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CBN sees banks moving in right direction on new lending measures LOLADE AKINMURELE

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he Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is seeing signs that its order to commercial banks to turn on

Insurers require N271bn to meet new minimum capital base See Page 2

the tap on lending to small businesses is yielding fruit, according to a source at the apex bank.

“Lending rates are trending downward and that’s a big sign that banks are already looking for means to create loans so that they

Continues on page38

Inside 10 things Nigerians need to know about Rwandan 1994 genocide P. 2

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

news NCC remits N51.3bn to Federation account in Q1 2019 ...As telecoms sector contributes 10.11% to Nigeria’s GDP, investments stand at $70bn Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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he Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has remitted N51.3 billion to the Federal Government’s Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) in the first quarter of 2019.

The remittance, according to the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC/CEO), NCC, Umar Garba Danbatta, is in compliance with the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2007 (FRA 2007).

The payment represents “Payment on Account” in respect of operating surplus of N44 billion and N7.3 billion spectrum assignment fee collected, both of which were due to the Federal Government as at April 30, 2019.

According to the FRA 2007, such payments are to be made every year after preparation of Audited Accounts.

Specifically, Section 22, Sub-section 1 of the Act states that, “Notwithstanding the provisions of any written law governing the Corporation, each Corporation shall establish a general reserve fund and shall allocate thereto at the end of each financial year, one fifth of its operating surplus for the year.”

Section 22, Sub-section 2

of the Act states further that, “The balance of the operating surplus shall be paid into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the Federal Government not later than one month following the statutory deadline for publishing each Corporation’s Account.”

Aside from remitting the operating surplus, Section 17, Sub-section 3 of the Nigerian Communication Act (NCA, 2003) also stipulates that spectrum assignment fees generated shall be remitted 100 per cent to the Federal Government.

The Section states that, “the Commission shall pay all monies accruing from the sales of Spectrum under Part 1 of Chapter VIII into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF).” Commenting further, Danbatta said the Commission had taken the initiative to be making payments on account as it generates revenue.

Danbatta noted that through effective regulatory oversight by the Commission, telecommunications sector has witnessed phenomenal growth since 2001, making it an enabler of economic growth and development.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

Inflation eases to 11-month low of 11.22% in June as food prices drop …CPI beats analysts’ projections ENDURANCE OKAFOR

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igeria’s inflation rate rose at a slower pace in June to the lowest level in 11 months fuelled by decline in core inflation and moderation in food prices, data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Monday revealed.

The Composite Price Index (CPI), which is a measure of the general change in the prices of consumer goods and services purchased by households over a period, rose by 11.22 percent on a year-on-year basis in June 2019.

This represents 0.18 percentage points lower than the rate recorded in May 2019 (11.40 percent) and the lowest inflation rate recorded by the country since June 2018 when inflation rose by 11.23 percent.

“Core inflation maintained downward trend in absence of any major shock in key CPI components like power and energy costs. Stable exchange rate has provided further support to core inflation decline,” Ayorinde Akinloye, a consumer goods analyst at Lagos-based CSL Stockbrokers, said.

A dive into the data by the state-funded bureau revealed that food inflation slowed to the lowest in three months by 13.56 percent in June from a year earlier compared with 13.79 percent recorded in May. Also, core inflation, which captures all items but exempts the prices of volatile agricultural produce, moderated to 8.8 percent to reach its lowest level in over three years.

The composite food index stood at 13.56 percent in June compared to 13.79 percent in May 2019. The rise in the food index was caused by increases in prices of bread and cereals, meat, oils and fats, potatoes, yam and other tubers, fish, vegetables and fruits.

“On food inflation, we are gradually going into the harvest season when food prices moderate, thus I think we are seeing the impact of some early harvests,” Akinloye told said.

A further probe into the data by the state stat agency showed that on month-onmonth basis, the country’s headline inflation increased

L-R: Roger Brown, chief financial officer, SEPLAT; Oscar Onyema, chief executive officer, Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Austin Avuru, CEO, SEPLAT; Effiong Okon, operations director, SEPLAT; Chioma Nwachuku, general manager, external affairs & communications, SEPLAT, and Yetunde Taiwo, managing director, ANOH Gas Processing Company (AGPC), at SEPLAT’s Capital Markets Day event at the NSE, recently.

Insurers require N271bn to meet new minimum capital base …mergers, acquisition way out …as operators still confused over components of capital MODESTUS ANAESORONYE

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f what makes up the new minimum capital requirement being demanded of insurance companies in Nigeria by the industry regulator, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), is paid-up share capital plus retained earnings, the industry will be looking for an estimated N271 billion, BusinessDay analysis reveals.

This would be the case if the 59 life and general insurance/reinsurance companies currently operating in the country decide to remain as individual entities after the June 30, 2020 deadline without considering options of mergers or acquisition.

billion to N8 billion; general business from N3 billion to N10 billion; composite business from N5 billion to N18 billion; and reinsurance companies from N10 billion to N20 billion.

According to the commission, the minimum paid-up share capital requirement would take effect from the commencement date of the circular (May 20, 2019) for new applications, while existing insurance and reinsurance companies would be required to fully comply not later than June 30, 2020.

But among industry operators, there seems to be no clarity yet as to what the components of the capital are, BusinessDay gathered.

Tope Smart, chairman,

Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA), said during the association’s annual general meeting in Lagos that the body was engaging the regulator for clarity on the capital requirement as well as palliatives to enable the exercise run without much hitches.

There is also confusion and apprehension in the industry as some companies that have huge negative retained earnings do not know yet what the new requirement implies on their existing paid-up capital, BusinessDay further learnt.

A senior official in NAICOM who did not want to be named, however, said the issue of negative retained

Continues on page 38

10 things Nigerians need to know about Rwandan 1994 genocide OLUWASEGUN OLAKOYENIKAN

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ormer President Olusegun Obasanjo, in his open letter to President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, expressed his fears about Nigeria should the country fail to find an effective solution to the current security challenges facing it.

O basanj o said he is “deeply worried about four avoidable calamities” among which is possible attacks on the Fulani having been “rightly or wrongly” perceived as perpetrators of criminal activities all over the country including banditry, kidnapping, armed robbery and killings.

The former president said his concerns include “spon•Continues online at taneous or planned repriwww.businessday.ng sal attacks against Fulanis www.businessday.ng

But as it stands, there are only about four insurance companies that may not look for new capital if they decide to alternate capital within their life and general business portfolios, further analysis reveals.

As such, Femi Olusina, an insurance broker, said it was important for the operators to start immediately to talk to each other on possible mergers and acquisition because time was not on their side.

“It is easy to think that one year deadline is too long, but before you know it, June 30, 2020 is here,” he said.

NAICOM had in a circular issued on Monday, May 20, 2019 announced increase in the paid-up share capital of life companies from N2

EXPLAINER which may inadvertently or advertently mushroom into pogrom or Rwanda-type genocide that we did not believe could happen and yet it happened”.

This is why it is pertinent to highlight the following 10 key points about Rwandan 1994 Genocide for the benefit of all concerned Nigerians, whom Obasanjo described as “all right-thinking Nigerians and those resident in Nigeria”.

1. The Rwandan Genocide was a genocidal mass slaughter of the people of the Tutsi and moderate Hutus in the country which started from April 7 and spanned through July 15, 1994. The Hutus, who were the majority of Rwandans, were targeting

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the people of minority Tutsi community in the country as well as their political opponents, regardless of their ethnic origin.

2. Within the 100 days of the killing spree, it was estimated that 800,000 Rwandans were killed, accounting for about 20 percent of the country’s total population and 70 percent of the Tutsi then living in Rwanda.

3. On the eve of April 7, 1994, a plane carrying the thenRwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and his Burundi counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down, killing everyone on board while the plane was about to land in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

4. The genocidal killings started the following day as Hutu extremists began a campaign of mass slaughter.

Soldiers, police and militias @Businessdayng

set up checkpoints and roadblocks to slaughter Tutsis by demanding for people’s national identity cards which at the time had citizens’ ethnic group on them.

5. Although these killings started by detonating grenades and shooting of guns, they were largely done by machetes which most Rwandans kept around their houses. It was reported that Rwanda imported about $750,000 worth of machetes into the country from China a year earlier.

6. The number of rape victims recorded in the course of the mass murder ranged from 250,000 to 500,000 women, leading to the birth of about 20,000 children from these women with an estimate of more

Continues on page 38

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

NEWS

Ogun partners AfDB, CBN, NEPC, China on agric export

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overnor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State has disclosed that plans were underway to have a Chinese company invest in the agricultural sector of the state through Public Private Partnership (PPP) programme.

Governor Abiodun, who made this known in his office in Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, when he received a team from the Africa Development Bank (AfDB) who was on three-day visit to the state, said his government was much aligned to investors coming in their large numbers.

Also, while hosting the executive director/CEO, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Olusegun Awolowo, Governor Abiodun solicited collaboration to enable seamless export of goods and services that emanate from Ogun State.

The governor reaffirmed his administration’s plan to backwardly integrate into the Central Bank of Nigeria framework, which he said, was meant to ban the provision of foreign exchange for some food items.

He said once foreign exchange was removed from food items like rice, maize and cassava, the local demand for the items would be stimulated, thereby helping to stimulate the local production of the items.

He noted that his administration would be focused on producing cassava, rice and maize, with the believe that the focus would help to stimulate the local economy as their won’t be foreign exchange.

He said the state government would be engaging the CBN

through its different programmes and also issued Certificate of Ownership to the farmers “We in Ogun State are keyed in on these items. These food items are going to be our items of focus, our produce of focus, our crops of focus, we are going to be focused on producing cassava, rice and maize, believing that will stimulate local production, since their won’t be forex for them.

