owners to effectively compete with their foreign counterparts that pay as little as 1 percent duty

in their own country.

They believe that such situation gives advantage to the foreigners to be at the top of shipping business, already dominated by foreign owned vessels, as it not only enable them to own quality vessels but also allows them give better pricing to customers.

Greg Ogbeifun, president, Ship-owners Association of Nigerian (SOAN), said in Lagos recently that high customs duty of 15 percent on vessels imported by its members in a situation where vessels flying foreign flags were required to pay as little as 1 percent, “makes it difficult for Nigerians to compete.”

Ogbeifun said it was grossly unfair for Nigerian flagged vessels

to pay much more customs duty than vessels flying foreign flags, saying the association had gone to the Presidency to register their protest over the high import duty.

Ogbeifun, who also described the situation as unfortunate, said payment of higher import duty on vessels had put Nigerian shipowners at a very disadvantaged position and given the foreign vessel owners a competitive edge.

“There is a contention between the Ministry of Transport and that of Finance. While the Transport Ministry is working towards reducing the payment of such high duty on vessels built abroad and imported into the country, the Finance Ministry through Customs, wants to

maintain the duty in a bid to meet or surpass its targeted revenue collection,” he said.

Continuing, he said: “There is a fundamental problem with the industry and we must put our fingers on the issues affecting the industry. Already being a Nigerian flagged vessel, you are at a disadvantage and this is not good for the industry. We must look into the law as regards to this issue.”

He also complained that the current Nigeria’s fiscal policy, which stipulates that ship owners bringing ships must pay a duty charge of 14 percent out of the total cost of the vessel to the NCS, was a major reason the Singaporean shipping company

- Pacific International Line (PIL), that signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Nigerian government to set up a national shipping line, recently withdrew its partnership.

“The duty payable on an average, if you are bringing in a vessel, is about 14 percent of the value of that vessel. So, if you bring in a crude oil tanker vessel of $80 million, then in Nigeria’s port, you have to pay 14 percent of that value to enable you bring in the vessel,” he explained.

Recall that since the demise of the foremost Nigerian National Shipping Line (NNSL) in the 90s, Nigeria has not had any deep oceangoing vessel to fly the Nigerian flag in foreign nations

and also benefit from the nation’s lucrative shipping business.

Consequently, industry analysts believe that opportunity abounds for Nigeria to genuinely take its rightful place as maritime capital in the West African region.

“Nigerians need to invest in the ownership of different type of vessels to participate in shipping.

Therefore, there is an opportunity for Nigerians to have several ships including tankers, crude or products, containers, dry cargo or bulk carriers,” Adewale Ishola, a foremost master mariner, said.

According to Ishola, Nigerian Fiscal Policy on importation of vessel does not make establishment of shipping fleet competitive in global trade.

Another communal clash between Aguleri/Umueri is imminent EMMANUEL NDUKUBA, Awka

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L-R: Jerry Asemota, Deeper Life Bible Church secretary, representing William Kumuyi, the general superintendent; Maureen Onyia, permanent secretary, Enugu State Liaison office, Lagos; Oyinkansola Oyeyilola-Urias, best student in event planning; Bayo Oyeyemi, moderator, Lagos, and Fashina Abayomi, president , Young Professional Forum, during the graduation and award giving ceremony for the beneficiaries of the ministry’s skills acquisition programme at the Deeper Life Bible Church headquarters in Lagos. Pic by Pius Okeosisi

How to unlock billions of investment in Nigeria’s oil/gas sector OLUSOLA BELLO

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he call for certainty in fiscal reforms taking place in the oil and gas industry was a major focus of the recently concluded Nigeria Oil and Gas Exhibition (NOG).

The participants were vehement in their assertions that unless the country was sure of what it wanted and also ready to create a win-win situation between it and other investors, our production would remain stagnant.

This call is not new, as it is as old as the time the government initiated the Petroleum Industry Bill, when it became clear to the oil and gas investors that the nation wants to increase it stakes in terms of revenue coming out from oil and gas production.

Fiscal certainty, which will serve as incentive to global investors seeking to unlock billions of potential investments in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, is the investors’ demand.

The steps being taken by the government is really not bad, and this is expected because to meet other socio-

economic demands it needs more revenue. But in doing so it must make sure the economy it wants to build is not hurt by her actions.

This is why it must listen to the calls by the international oil companies that have be asking her to take a critical look at some of the fiscal terms in the current PIB and still have some discussion with them before it is passed into law.