“We have engaged the CBN and they have different interventions like the anchor borrowers programme, the Accelerated Agriculture Development Scheme, the Agro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises scheme, etc; we will provide the land for our youths and cooperative, we will give them the certificate of ownership for those lands, as it will give them a sense of ownership,” he said The governor also said his administration was poised to grow crops and go into the business of producing live stocks ranging from poultry and fishery, adding that with all the problems currently bewildering the country in the area of cattle and ranching, the state government had decided to have its own ranch and world-class abattoir.

“In view of all the issues that we have with cattle and ranching in the country today, we have resolved we are going to have our own ranch in Ogun State, we believe that we can have our ranch, a world class ranch, a world class abattoir that can provide beef services to supermarkets, individuals,” he said.

Agusto & Co. upgrades RMBN rating HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

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gusto & Co. has upgraded the rating of Rand Merchant Bank Nigeria Limited (RMBN).

The rating assigned to RMBN reflects its good profitability, good asset quality, good capitalisation for current business risks and good liquidity, with operations driven by an experienced management team.

The bank’s profile is further buoyed by demonstrated support from its parent company, FirstRand Limited in various capacities, spanning risk management, customer referrals and liability generation.

Given RMB Nigeria’s improved earnings and strengthened profitability profile as well as its good liquidity track record, we hereby upgrade the bank’s rating to “Aa-”, reflective of a financial institution of sound financial capacity and strong abil-

ity to meet its obligations.

RMBN has over 15 years of transactional experience in Nigeria ranging from advisory roles on infrastructure projects, mergers and acquisitions to the funding of various transactions across multiple sectors.

The bank has an extensive pool of investment banking talent, including fixed income, currency and commodities experts who understand the Nigerian and broader African landscape.

Over the past six years, it has created a core client base of solid local companies, multinationals and financial sponsors. Using a targeted approach, the bank has meaningfully supported our clients through different economic cycles and will continue to do so.

RMB’s vision and primary business objective is to create sustainable value, unique solutions and superior economic returns for our clients and shareholders.

Police arrests suspects over killing of Fasoranti’s daughter YOMI AYELESO, Akure

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olice Command in Ondo State says some suspects had been arrested in connection with the killing of Funke Olakunrin, daughter of Afenifere leader, Pa Reuben Fasoranti.

Olakunrin was killed by gunmen in Kajola along Ore expressway in Odigbo Local Government Area of the state, on Friday.

The Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO) in the state, Femi

Joseph, on Monday said the command was screening the suspects to determine the culprits.

He said, “We have made a lot of arrests on this matter, but we are doing the screening of those arrested to know who among them are the culprits.

“By the time we finish the screening, we will let the world know the perpetrators. As I said, a number of people have been arrested and when it is time we shall parade the suspects.” www.businessday.ng

L-R: Rotimi Sankore, chair, editorial board, Nigeria Info Radio Group; Amina Salihu, senior programme officer, MacArthur Foundation; Olaokun Soyinka, former commissioner for health, Ogun State, representing Wole Soyinka; Obiageli Ezekwesili, keynote speaker/senior economic advisor, Africa Economic Development Policy Initiative (AEDPI); Stephanie Busari, moderator and founder/curator, TedX Brixton; Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, director, voter education and publicity, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC); Motunrayo Alaka, coordinator, Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism, and Gbenga Sesan, executive director, Paradigm Initiative, at the Wole Soyinka Centre Media Lecture Series, theme: Rethinking credible elections accountable democracy and good governance in Nigeria to mark Wole Soyinka’s birthday in Lagos. Pic by David Apara

Letter to Buhari: Obasanjo gets Agbakoba, Babatope, Ikoku’s backing INIOBONG IWOK

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number of eminent Nigerians have risen in support of former President Olusegun Obasanjo over his letter to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari for him to end the current security challenges bedevilling the country.

Obasanjo, who ruled the country between 1999 and 2007, had in an open letter, Monday, warned President Buhari that unending Boko Haram insurgency, herdsmen/ farmers’ clashes and growing cases of kidnapping and wanton killings were eroding the very foundation of Nigeria, with the country now nearing a tipping point. He urged Buhari to take urgent decisive steps in tackling the growing insecurity in the country.

Speaking with BusinessDay on Monday, some eminent Ni-

gerians applauded Obasanjo’s warning to Buhari, stressing that it was obvious that the current administration had been overwhelmed and lacked ideas on how to resolve the current security challenges.

“Every right-thinking Nigerian would support what Obasanjo said. It is obvious that Nigerian is fragile; we are all feeling the effect of it, not only in insecurity but also in unemployment. Go round and see,” Olisa Agbakoba, senior advocate of Nigeria, said.

Agbakoba said the country was in a fragile state and needed urgent rescue, urging the president to urgently convene a dialogue where the issues would be resolved among the ethnic nationalities.

“The president would be showing good example by bringing everybody on the table. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic nation, he should do well to

recognise and bring people to talk,” he said.

Agbakoba, however, advocated for an urgent restructuring of the country as a way out.

“I would urge President Buhari to do well and recognise our diversity. The centre is too strong; the centre suppresses the federating units.

If we dissolve the country, the problems would disappear. I would urge him to take the step towards resolving the issues,” he said.

Ebenezer Babatope, a former minister, equally lamented the current state of insecurity in the country, stressing that Obasanjo spoke the mind of Nigerians.

“It is the right thing to do. I am very happy that Obasanjo as an elder statesman can come out and speak his mind.

It is obvious, the way things are the country may go under, he has done well we should

applaud him.

“He must act now or the country may not exist anymore, the ordinary man hope in the country is fading,” Babatope said.

Babatope further warned the President to take Obasanjo’s advice and act fast, adding that the country risk disintegration.

“Buhari must act now or the whole country would be pulled down, if he does not take the steps now, we are all at risk. The country has become terrible, if nothing is done Nigeria may be destroyed soon,” he said.

Also speaking, a politician, Guy Ikoku, also a public affair analyst, equally applauded Obasanjo’s letter, but said only a restructuring of the country that gives each state powers to be in charge of its security apparatus could help the country out of the present problems.

Seplat’s $700m ANOH gas investment to address Nigeria’s power deficit Olusola Bello

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eplat Petroleum Development Company plc’s planned $700 million Assa North/Ohaji South (ANOH) gas and condensate field project, at completion, is expected to contribute significantly in addressing Nigeria’s deficit in thermal power delivery.

This project straddles OML 53 (Seplat 40% working interest and operator) and OML 21 (Shell JV).

In a presentation titled ‘Stability,Performance,Growth’theteam of three presenters provided the audience with comprehensive information on the company’s existinggasbusiness,marketoutlook and anticipated ANOH growth trajectory.

The ANOH gas processing project is managed by Anoh Gas Processing Company (AGPC), an

incorporated joint venture (IJV) between Seplat and the Nigerian Gas Company. AGPC shall develop a 300Mscfd midstream plant on OML 53 to process future wet gas production from the upstream unit.

The company was represented at the forum by Austin Avuru, CEO, and Roger Brown, chief financialofficer,andthemanaging director, AGPC, Yetunde Taiwo.

Avuru, in his address, states that Nigeria holds 37 percent of total proved gas reserves on the continent, adding that the majority is concentrated in the Niger Delta.

AccordingtoAvuru,Domestic Supply Obligation (DSO) price has increased to commercial levels and non-DSO prices are determined on a willing buyer/ willing seller basis; opening up new vista of growth for the Seplat’s gas business.

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The Seplat CEO says: “Nigeria is one of the largest economies in Africa with a population today in excess of 201 million; 50 percent are urban dwellers while 62 percent is less than 25 years in age and 93 percent is less than 55 years in age.

“Projected to grow to a population of 450 million people by 2050 (highest population growth in Africa) and become the third most populated country globally (behind only China and India).

This will spur a high demand from power industries and other commercial enterprises.

“Current capacity deficit in thermal power generation provides immediate headroom to place additional gas volumes (significant installed but nonoperating generation capacity 7 percent royalty on gas revenues as opposed to 20 percent on oil production.” @Businessdayng

Government’s ambition of using gas as an enabler for energy independence, industrial development, commerce, environmental and social sustainability is a real GDP growth driver for Nigeria, and would reduce production cost with reduced power costs to businesses,raisestandardofliving, develop human capital, and reduce environmental degradation and health risks, he says.

The AGPC, according to Roger, is a special purpose company formed to raise $420 million of equitytode-risktheproject;ofwhich equity investors – Seplat and Nigeria Gas Company - granted equal share 50:50 in AGPC. The Seplat CFO illustrates that it is essential to correlate a company’s funding model and business model, citing the company’s proactive pay back of its equity debt in the early years as a good example, and remarkable.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

NEWS

NAFDAC, NAQS at war over ban on methyl bromide as fumigant CALEB OJEWALE

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he acceptability of Methyl Bromide in Nigeria as a fumigant for agricultural produce is reigniting debate on the contentious subject as the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has restated that the chemical remains banned in Nigeria. This follows previous announcement of ban from the agency, which was subsequently countered by the Nigerian Agricultural Quarantine Service (NAQS).

In a new statement issued Monday by the office of Moji Adeyeye, director-general of NAFDAC, the agency says its attention “has been drawn to an upsurge in the demand for methyl bromide from Nigeria.”

The surge in demand, according to the statement, is sequel to the new requirement of the government of some countries, such as Mexico and India, that methyl bromide must be used as fumigant on the agricultural produce being exported to their countries.

“TheuseofMethylBromideas fumigant is banned and remains banned in Nigeria,” the statement reads. “Farmers, agro input dealers and exporter of agricultural produce are advised to use alternative pesticides, which are safer, cheaper and more effective.”

This decision, according to NAFDAC, is hinged on exposure that may occur during fumigation activities. Effects of this exposure are drawn from studies in humans, which indicate that the lung may be severely injured by the acute (short-term) inhalation of methyl bromide. Acute and chronic (long-term) inhalation of methyl bromide can lead to

neurological effect in humans, NAFDAC says.

However, Vincent Isegbe, director-general of NAQS, in a phone interview to clarify the development, expresses the view that NAFDAC is overstepping its mandate.

According to Isegbe, there are exemptions for the use of Methyl Bromide, and these include when it is used as a chemical in feedstuff; uses that the parties of the Montreal Protocol deem “critical” under certain classifications by parties to the protocol, and lastly, use for Quarantine and Pre-shipment (QPS).

While the NAFDAC statement highlights that the use of methyl bromide was banned by Montreal Protocol of 1987 due to its effect on ozone layer depletion property, Isegbe says this falls under the purview of the National Ozone Office, domiciled in the Ministry of Environment.

But, according to NAFDAC, even though Methyl Bromide has continued to receive critical uses exemption from other countries since 1987. From the documented abuse and misuse of other agrochemicals in Nigeria, the risks of use of Methyl Bromide will outweigh the benefit for critical use, NAFDAC asserts.

Isegbe, on NAQS’ part, explains to BusinessDay that letters and documents have been sent to NAFDAC, in order to provide clarity on the issue, but these have mostly gone unanswered.

“We still wrote a letter to them in May, but there has been no response till today,” Isegbe says, who expresses displeasure at what he describes as lack of cooperation with his agency, both of which work for the same government.

Oil drilling activities in Nigeria may be picking up as firm gets regulatory nod STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

…2 others search for drilling rigs

slowdown in oil exploration and production activities due to lack of fiscal and legal clarity in the sector led to a contraction in the three months ending March, with falling rig counts, sending out signals of tougher economic times ahead for Nigeria.

Fiscal terms are the most important terms of a natural resource contract as they delimit and define the amounts of profit and economic rent that will accrue to each party throughout the life of the contract. For Nigeria, these terms are critically important, as the country has remained dependent on the industry for the bulk of its foreign exchange earnings for over 30 years.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria’s statistical agency, showed that in the first three months of 2019, real Gross Domestic Product

growth in the oil sector contracted by -2.40 percent (yearon-year) indicating a decrease by 16.43 percent points relative to the rate recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2018.

This appears to be changing.

Exploration and production activities are probably picking up despite the Federal Government’s dizzying delay in passing the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) and clarifying which fiscal regime will apply to offshore oil fields in particular.

In this light, London-listed Eland Oil & Gas has received the green light for its planned development of the Gbetiokun field in oil mining licence (OML) 40 in Nigeria from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).

The plan includes the drilling of five oil production wells during the first phase of development, with six more produc-

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tion wells and a single work over, to convert the Gbetiokun-2 well to a water disposal well, to be carried out during the second phase.

The first two wells, Gbetiokun 4 and 5, will be drilled back-to-back and are expected to increase the output from the field to 20,000 barrels per day.

It was reported in June that Eland was preparing to bring the early production system at Gbetiokun online this month, with output from the Gbetiokun-1 and 3 wells expected to average an initial gross rate of 12,000bpd.

The facility has a nominal capacity of 22,000 bpd which will allow for production from the additional wells being drilled this year and next.

Eland has also previously stated that the modular design of the early production system would allow it to expand the capacity beyond 22,000bpd if

required.

Stanbic IBTC, working with its group brand, Standard Bank Group of South Africa, has partnered Eland Oil & Gas, West Africa with an initial focus on Nigeria, to provide a new accordion facility and increased borrowing base of $50 million (about N18bn).

“An accordion facility is essentially an incremental facility, which allows a borrower to take an additional facility over and above what was originally agreed with the financier on the same terms as the original facility for expansion purposes,” the bank explained.

In November 2018, Eland Oil & Gas announced that it had successfully refinanced its existing reserve-based lending facility with a new five-year syndicated RBL facility in an amount of $75 million, with the option to increase it to up to $200 million through an accordion, subject to incremental production and reserves.

Wema Bank launches digital marketplace, Outlet By Alat

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ema Bank, the creator of Africa’s first fully digital bank, ALAT, has launched a new online platform to provideseamlesspaymentservices to customers and merchants.

Theplatformnamed,OutletBy ALAT,isprimarilydesignedtoconnect shoppers with a range of digital services including payments, event and movie ticket purchases, flight bookings, bet wallet funding, airtime vending, and utility bills.

The platform is also a one-stop digitalchannelforlistedmerchants to receive payments for goods and services from both Wema Bank and non-Wema Bank account holders.

Outlet By ALAT is an innovation designed to enable Nigerians whodonothaveanALATorWema Bank account to enjoy some of the digital benefits the bank offers its

customers.

With Outlet By ALAT, customerscansavetimeandimproveproductivitybycuttingofflongqueues at the bank, electricity office, visa application offices, and cinema foyers, among others.

Currently, the platform is hosting the Big Brother Naija game, powered by Bet9ja. The prediction game offers fans of the reality TV show a chance to win exciting gifts when they show support for their favourite housemates.

Shoppers and merchants can tapintothenewinnovationbyregistering on the website outlet.alat. ng to complete their transactions.

Wema Bank, who recently unveiled award-winning singer, Teni the Entertainer, as its brand ambassador,isconstantlyinnovating to better serve customers and the banking public.

9mobile appoints Ibrahim Musa Umar as new chief human resources officer Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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mobile has announced Ibrahim Musa Umar as its new chief human resources officer.

As chief human resources officer, effective from July 1, Ibrahim has become responsible for developing and executing human resource strategy to support 9mobile’s overall business plan and strategic direction.

An accomplished executive, Ibrahim brings to 9mobile an extensive work experience in leadership and strategic human resource

management spanning 20 years across various industries including consulting, telecoms, finance and energy.

Commenting on the appointment, Stephane Beuvelet, 9mobile’s acting managing director, says management and staff of the telco are extremely delighted at the appointment, saying Ibrahim’s wealth of experience will be of immense benefit as the telco continues to consolidate the gains of its recently concluded recapitalisation. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Lolade Akinmurele, companies and markets editor, BusinessDay; Seyi Osiyemi, chief operating officer, Lagos Bus Services Limited; Oludare Senbore, partner, corporate and commercial practice, Aluko and Oyebode; Ola Bello, executive director, Good Governance Africa; Ayodeji Adewunmi, president/co-fouder, Gokada, and Olabisi Akinkugbe, assistant professor, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University Canada, at the Lagos Policy Workshop Series, themed ‘ Inclusive Socio-Economic Development For A Megacity: Harmonising The Roles Of The Government and the Private Sector’ organised by The Liberal Forum in partnership with BusinessDay in Lagos.

Pic by David Apara

Lagos flags off ‘Green Campaign’ on tree planting JOSHUA BASSEY

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agos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Sunday, flagged off a Green Campaign to plant 350,000 trees across the state in response to changing ecosystem and climate conditions.

Sanwo-Olu has also called for the support of the residents to rid the state of indiscriminate waste dumping, especially in unauthorised areas.

The green campaign with the theme: “Clean and Green is our Perfect Dream,” kicked off at an event held in Lekki Phase 1 to commemorate the state’s tree planting day - an annual programme initiated 10 years ago by the administration of Babatunde Fashola, with the objectives to galvanise policies and actions towards mitigating the effects of climate change.

The commemorative tree planting activity was held simultaneously in seven other lo-

...as Sanwo-Olu seeks support to rid state of waste cations across the state, including Costain area of Ebute Metta, where the deputy governor, Obafemi Hamzat, anchored the exercise.

The governor, represented by his wife, Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, said maintaining green environment was a cardinal agenda of his administration, reiterating his commitment to achieve cleaner and greener ecosystem.

According to the governor, tree planting remains an effective strategy to combat the effect of climate change and global warming, stressing that the sustenance of the initiative is a testimony to the foresight of the previous administrations to ensure Lagosians live in healthy environment.

“We cannot keep on ignoring the effects of climate change, which is the most significant material risk to our future; it is also the world’s most devastating threat to human

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survival. As we increase effort to rid the state of waste, all hands must be on deck to also improve the aesthetics of the environment by adorning it with ornaments, plants, beautiful flowers, shrubs and trees,” he said.

Sanwo-Olu noted that there would never be a short- or long-term benefit of cutting down trees under the guise of development, pointing out that the notion of planting five trees in replacement for a tree pulled down was inadequate to address the problem of environmental degradation.

He said: “The truth is, when tree replacement may perfectly rekindle our hope, it does not equally compensate for the damage done to the soil’s biodiversity and the degradation done to the ecosystem. When primary tropical forest is lost, they can never be recovered. As a government, developing new @Businessdayng

opportunities around green spaces to promote the green economy is cardinal to our development agenda.”

The governor lauded the Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency (LASPARK) for the mileage it had achieved in helping the government realise the green objectives, noting that 7 million trees had been planted out of the 10 million targets by 2020.

He observed that achieving a green credential would help the government to improve healthcare and sustain the environment.

Besides, Sanwo-Olu said in furtherance of his commitment to a green and sustainable environment, the government would re-launch ‘One House, One Tree’ campaign across the state, saying the move would ensure every house in the state plants one tree to intensify the green project.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

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news

Edo Assembly cut short break to confirm Obaseki’s commissioner nominees IDRIS UMAR MOMOH & CHURCHILL OKORO, Benin

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embers of the Edo State House of Assembly on Monday cut short it adjournment again to confirm the state governor’s commissioner nominees.

TheHouse,whichhadJune17, adjourned plenary session to July 17afterthecontroversialinauguration of the seventh state Assembly had the third time cut short its adjournment to date.

TheHousehadonJune24and July 3, cut short its adjournment to swear-in additional three lawmakers, respectively.