Clearly, there are more countries in Africa these days that have better enabling environment with oil discoveries that are attracting the attentions of investors. So, if government fails to be reasonable on this matter some of the big term investors may begin to consider leaving the country.

Government lack of seriousness can cost the country to lose great opportunities that can still be explored now to boost her production before it is too late. As any attempt to foot drag could result in investors taking their money to other places where they are equally needed.

Apart from concerns of fiscal certainty, the stakeholders also urged the Federal Gov-

ernment to ensure reforms being done through the PIB were holistic and attract international investors into Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

Nigeria’s deputy minister of petroleum resources, Emmanuel Ibeh Kachikwu, has repeatedly said Nigerian oil and gas sector requires about $100 billion to open up investment into the sector, and attract more capital inflow into the nation’s economy.

Paul McGrath, chairman/ managing director, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, said, “To unlock investment potentials in the country, we need fiscal certainty to attract global industry players with huge capital into Nigeria’s oil rich resources.”

There is the need to have the right framework in place, to have global competitive fiscal price policies in place to help lift the opportunities in the sector.

There are works that have been done on the PIB, both by the Executive and the Legislature, which need to have an end result that is to inadvertently attract international investment.

The Nigerian government must be ready to have reforms that will unlock the potentials in the sector and also that should continue to attract international investments, McGrath said.

nother communal clash between Aguleri and Umueri communities in Anambra East Local Government Area of Anambra State is imminent due to breach of the agreement by both communities to maintain peace in the area.

A clash between the two communities early this year led to the destruction of some houses, while few people sustained injuries.

The development attracted the attention of the state police command, which prevailed on the two communities to sign the agreement to ensure that peace reigned in the area.

However, the president general of Umueri General Assembly, Pius Okonkwo, and the secretary general, Samuel Mbukwesili, in a petition dated July 4 to the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, alleged that Aguleri people had forcefully entered the disputed land with armed thugs, and threatening peace in the area.

The petition read in part: “Pursuant to our earlier letter, you directed that Umueri and Aguleri people should desist from entering into the area of land in Aguakor Umueri land (from Otuocha-Oye Agu Road

to the fish market up to the Otuocha Township Stadium) and that nobody should construct any building or carry out any activity therein.

“And to bring peace, you constituted an unbiased peace committee, in which both communities have equal representatives to look into the dispute, make findings and proffer possible settlement procedures.

“To our chagrin, however, and in defiance to your directives and in total disregard of the peace committee, Aguleri people and their armed thugs have continued to enter into the disputed area of land in Aguakor Umueri land and are carrying on construction works daily on the land.

“They are usually well armed with guns to scare Umueri people away and threaten to kill any Umueri indigene who would try to question them.

“Umueri people are peace loving and law abiding, thus, our obedience to your directives and respect to the peace committee, are practical proof. But if the persons involved are not called to order, their conduct is likely to trigger off another intercommunal crisis between the two neighbouring towns of Umueri and Aguleri.

Consumer confidence index worsen in Q2 – CBN … business expectation improves HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

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entral Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday released its consumer expectoration survey report for the month of June, which saw consumer overall confidence in economyworsenedto-6.3index points in the second quarter of 2018, as against -6.4 in the preceding quarter.

This represents 10.7 points lower than the -17.0 index in the corresponding period of 2017.

Some respondents attributed this moderation in outlook to worsening economic condition of the country.

TheConsumerExpectations Survey (CES) for Q2 2018 was conducted during the period May 28 to June 15, 2018, by the CBN, covering a sample size of 2,070 households drawn from 207 Enumeration Areas (EAs)

across the country.

The overall response rate for the Q2 2018 CES was 80.4 percent. Respondents’ distribution by educational attainment showed that 15.2 percent had university education, 14.9 percent had higher non-university education, while 24.9 percent had senior secondary school education. Respondents with junior secondary and primary school education accounted for 7.2 percent and 18.5 percent, respectively,whilethosewithno formal education accounted for the balance of 19.5 percent.

However, the consumer outlook for the next quarter and next 12 months were positive at 16.2 and 21.2 points, respectively.

The outlook could be attributed to the expected increase in net household income, the anticipated improvement in

Nigeria’s economic conditions, and expectations to save a bit and/or have plenty over savings in the next 12 months.

The report revealed that most respondents expect the prices of goods and services to rise in the next 12 months, with anindexpointof13.2points.The major drivers are: Education, medical care, transportation, electricity, house rent, and food and other household needs.