The additional lawmakers sworn-inareEmmanuelOkoduwa (Esan North-East 11), Sunday Ojezele,EsanSouth-East,andEmmanuel Agbaje (Akoko-Edo 11).

The confirmation was sequel to the presentation and consideration of the report of the ad-hoc committee on the screening of the commissioner nominees at plenary session.

Recall that the state governor, Godwin Obaseki, had on July 10 forwarded the six-man commissioner nominees list to the House for consideration and confirmation.

Thenomineesscreenedbythe ad-hoc committee are Damian Lawani,immediatepastlawmaker,

… clears six nominees represented Etsako Central Constituency; Joe Ikpea, former chairman of Esan South-East Local Government Area; Felix Akhabue, alsoformerchairmanofEsanWest Local Government Area; Moses Agbakor,MomohOiseOmorogbe, and Marie Edekor.

Presentingtheadhoccommittee’s report, Roland Asoro, chairman of the ad hoc committee, said the nominees were educationally qualified to be appointed as commissioners in the state.

Asoro, who is the Majority LeaderoftheHouse,recommendedthatthenomineesbeconfirmed as commissioners in the state.

Meanwhile, House cleared six commissioner-nominees whose names were recently sent to the House by Governor Godwin Obaseki in a major cabinet reshuffle.

During its plenary session on Monday,theSpeaker,FrankOkiye, introduced the commissionernomineestotheHouseafterChairman of the Screening Committee, Roland Asoro, reported that the assembly has screened the candidates.

The commissioner-nominees are Damian Lawani; Joe Ikpea; Felix Akhabue; Moses Agbakor; Momoh Oise Omorogbe and Marie Edeko.

NECA wants abolition of VAT on property sales, airline tickets JOSHUA BASSEY

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igeria Employers’ ConsultativeAssociation(NECA), a key member of the Organised Private Sector (OPS), has called on the government to abolish Value Added Tax (VAT) on real estate sales.

NECA has also asked the Federal Government to shift focus from increases in taxation to implementing policy reforms that promote radical industrialisation of the country.

Timothy Olawale, directorgeneral of NECA, while speaking with journalists in Lagos on Monday, noted that the focus on tax increasesasagainststimulatingthe nation’s productive base cannot taketheeconomyoutofthewoods.

AccordingtoOlawale,whatthe economy requires at this time are farradicalreachingpolicieslikethe abolitionofVATonrealestatesales, financial services and domestic airline ticket sales, abolishing capital gain tax on sales of shares and import duty on spare parts.

He said it was time the government reassessed its strategies with a view to coming up with reforms that enable a paradigm shift from its current economic strategy.

“There is no better time for the government to focus on a radical

industrialisation of our country as a means of making it the hub of economic activities in the West Africansub-regionandalsoensure Nigeria benefits maximally from the African continental free trade pact recently signed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

“We have consistently taken the lazy path of tax increases that stifles and further burden businesses rather than the ingenious way of promoting and stimulating production,” he said.

He further made a case for reduction of VAT on small traders to 3 percent, abolition of import duty on machinery and raw materials, among many others.

All these will directly stimulate production and create wealth for thenationanditscitizenry,hesaid.

He said: “Production and productivity induced policies focused on the rapid development of our industrial base is the only sustainable option for our national development.”

Although he commended government for the efforts in the last four years to stimulate the economy and support the real sector, he nevertheless, argued there had been contradictions in the regulatory environment that continue to negate the government’s efforts.

SMEDAN lauds Edo’s focus on infrastructure, education

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irector-general, Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Dikko Umaru Radda, has commended Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, on his prudent allocation of the state’s limited resources to improve critical sectors such as infrastructure and education.

He gave the commendation at a capacity building programme for Business Membership Organisations (BMOs) held in Benin City, Edo State, with the theme, “Unlocking Business Membership Organisations (BMOs) growth to drive global competitiveness.”

Dikko, represented by Friday Okpara, director, Policy, Partnership and Coordination, SMEDAN, said similar capacity building programmes for BMOs were held in Imo and Kano states in 2017, noting that Edo State was chosen for the 2019 programme due to its strategic position as the gateway to the South-South and South-East zones of Nigeria.

He added that the choice of the state was also informed by the Obaseki-led administration’s disposition and resolve to frugally apply the state’s resources to criti-

cal sectors such as infrastructure and education which put the state on the path of prosperity and sustainable development.

“Your Excellency, your economic development plan of opening up investment opportunities with priority given to initiatives that promote the state’s competitive advantage in agriculture and human capital development is commendable.

Your dedication has triggered a renewed drive to create cities with modern facilities, industrial hubs and business clusters that will strengthen the MSMEs towards global competitiveness,” the Director-General said.

Dikko said, “The vision being concretised under your administration is to reposition the state as the nucleus of micro, small and medium enterprises in Nigeria.”

He said Nigeria must work to ensure standardisation of its products in order to benefit more from the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement and to meet global competitiveness.

In his remarks, Governor Obaseki, stressed the need to diversify the economy by putting the appropriate policies in place and collaborating with the private sector.

Crude oil prices rise to $66.97 on back of tropical storm Barry … as NNPC grapples with import challenges Olusola Bello

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espite lingering concerns over a global oil oversupply and weak Chinese economic growth, oil prices reversed losses to edge up early Monday morning as 73 percent of US Gulf of Mexico oil production was shut-in on Sunday due to tropical storm Barry, and Chinese data on Monday pointed to better than forecast industrial figures.

Nigeriacontinuestogroanunderheavysubsidyregimebecause she imports virtually all what the country currently consumed despite having four refineries that are not functional.

As of 06:08am EDT, WTI Crude was up 0.22 percent at $60.34, while Brent Crude was trading up 0.37 percent at $66.97.

Mele Kolo Kyari, the new group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), recently pledged to reverse the trend of petroleum products importation inthecountrybyrehabilitatingthe existing refineries and encouraging private sector investment in the refineries sub-sector.

“We must end the trend of fuel importation as an oil producing country. We will deliver on the rehabilitation of the four refineries within the life of this administration and support the private sector to build refineries. We will support the Dangote Refinery to come on stream on schedule. We will transform Nigeria into a net exporterofpetroleumproductsby 2023,” Kyari stated in his address at the occasion.

Gains were limited due to the headline Chinese data released earlier on Monday, showing that China’s economic growth in the second quarter of this year was at 6.2 percent, in line with expecta-

tions but the weakest growth in the country in 27 years.

China’s industrial output and retail sales in June, however, trumped analysts’ expectations, suggesting that the state of the industry is not as bad as the gloomiestforecastshadit,andthat oil demand growth could be supportedthroughtheendoftheyear.

According to analysts at ANZ Bank, Chinese crude oil import growth so far this year looks impressive despite fears of a marked economicandoildemandgrowth slowdown.

“We believe additional crude oilquota(given)toprivaterefiners shouldkeepimportsupbeatinH2 2019,” Reuters quoted ANZ Bank analysts as saying on Monday.

Despite the lowest Chinese economic growth in nearly three decades, industrial data wasn’t all that bad and helped oil prices edge up early on Monday morning, with prices additionally supported by the fact that 72.82 percent—or to 1,376,265 bpd—of the current oil production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico was shut-in as of Sunday in response to the tropical storm Barry.

Phillips 66, which had temporarily closed down its 253,600-bpd Alliance, Louisiana, refinery ahead of the storm, was getting ready on Sunday to restart the refinery on Monday. Most of the Louisiana refineries of major operators were operating normally on Sunday, refinery officials or sources told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the oil market saw a rather significant surplus in the first half of 2019, much larger thanpreviouslyexpected.Looking forward, suppliesare set to tighten in the second half of the year, but that may only be a hiatus before the glut returns. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Chizor Malize, managing partner, Brandzone Consulting LLC/immediate past president, Queen of the Rosary College (QRC) Onitsha, Alumnae Association Lagos Chapter; Oby Ezekwesili, senior economic adviser, Africa Economic Development Policy Initiative/keynote speaker; Idu Okwuosa, president, QRC Onitsha, Alumnae Association Lagos Chapter; Audery Joe-Ezigbo, co-founder, Falcon Corporation, and Praise Fawowe, principal consultant, Centre for Sex Education and Family Life, during the QRC 2019 Power summit organised by the association.

Ten days after, AirPeace sustains frequency, airfares to UAE IFEOMA OKEKE

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en days after Nigeria’s largest indigenous carrier AirPeace commenced operations into Dubai via Sharjah, the airline has been able to sustain its frequency on the Lagos-Dubai routes as well as the airfares it started with.

The airline, which commenced the new route on Friday, July 5, 2019, has continued to operate three times weekly to Sharjah; Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, from only Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos, offering passengers between N155,000 to N180,000 for a return ticket, while high-end airlines such

as Emirates and Qatar Airways still cost between N310,000 to N400,000, on the Lagos-Dubai routes.

The airline has also continued to make provision for a complementary bus to convey its passengers from Sharjah to Dubai, which is within a space of 40 minutes. The airline is also leveraging its new aircraft, Boeing 777 aircraft; the same aircraft Emirate also uses to drive patronage on the route.

A travel agent who craved anonymity tells BusinessDay that the airline is still seeing patronage to the route as a result of its reduced ticket fares, but the its Business class seats have not performed so well after the inaugural flight.

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“Nigerians believe in the airline and I believe they are ready to support it. The airline has experienced over 60 percent load factor in its economy seats since it started operations into UAE but business class seats have been relatively low. We believe with time and more awareness, the business class seats will pick up. It’s a new routes and I believe people will build confidence in it with time,” the travel agent says.

Speaking on its code-share arrangements with airlines on the route, Allen Onyema, chairman of AirPeace, said the airline had an agreement with SATA, with the consent of Air Arabia and others to act on their behalf as middlemen.

“With SATA partnership, @Businessdayng

we bring our passengers to Air Arabia, which will take them to the next destinations outside Sharjah. And it is a very seamless arrangement. So, when we check you in, in Nigeria and, for example, if you are going to Jeddah, Mumbai, Medina, New Delhi and some other cities in India and of course even up to Moscow, we put you through SATA or Air Arabia to take you to the next destination.

“Assuming we have connecting passengers like this one, it is a straight connection. We don’t overburden the person’s luggage; we take it to the next flight.

It is seamless arrangement. So, AirPeace is a one-stop shop for people travelling to some cities in Asia,” Onyema said.

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Culture: A necessity to overcome underdevelopment (2) STRATEGY & POLICY

MA JOHNSON

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evelopment cannot take place in an environment where citizens do not have a culture that is compatible with ethics of an industrial society. For us not to be spectators in an age characterized by the fourth industrial revolution, we must urgently begin to examine our values. We must dream technology, think technology and speak technology. If we truly have a desire to be an industrialized nation, our policymakers must master the art and science of transforming our economy to one based on manufacturing. Nigerians like to dress well, and I see no reason why we cannot have a vibrant textile industry in the country. For how long do we want to export crude oil, yam, and pepper, cocoa and so on, when other serious nations are exporting capital goods to our country? There cannot be industrialization without a thriving capital goods sector.

Nigeria cannot be an industrialized country in an unstable polity.

For the past 20 years of democracy, Nigeria has not been able to conduct free and fair elections. This has exacerbated political conflict in our country which is in sharp contrast to the general trend in other parts of the world where democratic governance and industrial advancement are defining characteristics of developed countries. What we have seen on display are different brands of civilian govern-

ments, not democracy per se. We agitated for democracy 20 years ago as a possible answer to the persisting bad governance, instability, , economic stagnation, and insecurity which were recurring features of the country at the time.What we got in return is a nation whose current democratic environment is charged with inter-ethnic and religious hostilities that have unfortunately more violent than what we had during military rule.

So what we have in our hands today is a culture of insecurity: insecurity at individual, state and national levels. At the individual level, citizens are contending with threats daily that prevent them from living well and living a good life. There is no work for 23 percent of our people, while youth unemployment is 36 percent, according to statistics. Nigeria currently leads the world in the number of abjectly poor people living within her borders.

Even the extended family system which is a form of social arrangement representing an innovative anti-poverty strategy for a traditional society like Nigeria has not helped matters in recent times. It is because the middleclass consisting of affluent members of the society which hitherto took the financial burden off the less privileged in the society has weakened. So the ability of the poor to save and invest which are necessary conditions for economic development has diminished drastically.

One can only imagine a situation where a worker with a minimum wage of N30, 000 would have to support an unemployed graduate or cater to the needs of two or more children.

As a way of ameliorating poverty the federal government has been paying N5,000 to the poor in some states. Will this stipend to poor Nigerians tackle poverty? Negative! That is why corruption is inevitable in our society.

Perhaps, more damaging is the fact

that dependence creates a syndicate of ever dependent citizens that may neither fend for themselves effectively nor make positive contributions to the larger society.

At the state level, most people’s lives and properties are not safe because of states’ inability to provide security for their citizens. If we examine human development indicators across states and local government areas, one can see that Nigeria has two countries, according to El-Rufai, the Governor of Kaduna state. According to him, there is the backward, less-educated and unhealthy Northern Nigeria and a developing, largely educated and healthy Southern Nigeria. These regions of the country have their positives and negatives though. However, there is the cry for state police or state policing because the centralised policing system has not worked effectively. This is one of the reasons why vigilantism to control crimes is flourishing in Nigeria.

The extent of our failure to build a Nigerian nation is most manifest at the national level. Some tribes have now emerged, without election, as the masters who control the economy and polity. This is nothing but another variant of colonialism. Lamentably, these new colonial masters are more inept than the colonised: they have attained a position in the polity for which they are ill-prepared. Without anything worthwhile and commendable to offer almost 200 million people, they have over the years reduced the entire society to their own abysmally low level of incompetence and ignorance.

I make bold to state that unless Nigerian citizens are treated fairly, equally and assessed by their expertise and knowledge, Nigeria cannot exist as a cohesive and single corporate entity. As a result, technological and economic developments cannot

‘

I make bold to state that unless Nigerian citizens are treated fairly, equally and assessed by their expertise and knowledge, Nigeria cannot exist as a cohesive and single corporate entity

be achieved rapidly.

Another issue that is responsible for the country’s backwardness is the culture of impunity. A situation where the rich and the poor in the country believe that they can do whatever they want without having to face any consequences for their ugly actions. Murder, kidnapping, banditry, embezzlement and other crimes in the financial and corporate worlds with devastating economic impacts have been met with slaps on the wrist or swept under the carpet.

The Police have barely been held to account for unjustified killings in some parts of the country. From churches, mosques, to university campuses, sexual assaults have been muted in most cases. What about disregard for the rule of law? Some scholars believe that disregard for the rule of law aggravates Nigeria’s security challenges and “it is more damning a form of corruption than stealing of public funds.” One can attribute all this to a failure of leadership in all spheres of our national life.

Nigerians should not have the impression or pretend that we can retain our negative social traits and anti-industry national characteristics and yet build a viable industrial economy. Development is not served on a platter of gold; we have to consistently work to achieve it. The country cannot succeed in overcoming underdevelopment without adapting its culture to modern realities and borrowing broadly from the cultures of the West and Asia that are at the forefront of economic and technological development. The National Orientation Agency, a body tasked among other responsibilities to promote patriotism, national unity and development of the Nigerian society should wake up from its slumber.

Thank you!

Johnson is an author and a retired naval engineer who has passion for African development and good governance

Laying the markers for a new Imo

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t may seem early in the day but the signs are good; very good indeed. It is such an exhilarating feeling to observe all the good behaviours and best practices one had written about and wished for in the last three decades unfold before one’s eyes.

It is not only that it is happening in one’s lifetime, but the fact that one is a participantobserver. Not a better feeling in a long time, one must confess. Again, the natural reaction is to argue that it’s too early to call, but then, it is said that morning tells the day. And as the Igbo say, a good farmer can tell a ripened corn by sight. You need not pinch the sheaf to know it’s ready for harvest.

The blitzkrieg of activities of last week finally left me with no doubt that Imo is on to a big deal this time.

First, an extraordinary Executive Council (ExCo) meeting which had in attendance, paramount monarchs of Imo, industry leaders and heads of all the banks in the state was convened.

Purpose of this expanded (and extended) ExCo is to intimate critical stakeholders about Executive Order 005. This implies that Imo State henceforth adopts the Single Treasury Account (TSA). Apart from the Federal Government, Kaduna is the only other state in Nigeria which has adopted a similitude of the TSA. Hitherto, Imo was akin to an economic and financial gangland where the fastest to draw the gun kills the other. There were over 250 bank accounts purportedly operated by the state government: every ministry, department, agency and even individuals opened multiple

and parallel accounts on behalf of government.

State revenue was a bazaar with a plethora of collection contractors. It was largely collect and keep; finders-keepers. While Government House, aka first family, sat firmly on FAAC and lump-sum IGR takings, other denizens of the jungle scrambled over the remains of the feast.

That was how come Imo State’s IGR record was a joke - about the least in the South-East. And Imo was supposedly an oil-producing state.

In just a couple of weeks, the Dr. Abraham Nwankwo-led Imo State Financial Advisory Committee has its interim report ready. Dr. Nwankwo was director-general of Nigeria’s Debt Management Office (DMO) for about a decade. Prior to the DMO job, he had a stint as Senior Advisor in the World Bank. There couldn’t have been a better choice for the job.

In just a couple of weeks again, the intractable Imo pensions scheme has been unravelled as the Pensions Review Committee in conjunction with consultants presented an interim report.

Verdict: the last proper payment of pension was in 2014; no accurate database of the pension system in Imo State; payment of pension became a racket in the last four years as the system was managed by various contractors.

It was a huge payday for jobbers while retired workers lived in pain and penury.

It has therefore been decided that Imo must urgently migrate to electronic database platforms for her pension scheme. This means that there shall be electronic capture of pensioners. This means that no more carrying of appointment and retirement letters, no more www.businessday.ng

tedious and expensive verifications, no more long queues and delays in payment of pensioners, no more fraud in the pension scheme and the ability of the government to plan and project its pensions outlay over many years is most salutary.

This is the new regime that will kick in for Imo pensioners this year. Imo pensioners are indeed in for a good time under Governor Emeka Ihedioha. Contributory pension will follow after the system has been revamped and benchmarked under current best practices around.

The committee on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is hard at work.

The state health insurance scheme to cover the entire 305 wards of Imo State is being aggressively pursued. It is a tacky issue but not an insurmountable problem. As the bureaucratic knots are being carefully untied, the governor let it be known that “We have the political will to wring change in this state.” It is always a reassuring charge to members, especially hiimpact members of his team who are burning for a rapid reform of the odious status quo.

Debris of the mis-governance of the past eight years is being removed on all fronts. The taps in Owerri city had been dry for many years.

This has necessitated urgent rehabilitation of the Otamiri Water Scheme. It had been dysfunctional and abandoned for years. Work has commenced and taps will run again in Owerri soon.

TSA, pension scheme, National Health Insurance Scheme, public water supply, a return to the UN system through the return of UNICEF. If you didn’t see the connection here,

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Steve Osuji what about the return of the World Bank Group to Imo State after a long hiatus?

The immediate past administration of Governor Rochas Okorocha was of course not up and doing in paying counterpart funds; in addition, its officials were alleged to have sought to compromise the bank’s team which supposedly led to their retreat for about two years. It was nigh impossible dealing with the last government, they determined.