Also the CBN on the same day released the business expectation survey report for June, where respondents’ overall confidence index (CI) on the macro economy in June 2018 improved to 34.7 index points when compared with the level of 28.9 index points recorded in May 2018. The businesses outlook for July 2018 shows a greaterconfidenceonthemacro economy at 64.9 index points.

Politics & Policy

A8 BUSINESS DAY Over 132,000 PVCs yet to be collected in A/Ibom, says INEC C002D5556

ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK, Uyo

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ver 132,078 Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVC), comprising the old and new ones, have yet to be collected in Akwa

Ibom State.

Mike Igini, resident electoral commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) made this known while speaking with reporters in Uyo, the state capital.

Igni, who described the response of the electorate as poor, said out of the 127,267 new PVCs received by the commission and distributed across the state, only 12,881 cards have been collected leaving an outstanding of 114,386. From the old PVCs, out of 18,541 received and distributed, only 849 have been collected, leaving an outstanding of 17,692.

Noting that nationwide, over 7million PVCs were yet to be collected, the REC wondered how the electorates will cast their votes less than 224 days to the commencement of the elections across the country without their PVCs. He explained that even with the campaigns running in the media on

Mahmood Yakubu

the issue, many people in Uyo, the state capital, with the highest number of polling units are yet to collect their PVCs. He urged political parties in the

Why I want Abaribe to vacate his seat at the Senate, by Stanley UDOKA AGWU, Umuahia

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meka Stanley, former deputy speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly and an aspirant for the Abia South Senatorial seat has said that equity demands that it is the time of Ukwa people to occupy the Red Chamber of the National Assembly for Abia South senatorial District being presently occupied by Enyinnaya Abaribe.

While speaking with journalists in Umuahia, Stanley said although Abaribe has done well at the upper chamber on issues concerning the Igbos, that such should not be used as a yardstick to re-elect the three term senator in 2019.

“Though I thump up for Enyi Abaribe, the incumbent occupier of Abia South senatorial seat at the Senate, but after 12 years at the upper chamber, our vocal senator should give opportunity for others and take a position of a consultant, adviser and father of all,” he said.

The former member of the Federal House Representatives for Ukwa East/Ukwa West Federal constituency dismissed the insinuation held in some quarters that the position of a lawmaker is tenureless as obtained in the United States and other Western climes, adding that Nigerian democracy is still nascent and should not be compared to countries that have practised it for over 200 years.

He s a i d t hat o p p o r t u n i t y should be given to others to contribute their quota to the develop-

ment of the country.

“If such practice has been the norm, the likes of Abaribe would not have occupied the Red Chamber of the National Assembly as the former occupier Adolf Wabara would not have respected the understanding for rotation between the two political blocs and the need for injection of new ideas,” Stanley said.

He disclosed that his quest for the seat was anchored on equity and social justice for his Ukwa people, adding that the Ngwa nation in the same socio-political alliance with Ukwa had produced four out of five senators which the zone had produced in the nation’s democratic experience, leaving Ukwa with only one (Wabara) who did only two terms.

The National Assembly aspirant further hinted that their senior brother in the alliance (Ngwa) had produced five deputy governors and now a governor, thereby marginalising them (Ukwa) He maintained that no matter what should be seen as the numerical strength of Ukwa Nation, they remained an entity that should be recognised and that their due privileges and rights accorded them which are what equity and social justice are all about and as enshrined in the constitution of the country.

He noted that his Ukwa people have been marginalised when it comes to sharing of political positions between the Ngwa and Ukwa and insisted that Ngwa people must concede this time around.

state to employ the strategy used in ensuring the electorate registered during the Continuous Voters’ Registration exercise to visit INEC offices for the collection of their PVCs.

“With respect to the level of Permanent Voters’ Card collection and registration exercise in Akwa Ibom State in particular, what I want you to know is that they are in two broad categories: We have the PVCs that we have produced prior to the 2015 elections up to the time of the commencement of the new Continuous Voter Registration on the 27th of April last year. These Permanent Voters’ Cards of 2015 till date which we refer to as the old PVC, the level of turnout is very poor.

“In Akwa Ibom State, we still have a total of 18,541 old permanent voters’ cards, out of which we have only distributed 849, leaving a total of 17,692 still uncollected. Similarly, of the new set of PVCs, it may also sadly interest you to know that out of the 127,267 PVCs, we have only distributed 12,881, leaving a total of 114,386 PVC uncollected in this state”.