Last week, a team from the World Bank/ International Development Association led by Mr. Salisu Dahiru met with Governor Ihedioha in Government House Owerri. They were later to flag off the Ezemazu-Urualla Gully Erosion control project in Ideato North. It is a project under the World Bank/NEWMAP programme on erosion and watershed management.

Note: the rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https:// businessday.ng Osuji is Special Adviser (Media) to the Imo State governor

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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African SEZs & GVCs in the age of automation (3)

Rafiq Raji

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write a monthly research paper series for NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies at Nanyang Business School in Singapore.

The following is the third and final part of the highlights of the issue published in June 2019.

Way forward China, India and other Asian countries are already entrenched in global value chains (GVC). Automation might have completely diminished the opportunity for the migration of labour-intensive manufacturing to Africa by the time the continent deals with its competitiveness challenges. Thus, over time, there would increasingly be less scope for African Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to participate in GVCs. All is not lost, however. Domestic markets would still be able to accommodate some types of manufactured goods. The most attractive sectors are ideally “consumer-facing” and “infrastructure-related”.

With aprojected revenue increase of $122 billion over the next decade, agro-processing is one. Cement production and clothing and footwear, with projected revenue increases of $72 billion and $27 billion over the next decade respectively, are also thought to be attractive. Automobiles and consumer goods are promising manufacturing subsectors as well.

And depending on the ambitions of the manufacturers and prevailing trade dynamics, these ventures could be extended region-wide or across the continent. Thus, the primary objective of African SEZs should now be to engender intra-African trade.

They could also be used as reform labs, like China and closer to home, Mauritius, have done. Clearly, local firms would be crucial to such a strategic re-orientation. African SEZs should thus see local firms as their primary targets.

Use SEZs as reform labs The concept of an “Early Reform Zone” (ERZ) is proposed. ERZs are designed to be oases of sanity in typically dysfunctional economies.

So, whereas firms in the broader economy might suffer from a lack of quality infrastructure, red tape, and myriad challenges, ERZs circumvent all these. The so-called “secondgeneration” SEZs differ from the first-generation ones along the following lines. They are not subsidized, thus not as capital-intensive as their forebears. And since they are literally

designed to be permanent, there is no time pressure. Another key distinction of ERZs is speed. ERZs almost momentarily create the conditions for firms to be globally competitive within a specific geographic area in an otherwise distorted economy.

Build strong linkages with the local economy As opposed to the current practice of targeting foreign investment, African SEZs should increasingly look towards domestic firms. It is not a novel idea. Local firms have over time come to dominate SEZs in Malaysia, Korea, and Mauritius. It has also recently been observed to be the case in China. Emerging Asian countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam are also beginning to record a higher level of participation by local investors in their respective special economic zones. This has not been found to be the case in many African countries, at least not materially as yet. It explains their underperformance in part.

Foreign firms can be fickle. And once they leave, without having already been integrated with local firms, with the expected attendant knowledge and technology transfer, they depart with the envisaged advantages of attracting them in the first place.

Nonetheless, African SEZs have primarily been designed to be “enclaves” for foreign investors. In light of evidence, in East Asia, for instance, that show a strong correlation between SEZ performance and linkages

‘

As opposed to the current practice of targeting foreign investment, African SEZs should increasingly look towards domestic firms.

It is not a novel idea. Local firms have over time come to dominate SEZs in Malaysia, Korea, and Mauritius

to the local economy, African zones would be well-advised to do the same. This could be done through deliberate local content policies by governments. Joint ventures with local firms are also another way to achieve this. That said, the ease of collaboration between foreign and domestic firms has been found to be dependent on sector dynamics. In other words, local firms might be better collaborators and participants in the value chain of a less complicated sector like agriculture but not in ones that require greater technological know-how, for instance.

Plug into intra-African GVCs Automation and Industry 4.0 suggest Africa’s place in global value chains, not remarkable at the moment in any case, may be nonexistent if and when it finally gets its act together. This is because GVCs themselves might have become obsolete by then, with production and consumption becoming domestic or regional. In any case, there is already an opportunity to develop regional GVCs via the respective regional customs unions on the continent. And with the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) now to be operationalized, there is a broader continental opportunity.

“Dr Raji is chief economist at Macroafricaintel.

He was previously an Africa Economist at Standard Chartered Bank, London, UK. (Twitter: @ DrRafiqRaji)”

Is “reverse charge” alien to Nigeria’s body of tax laws?

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n one of the landmark cases on Value Added Tax in Nigeria recently decided by the Court of Appeal between Vodacom v Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), one of the issues formulated for determination was whether the lower court (Federal High Court) was correct in law when it applied “Reverse Charge” and “destination principle” without recourse to the fact that there exists no Nigerian statute establishing those principles. It was further stated that by invoking these concepts, the lower court engaged in judicial speculation on the principles of VAT Act in Nigeria.

The issue of VAT on imported services has been a subject of intense debate in recent times. My article on VAT published earlier in year and titled “Nigerian VAT Act, Non-Resident Companies (NRCs) and Multi-Location Entities (MLEs): The Unsettled Matter of Imported Services” substantially addressed the other issues determined by the Court of Appeal. Therefore, I will not belabor this intervention with the contentious issue of whether services rendered by a non-resident company to a taxpayer in Nigeria is “vatable” or whether VAT in Nigeria finds its taxable event strictly within the bright-line definition of what constitutes a good or service, based on the combined reading of the provisions of S2(1), S10 (1)(2)(3), S11(1) and S13 of the Act. Consequently, this article will focus exclusively on the existence, or otherwise, of reverse charge in the body of tax laws in Nigeria.

Value Added Tax or VAT (otherwise known as Goods and Services Tax or GST) is chargeable on the supply of taxable goods and services except items specifically stated as exempt or zero-rated as listed in the first

schedule to the Act. The relevant law on VAT is the VAT Act, Laws of the Federation (LFN) 2004 as amended. The incidence of VAT is borne by the buyer or consumer. However, the tax burden is not in all cases borne by those who are legally required to pay the tax as it is sometimes transferrable.

The concept of reverse charge (also referred to as “tax shift”) has its origin in the European Union (EU) single market. Reverse charge mechanism essentially transfers the responsibility for VAT compliance and reporting from the seller to the buyer of a good or service thereby reducing the requirement for sellers to register for VAT in the relevant taxing jurisdiction - the country where the supply is made. The overarching objective is to reduce the cost of administering the tax where the supplier of “vatable” goods or services is located in a different tax jurisdiction. Since the basic idea behind reverse charge is a shift in the compliance burden from the supplier to the consumer, let us then examine the VAT Act if there are equivalent provisions in Nigeria.

Section 14 of the Act requires that a taxable person “shall on supplying taxable goods or services collect the tax on those goods or services”. It is clear from this provision that the duty to deduct and remit VAT resides with the supplier. However, S13(1) requires ministries, statutory bodies or other government agencies to deduct and remit the tax charged when making payment to contractors thus reversing the compliance obligation. Please there is no distinction between local or foreign contractors here. Therefore, even if we assume, without yielding, that the concept is only applicable to cross-border transactions, there is a clear presence of reverse charge principle in the Nigerian VAT Act consistent,

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in both substance and form, with the OECD VAT/GST Guidelines.

In the same vein, S13(2) of the VAT Act states that the service may, by notice, determine and direct companies operating in the oil and gas sector which shall deduct VAT at source and remit same to the Service.

Pursuant to this provision, the FIRS in 2007 issued the Guideline on the Implementation of VAT Deduction (Reverse Charge) and New Payment Arrangement with Respect to Fees, Levies, and other Charges Payable by Companies in the Oil and Gas Industry. While a Guideline or Notice by FIRS or state IRS may not have legal force, but to the extent that the said Guideline derives directly from and is not inconsistent with the provision of S12(2), the principle of reverse charge cannot be more explicit.

I think the real argument is not whether the principle of reverse charge is alien to the body of Nigeria’s tax laws but whether it is applicable on imported services. This is against the backdrop of the varying construction being ascribed to S10(1)(2) of the Act, compounded by the absence of bordergate enforcement of VAT on services, unlike physical goods, “supplied in” Nigeria to recipients outside the oil and gas sector and government agencies. The answer to that question depends on the interpretation of S10(2):“a non-resident company shall include the tax in its invoice and the person to whom the goods or services are supplied in Nigeria shall remit the tax in the currency of the transaction”.

The above provision seems to have allocated the responsibility to remit (and not necessarily to deduct) VAT to the consumer in Nigeria while the duty to invoice, is ceded to

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Glenn Ubohmhe the non-resident company. What this means is that the duty to deduct VAT on foreign supplies sits in an ambiguous equidistant position between the foreign supplier and the consumer in Nigeria. If the duty to remit VAT on imported services by a company or consumer in Nigerianecessarily implies the duty to deduct, it would then be safe to conclude that S10 recognises reverse charge. If, however, the duties are separate, the principle of reverse does not apply.

In sum, based on the provisions of S13(1) (2), to claim that the principle of reverse charge is alien to the body of Nigerian tax laws may not be quite exact. Although the phrase “reverse charge” is not specifically stated but the principles are contained in the Act. After all, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. In fact, with regard to S13(1) (2), it is a duck. However, it is not so clear-cut with S10(2).

Ubohmhe is a Chartered Tax Practitioner, is a Fellow of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria and Chartered Institute of Taxation in Nigeria Glenn is a tax practitioner. He has B.Sc (Acct), MSc (Energy Fin.), LLM (Petroleum Tax. & Fin), MBA, ACA, ACTI.

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDITORIAL Unhappy Nigerians and where to find them Publisher/CEO

Frank Aigbogun editor Patrick Atuanya

DEPUTY EDITORS John Osadolor, Abuja Bill Okonedo NEWS EDITOR Chuks Oluigbo EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS Fabian Akagha EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STRATEGY, INNOVATION & PARTNERSHIPS Oghenevwoke Ighure GENERAL MANAGER, ADVERT Adeola Ajewole ADVERT MANAGER Ijeoma Ude FINANCE MANAGER Emeka Ifeanyi MANAGER, CONFERENCES & EVENTS Obiora Onyeaso BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER (South East, South South) Patrick Ijegbai CIRCULATION MANAGER John Okpaire DIGITAL SALES MANAGER Linda Ochugbua ASSIST. SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Florence Kadiri

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ll happy Nigerians have some things in common, unhappy Nigerians are unhappy in their own way, to rephrase Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist. Based on inflation and unemployment, what economists call the “twin evils”, Nigerians everywhere, irrespective of geopolitical location, are unhappy. Some are just unhappier than others.

Using a combination of price levels and rates of unemployment BusinessDay published a list of the happiest and worst states to live in Nigeria lately.

The misery index – originally developed by Art Okun, an economist, and updated by Steve Hankes, another American professor of economics – measures how happy citizens are with their lives at a particular moment.

Osun, Oyo, Katsina, Lagos and Ogun states were the least miserable in Nigeria. Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Kano, Bayelsa and Borno were the bottom five.

The index measures misery in relation to other states. It is not a right to brag that my state is

better than yours.

A relatively lower cost of living and rate of joblessness is what the top five have in common, except for Lagos with an inflation rate higher than national average of 11.31% (as at April 2019).

Bayelsa, however, has one of the lowest rates of inflation but an unemployment rate of 32.56% (way above the 23% for the country). This makes its citizens among the most miserable in the country. Its fellow oil-rich state, Rivers, is the second-most miserable despite being the third-largest recipient of money the federal government allocates monthly.

It received N119 billion in 2018 from the Federal Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). The large quantities of oil pumped, and consequently a bigger allocation, has not provided the citizens of Akwa Ibom any relief. The coastal state has the highest unemployment rate.

Elsewhere, inflation and unemployment are politically sensitive issues. A slight rise in the price of bread has caused riots and almost toppled governments.

In Nigeria, a coping mecha-

nism to “manage it like that”, to hope tomorrow will be better, to equate the rice and cash shared during election campaigns as a share of the “national cake”, allows politicians to get away with murder – the millions of children and women that die daily from preventable diseases, the thousands that die on bad roads, the poor, uneducated youth forced into banditry, terrorism, kidnapping, and prostitution.

As newly and re-elected governors will have discovered within their first week in office, their states are in terrible financial conditions. There is debt to be repaid, unpaid salaries to pay plus a new minimum wage, all of which the monthly hand-out from Abuja cannot cover. The recovery and eventual sharing of some of the Abacha loot won’t do either. The excess crude account has been squandered.

What’s more, the money each state gets from taxes and levies i.e. Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) is meagre. In addition, despite showing signs of a slow but uneven recovery during 2017/18, the economy is still a long way

from the average growth rate of 6.22% in 2014. Besides, oil, the major source of government revenue, is one shock away from a calamity.

Consequently, the situation is unlikely to be same as usual.

Governors should expect their citizens to demand delivery of promises made on the campaign.

To expect otherwise would be to underestimate the visible and direct effects of unemployment and inflation. Job loss and an income unable to keep up with the price of food are clear and present worries.

As usual, most clueless governors will probably play the divide and rule game.

For the five others who will and are able to do something, we suggest they be less FAAC-focused.

They need to appoint capable advisers with ideas on how federal powers, on say, the sale of some assets can be transferred to them.

This should be in order for them execute capital expenditures not on the basis of the votes it can reap in four years but on the jobs they can generate, the lives they can save and the number of children they can educate.

GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (North)

Bashir Ibrahim Hassan

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

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Dick Kramer - Chairman Imo Itsueli Mohammed Hayatudeen Afolabi Oladele Vincent Maduka Keith Richards Opeyemi Agbaje Amina Oyagbola Bolanle Onagoruwa Fola Laoye Chuka Mordi Mezuo Nwuneli Charles Anudu Tunji Adegbesan Eyo Ekpo

Enquiries NEWS ROOM 08169609331 08116759816 Lagos 08033160837 Abuja

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ADVERTISING 01-2799108 08034743892 08033225506 SUBSCRIPTIONS 01-2799101 07032496069 07054563299 DIGITAL SERVICES 08026011296 www.businessday.ng The Brook, 6 Point Road, GRA, Apapa, Lagos, Nigeria.

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Mission Statement To be a diversified provider of superior business, financial and management intelligence across platforms accessible to our customers anywhere in the world.

OUR Core Values

BusinessDay avidly thrives on the mainstay of our core values of being The Fourth Estate, Credible, Independent, Entrepreneurial and Purpose-Driven.

• The Fourth Estate: We take pride in being guarantors of liberal economic thought • Credible: We believe in the principle of being objective, fair and fact-based • Independent: Our quest for liberal economic thought means that we are independent of private and public interests.

• Entrepreneurial: We constantly search for new opportunities, maintaining the highest ethical standards in all we do • Purpose-Driven: We are committed to assembling a team of highly talented and motivated people that share our vision, while treating them with respect and fairness. www.businessday.ng

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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20 years of ambivalent governance reforms in Nigeria The Reformer

JOE ABAH

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his year, Nigeria marks 20 years of unbroken democratic rule, the longest in its history. This is a big deal, particularly as military rule, which Nigeria was under for a large part of its history, does not ordinarily lend itself to accountability and due process.

Democracy provides an opportunity to ensure that government focuses on what citizens want. After all, free and fair elections are the ultimate accountability mechanism in a democracy. It gives citizens the opportunity to reject the leaders that they do not want and get others that they want, an opportunity that citizens are denied under military dictatorships.

However, although accountability and due process are important aspects of governance, they are not the only ones. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation defines Governance as “The provision of political, social and economic goods that citizens have a right to expect and that a state has the responsibility to deliver.” Similarly, Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution prioritises the welfare and security of citizens as the primary purpose of government.

Governance is generally measured against three main criteria: how government delivers public goods to its citizens; the checks and balances through which government is held accountable for its actions; and the ability of citizens to participate in the process of governance. Quite often, particularly in a ‘young’ democracy with a high incidence of corruption, a lot of the focus is on the second measure: accountability and checks and balances.

Apart from physical infrastructure, specifically roads, citizens and civil society organisations do not focus sufficiently on the first measure: how government delivers public goods like education, healthcare, sanitation or policing. The third measure, the ability of citizens to participate in the process of governance is often narrowly defined to mean the right to seek elective office, rather than the wider right to have a say in the way that society is governed.

Over the last 20 years, Nigeria has made some progress on all three fronts but that progress can often appear reluctant, half-hearted and ambivalent. In terms of how public goods are delivered, we undertook much-needed pension reforms, particularly as many people were retiring without any guarantee that they would actually ever receive a pension.

We also undertook a process of privatisation which relieved government of the burden of spending huge amounts of money on moribund and unproductive state-owned enterprises.

We strengthened our tax administration system, put in place a due process and public procurement regime, embarked on limited reform of the civil service, and reformed some previouslyunderperforming organisations and created vibrant new organisations.

Recently, we have put in place an ease-of-doing-business regime that is beginning to change how some public goods are delivered. For instance, it is becoming easier to register companies, obtain tax clearance certificates and clear goods at the ports. The visa-onarrival regime also makes it easier for businesspersons to come into Nigeria.

However, the process of obtaining a Nigerian passport is still tortuous and the passenger experience at our international airports remains variable.

Our civil service remains weak.

Although a Federal Civil Service Strategy is in place, its effectiveness is constrained by the non-adoption of the National Strategy for Public Service Reforms. Many of the issues bedevilling the civil service, including appointment, promotion, discipline and pay,

are outside the control of the Head of the Civil Service. There is still no link between government priorities and the job descriptions of individual civil servants, so people are not clear what they are coming to work to do on a Monday morning. Without focusing on the external levers that affect the civil service, the effects of any civil service reform efforts will be limited.

We have made some process in revamping our transportation system.

Trains are beginning to run again, we are expanding the use of our inland waterways, airports are being remodelled and upgraded and major roads are being built. However, we have focused more on building roads than on building people.

Our education system has not seen much beneficial reforms and our healthcare system is heavily underwhelming. Water provision is poor and sanitation is one of the worst in the world. Insecurity remains a major source of worry for many citizens and it is clear that major reforms are required in the security sector. Despite many attempts at reform, very many promises and the expenditure of trillions of Naira, Nigerians still do not have adequate and stable electricity.

In terms of checks and balances through which government can be held accountable for its actions, we embarked on a deep process of public financial management reforms. These include making the budget publicly available, putting in place a national chart of accounts, introducing a Government Integrated Financial Information System, computerising the government payroll, and publishing allocations to states and local governments.

Our civil society organisations have grown in competence and confidence and are now able to ask searching questions on how public money is expended. We also started the process of reforming the justice sector to enable it to fulfil its proper role as an independent arm of government.

On the other hand, until recently when it passed an Audit Act, the Na-

‘

The biggest gap, for me, is the lack of a sense of a ‘movement’: the feeling among the populace that something good is happening

tional Assembly had not taken seriously the role of audit as a tool of accountability. Reports from NEITI are not taken seriously and the National Assembly does not itself often comply with the Freedom of Information Act that it passed in 2011. This means that, save for the annual ritual of budget defences, the National Assembly has largely left its key role of external accountability to civil society organisations.