He called on the political parties and the candidates to begin to endear themselves to the electorates so as to secure their votes, adding that there will be election in every polling unit in the state.

Igini also warned that the practice of snatching of ballot boxes and ballot papers would not be tolerated, adding that if such incidences were

Tuesday 10 July 2018

to happen, the elections in that place would be cancelled.

“As at today, we have barely six months to the 2019 elections. We have less than 224 days to the opening of the polls in the entire 2,980 polling units that are domicile in the 329 wards of the thirty-one local government areas of Akwa Ibom State where election on the 16th February – National Assembly and the Presidential election will open and thereafter, on the 2nd of March we will be having the governorship and the 26 State Constituency election in Akwa Ibom.

“Here in Akwa Ibom State, the people contesting for office should do well enough to go and campaign, endear themselves to the electorates because in this state, there will be election in the entire polling unit. In this state, nobody should ever think of snatching of ballot boxes or ballot papers because anywhere that ballot boxes or ballot papers are snatched, it is immediately cancelled.

“No result can ever emanate from a polling unit(s) or wards or local governments where ballot papers or results are snatched and taken to anywhere to produce results that will ever be accepted by the commission,” he noted.

Logistics, personnel shortage mar INEC voter registration exercise …Millions of eligible voters may be disfranchised INIOBONG IWOK

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espite repeated assurances by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that it is working assiduously to eliminate challenges which have affected the smooth conduct of the on-going Continuous Voter’s Registration exercise (CVR), millions of eligible voters across the country may be disfranchised over poor logistics and shortage of personnel in the various registration centres; investigation by BusinessDay has revealed.

Recall that recently, some groups staged a peaceful protest at the INEC headquarters in Abuja over the poor manner the commission was handling the on-going voter registration exercise across the country.

Findings revealed that while there was large turn- out of people for the exercise at the various registration centres across the country, they how-

ever, complained of the slow process of the exercise, charging INEC to provide more machines and personnel to improve the process.

A resident in Alimosho, Lagos, Fatimo Yusuf, who spoke to BusinessDay, urged INEC to create additional centres, deploy more personnel and machines to the registration centres, stressing that the current arrangement had discouraged several Nigerians from taking part in the registration and acquiring their Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVC).

“The process is slow. Personally, I have been here since 5am to register, and I am still in the queue, some people have been here for two days, they have not registered, INEC should adopt the former method it was using before, that is carrying out the registration at pooling units? Look at this centre; they are using only one machine in spite of the crowd” A Chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos state, Wasiu Olushola, bemoaned the shady

arrangement by INEC, stressing that some of the current challenges could have been avoided if INEC has conducted the exercise in pooling units.

“The method adopted by the commission is not working, several of our party members, Nigerians have not been able to register despite assurance by INEC that it was tackling the challenges, I have gone round most of the centres it is just personnel and logistics issues. I hope this is sorted out on time because election is here, we don’t really have time except we want to disenfranchise this people”.

An INEC official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in Ikeja, disclosed that the commission was redoubling it effort to register more people, while adding that more machines had been provided to some centres in the state.

“We are aware that a lot of people want to register and we are doing our best to register them. We have gotten more machines and generator to improve the process.

Osun ’19: Lawyer eyes legislative house on APC platform

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chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and an Osogbo, Osun State-based legal practitioner, Tiamiyu Sule Adegboyega, has joined the race to the Osun State House of Assembly, saying, “Osun State belongs to the APC.” The Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU),-trained lawyer cum politician, told our correspondent in Osogbo that, “law interpretation has relevance with law-making,” asserting, “I wish to bring legislative policy closer to my constituency if afforded the opportunity to serve.”

According to him, the existing laws in the state are largely received from the old Oyo State and no longer apt to the modern legislative trends, and as such need facelift, pointing out that, “Assembly in Osun State needs to live up to a better legislative functions, apart from the oversight duties that will enhance positive co-existence and harmony in the state.”

The 56 year-old aspirant, who wants to represent Olorunda State Constituency at the Legislative House, is not new to law making as he was elected as a councillor and

leader of the House at Olorunda Local Government, Igbona in Osogbo between 1990 and 1993.

“That period signalled the beginning of my involvement in active politics,” he declared.

Adegboyega, who currently practises his profession at Adewale Afolabi & Co. Chambers in Osogbo, disclosed that he is already consulting with his good people within the Olorunda State Constituency to sample their opinions on his intention to give them robust representation at the State House of Assembly from next year.

BUSINESS DAY

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NEWS YOU CAN TRUST I TUESDAY 10 JULY 2018

Opinion JOSEPH OLASUNKANMI TEGBE Joseph Tegbe is currently a Senior Partner and Head of the Technology Advisory Services and Markets of KPMG Professional Services in Nigeria.

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nfrastr uctural developments are key to economic growth. The World Economic Forum estimates that every dollar spent on capital projects g enerates an e conomic return of 5% to 25%. Long before now, the focus of infrastructural development has always been on roads, power grids, and other physical infrastructure. But recently the ubiquitous nature of internet has made it important for government to invest in technology and specifically e-governance assets such as digital channels, apps, and online platforms that link citizens to the public sector to bring efficiency.

Senior Partner & Head, Technology Advisory and Markets at KPMG Nigeria, while speaking to news men recently in Ibadan, Oyo state, expanded on this and advised government to pay attention to this aspect of infrastructural development.

According to him, while roads, power, health and other infrastructural gaps needed to be filled, it is critical that we begin to actively and deliberately

E- governance: Government must be an active investor in technology invest in technology infrastructure and e-governance so that the country does not again become backward in the next few years.

He s a i d , “G l o b a l re search has shown that capturing the full potential of government digitization could free up to $1 trillion annually in economic value worldwide, through improved cost and operational performance. Both developing countries and world powers are paying a lot attention to improving their e-governance strategy. The world is a global village, we are not completely insulated from the factors shaping the globe.

Therefore we must take this very seriously to deliver a more responsive and efficient governance. According to the UK government, its initial e-governance strategy saved £42 million in government spending within a year of its launch.

Academia’s have defined e-governance “is not only the computerization of a government system, but a belief in the ability of technology to achieve high levels of improvement in various areas of govern-

ment, thus transforming the nature of politics and the relations between governments and citizens” Contrar y to opinions in certain quarters that e-governance and automation will generally reduce headcount and workforce and thus create manpower redundancy, Joseph Tegbe outlines the benefits of digitization and e-governance from the perspectives of skills enhancement and equipping existing workforce for the future, as he said, “e-governance is an opportunity to create more jobs and enhance the skills of the public service. The Nigerian political cycle is just four years, the crux of the running of the government is done by the members of the civil service who can be trained to become world class handlers and users of e-governance infrastructure. When we adequately invest in existing workforce, we realize efficiency and empower such workforce to execute more strategic and complex tasks rather than their current routine tasks”.

“The Nigerian problem is majorly in 3 major parts;

str uctural, c yclical and shocks. To solve structural problem we must fill the gap and also proactively prepare for the future. One of the predicated technology of the future is internet of things and the proliferation of this is only a few years away. If we stay stuck on solving only the problems created by our past, we will lose the opportunities of the future. Therefore government must continuously focus on policies and programs for the future.”

Stressing the need for a holistic e-governance strategy, He said, “The administration of President Muhammadu Buhari has been able to enforce some e-governance strategies.

For instance the TSA is simply the digitization of government revenue collection and it has helped the government to save billions of naira in different ways. This singular action has contributed to making many agencies like Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) and others not only self-sustaining but also a contributor to government revenue. This is a total turnaround of a

key government institution in the education sector. We can imagine the impact other e-governance polices will have on different government agencies. Today, because of the TSA, government can receive payment from anywhere in the world anytime of the day bringing convenience and ease to government revenue collection.”

However, “beyond payment, we have more opportunities in communication and feedback with government ; health management and even education. The massive online open courses that has become very pervasive; offering courses from the best schools across the world is a tool that can be used to improve our education system. He further stressed that government must continue to invest to expand the infrastructure needed to address the persistent divide between digital haves and have-nots. So that there we can create a society of opportunities.

Sp e a k i ng f u r t h e r, h e made it clear that, “digit i z i n g i n t e ra c t i o n w i t h government agencies and

parastatals and making use of the various IT infrastructure to enhance efficiency is at the core of e-governance.

A new wave of digitization is now unfolding in which many more businesses put digital at the heart of their operations and strategy.

This has made some jobs that were not existing few years ago become very critical. So government must not be scared of the potential shocks rather because it is not a matter of if, it is matter of when. Therefore we must begin to acquire the requisite skills needed for economy and governance of the future. To manage the transition in a way that helps people navigate through a period of disruptive change, the government can equip them with the skills they need through reform in education and training.”

Government must be an active investor in technology and must also be consumer of the same. Digitizing government operations would make a substantial contribution to consumption of digital technologies in Nigeria—and boost productivity in governance.

Donald Trump’s war on the liberal world order

•The president has broken with seven decades of US foreign policy

MARTIN WOLF Wolf is the Chief Economics Commentator of The Financial Times.

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e have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.” Thus did Lord Palmerston, British prime minister from 1855 to 1858 and 1859 to 1865, describe his country’s foreign policy at the apogee of its global power.

Donald Trump is a Palmerstonian, as a former senior official at the US state department advised me last week. If any coherent doctrine underlies the president’s assault on the world order his own country created, that is it. But Mr Trump is no Palmerston and the early 21st century is not the middle of the 19th.

Mr Trump’s narrowly transactional approach, driven by ignorance and resentment, risks disaster.

The US took a very different view in the aftermath of the second world war.

The jockeying for position among mutually suspicious and nationalistic great powers had led to two shattering world wars. These had left Europe prostrate. No rationally founded idea of “interest” could justify this dire outcome. The world needed a much more enlightened vision of international relations than this one had been.

The new vision contained three essential elements. First, having been dragged out of its isolationism by two world wars, the US would become the stabilising power. Second, the US would form eternal alliances built on shared values. Finally, a set of international agreements, initially mostly economic, subsequently extended into areas such as climate, would provide a predictably liberal global economy and the capacity to tackle global challenges. All this, US policymakers believed,

embodied a rational view of US interests. Its power was to be allied to beneficial ends by novel and intelligent means.

The US has made big mistakes: above all, trusting too much in the efficacy of interventions, especially military intervention, in other countries. Yet, overall, the Pax Americana has been a period of great success.

The resurgence of world trade helped deliver an unparalleled era of global prosperity. The political and economic successes of the west gave victory over Soviet communism. Despite China’s rise, the US and its allies still enjoy preponderant economic and military power.

In the words of the King James Bible, “there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph”.

That ignorant king is Mr Trump, who knows not those Americans who created the postwar order. He believes in transactions over alliances, bilateralism over multilateralism, unpredictability over consistency, power over rules and interests over ideals.

He prefers authoritarians

such as China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and even North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, to the leaders of his democratic allies. In his view, might makes right.

Striking features of Mr Trump’s behaviour are his fabrications, self-pity and bullying: others, including historic allies, are “laughing at us” over climate or “cheating” us over trade. The EU, he argues, “was put there to take advantage of the United States, OK? . . . Not any more . . . Those days are over.” These are absurd claims.

A r m o u re d by i g n o rance and such attitudes, Mr Trump might do just about anything, particularly now, when he seems to be increasingly self-confident. The trade wars he is unleashing, under dubious justifications and for uncertain ends, lack clear outcomes. As Gavyn Davies notes, the cycles of retaliation might be prolonged.

The costs of deglobalisation might be very high, especially if one includes the uncertainty it will create. Adam Posen, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics,

in Washington, notes the risk that these conflicts will “break down the separation between commerce and national security, raising the risk of significant escalation of conflict”. Mr Trump is deliberately confusing trade with national security. That has to make resolution far more difficult to achieve.

Mr Trump’s attitudes to China and Europe now look the most momentous.

If the US dissolves its commitment to Nato or uses all its might to break up the EU, the stresses upon the latter — and the incentive for Russia (or China) to meddle in it — could be huge: Europe might come together, or it might break apart. Again, Mr Trump is determined to challenge China’s rise. While some progress on trade issues is indeed possible, this broader objective is not one China could conceivably accept. Growing friction now looks inevitable.

This, then, is an important historical moment. The foundations of the postwar economic and security order, not just of the “holiday from history” of the postcold war era”, are now in

doubt.

The question is whether one should view this as a temporary, albeit perilous, departure from the normal state of affairs, or a far more permanent shift. The argument for the former is that Mr Trump is an exceptional figure, who came from nowhere, in special circumstances. When he passes, so will this upheaval.

This may be a delusion. Unless he blows up the world economy, Mr Trump has a good chance of re-election and so may last for sixand-a-half more years. He has identified a large and resentful part of the US body politic whose state is unlikely to get any better, while the gerrymandering of the US vote is likely to get even worse. Not least, a growing number of Americans agree that China is a cheat and a threat and Europeans are carping freeloaders.

Mr Trump will pass.

Trumpism might not. The US could become far worse than soberly Palmerstonian.

The rest of the world should take that possibility seriously — and think and act accordingly.

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