On the third measure relating to the ability of citizens to participate in the process of governance, a number of electoral reforms have been undertaken. Significantly the “Not too young to run” Act was put in place in 2018, which reduced the age at which people could seek elective office. Nigeria also joined the Open Government Partnership in 2016, a key element of which is the co-creation, with civil society, of a national action plan for reforms.

In this way, civil society organisations can participate directly in the process of governance by helping to design reforms, track implementation and report progress against agreed actions.

Through the commendable efforts at the National Bureau of Statistics, people now have access to important and credible national statistics. Procurement reforms mean that citizens should be able to bid for government contracts through an open, competitive process.

The planned introduction of electronic procurement and ‘Open Contracting’ will make this easier.

A whistleblowing policy is in place and has recorded some success. However, citizens still do not get sufficient opportunities to contribute to such governance processes as development planning, budget development by ministries, departments and agencies, or the setting of government’s spending priorities.

Note: the rest of this article continues in the online edition of Business Day @https://businessday.ng Dr Abah is a development practitioner and the immediate past Director-General of the Bureau of Public Service Reforms.

Stretching democracy into economy: The case for democratic business enterprises “

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e are in a situation where we think that enormously complex organisations, such as cities and nation-states (even in developing nations where many people cannot read or write) can be run democratically. But, on the question of whether we could have democracy at the work place (in a highly developed country like ours), there is almost a thought ban.” This was Bo Rothstein’s lament in Can We Do It Ourselves, a fascinating documentary on ‘economic democracy’. Rothstein is Professor of Government and Public Policy at the University of Oxford.

In the documentary, economic democracy is defined: participants in economic institutions decide the policies of the institution. Economic democracy could be practised in any economic institution: factories, shops, universities, private or state-owned business. ‘Stakeholder capitalism’ ‘shared capitalism’ ‘participatory economics’ ‘shared prosperity’ ‘democratic firms’ are all different descriptions of this idea that is gaining more and more thought-space in policy circles and think tanks in the U.K. Growing inequality, wage stagnation and more workers (salary earners) in poverty are all signs of a failing economic system, so say economic democrats. This new form of capitalism will ensure redistribution of economic power. Just as democratic politics ensures everybody has political power and rights,

democratic economics will put economic power in the hands of the common worker.

The democratic firm should not be confused with a state-controlled centrally-planned firm of a communist country. In fact, most large capitalist corporations today are actually run like centrally-planned organizations from the Cold War era.

Ronald Coase, who won the Economics Nobel Prize for his theory of the firm, could not understand why, ironically, most capitalist firms were managed like centrally-controlled authoritarian bureaucracies. Coase questioned why firms exist in the first place: why not transact all business directly with the market? Each transaction with the market has a cost: hiring an employee will save the business owner the trouble of having to go to the market every time she needs that kind of person to perform a task. So, according to Coase, the firm is a place for long-term contracts that save the business owner the transaction costs of continuous short-term contracts. But Coase did not answer the question why firms, particularly large firms, are centrally-planned or undemocratic.

Matthew Lawrence is the Director of the influential new think tank Common Wealth. In an essay published in April this year he wrote: “There is little point in replacing the centralised bureaucracy of private corporations with

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centralised state bureaucracies that ignore the tacit knowledge and capability of ordinary people and communities. Too often this was the case in previous shifts of ownership; what was intended to disperse economic power led to its concentration, whether nationalisation or privatisation.

The point is to effect not just a shift in economic power, but a change in the structure of feeling in economic life, to radically broaden who has a stake and a say, individually and collectively. This will require strengthened avenues of worker voice and alternative forms of management to the present.”

Research has revealed connection between shared capitalism practices and worker wellbeing, productivity, high performance of firms managed this way. But, the question is why should a business owner give up part of the ownership (or policy making rights) of her business to an employee? After all, the entrepreneur may have used her life savings and all her creativity to start her business. David Ellerman is the author of the book ‘The Democratic Firm’. Ellerman believes that firms today actually ‘rent’ people as employees, when workers should be partners: the renting of persons is similar to the renting of cars or other property.

Ellerman argues that just as voluntary and involuntary slavery have been abolished by Law, the renting of persons must be abolished too.

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Uyiosa Omoregie But the employer will state that it is the services of the employee that is rented, not the person. In practice, only in negatively circumstances is it clear within the Law that a person actually cannot be separated from his actions or services. If the employer involves the employee in a crime, the employee is equally liable as the employer in the crime (not just his actions or services but him as a person will be on trial). The employer has rented the person not just the person’s skills or services.

So, according to Ellerman, the proper democratic practice is for the worker as partner in the firm he works in (with a negotiated stake in the business) instead of working as a rented person.

Omoregie is a certified management consultant and a fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants He can be contacted at uyiosaomoregie@yahoo.co.uk

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 25 June 2019

BUSINESS DAY

AVIATION GUIDE

in association with

Lagos Aviation Academy recounts half year 2019 milestones …as NCAA approves LAA as training organization Stories by IFEOMA OKEKE

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agos Aviation Academy (LAA), one of the fastest growing aviation schools in Nigeria has been enlisted by the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) as an Approved Training Organization (ATO) which is one of its major milestones in the first half of the year 2019.

This feat enables the academy to run additional courses such as the Cabin Crew Ab-Initio Programme and the Basic Flight Dispatcher Course.

Bankole Bernard, the Academy’s Director, attributed the success to LAA’s dedication to its core values which are: Knowledge, Integrity, Excellence, Ownership, and Collaboration.

According to Bernard, LAA is focused on giving out quality service adding that the academy does its best to ensure that everyone who comes into the academy gets the very best, with a vision to train seasoned professionals who would compete out there.

“We will achieve this in our relentless pursuit for excellence. We will also rise to the level of competing with other international aviation institutions in the nearest future.

We are proud of the results we are getting at

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this stage of our growth and we will not relent on our efforts in attaining even greater feats,” he added.

Chinasa Mbene, LAA’s general manager, said “LAA has experienced an accelerated growth over the years because we have fixed our eyes on the ball by committing to our core values. In the first half of this year we have graduated over 70 students which is a good one for us and we are proud to announce it to the world.

“Taking a look at it from an outsiders view, the figures may look small but for a school that has started in less than three years, we have made substantive progress. On the strength of this, we wish to reassure our students, intending students and stakeholders in the industry that LAA remains committed to providing the

best and we will push harder to ensure that we rise above expectations,” she said.

In another feat, within the first half of the year 2019, the academy produced the IATA Best Performer in Nigeria in the March 2019 ‘Managing the Travel Business Course’.

Adeola Alade who emerged the overall best student in the IATA Managing the Travel Business Course commended the academy, adding that “Coming to LAA was one of the best choices I ever made. Thanks to the conducive learning environment and the instructors, learning was memorable for me “Not only did I get a distinction in the international exam, I also emerged with the best result for the March 2019 exam session. The school offered me an automatic employment afterwards but I chose to pursue my own travel business. I’m yet to see an Aviation school with professional facilitators as that of Lagos Aviation Academy. I’m glad that LAA is part of my success story and I’ll always recommend LAA to anyone who really wants to pursue a career in Travel and Tourism,” Adeola said.

Lagos Aviation Academy (LAA) is an IATA Authorized and NCAA Approved Training Organization situated in the central district of Lagos Mainland. The Academy commenced operations in the year 2017 with the objective of raising competent aviation professionals in the industry.

Travel business to get boost as West Africa targets $57 investment in Ports, rail sector

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ith new investments in excess of $57 billion for the ports, road and rail transport sector, the travel business is likely to be the first to be impacted directly and indirectly by the development. As West African countries will later this month meet in Lagos to chart path to integrated ports, road and rail transport sector, experts in the travel and aviation sector have said the investment will have ripple effect on ease of travelling from one country to another.

The new cooperation, which is the central focus of the West African Ports and Rail Evolution Event (WA-PoRa) holding in Lagos, is in lieu of emerging needs and opportunities from economic integration in the region.

Experts, at a roundtable meeting recently, were unanimous that the West African transportation corridor is arguably the least integrated passage in the world, despite enormous opportunities that abound.

With a teeming population of well over 390 million and high economic growth index in some of the countries, there is now a greater impetus on the part of governments of the ECOWAS States to help speed up and sustain economic growth through a regional integration transport policy to link West African cities and states together via ports, rail and road.

Graham Lawal, managing director, Grolla Port Services, said the West African trade is booming, as more shipping lines are finding their way to the ports.

Air Peace Boss sets tone for panel discussions at LAAC conference

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llen Onyema, the Chairman of Air Peace will set the tone for panel discussions at the forthcoming 23rd Annual Conference of the League of Airport and Aviation Correspondents (LAAC), which will see CEOs of airlines discuss burning industry issues with heads of aviation agencies and other industry stakeholders.

Nick Fadugba, the President of African Business Aviation Association (AfBAA) and Chief Executive Officer of African Aviation Services Limited, has equally confirmed participation at the conference that has as theme: ‘Boosting Aviation Investment Through Policy.”

The conference will hold on Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at Radisson Blu Hotel, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.

Onyema has a wealth of experience in the aviation industry, having established Air Peace in 2014 with just seven aircraft, which has grown to over 20 in less than five years.

The airline is the fastest growing carrier in the entire West and Central African region,

connecting major cities in Nigeria, West Africa while plans have reached an advanced stage to expand its wings to the Middle East and other long haul routes.

Fadugba, a former Secretary General, African Airlines Association (AFRAA) was Co-Chairman, African Airlines/MRO Africa Technical Committee on Line Maintenance Co-operation & Spares Pooling in Africa, Co-Chairman, African Airlines/ MRO Africa Technical Committee on Aviation Standards & Regulations Harmonization in Africa, Advisor, Association of African Aviation Training Organizations (AATO) and Lead Moderator, Single African Air Transport Market (SAATM) official launch discussion at African Union (AU) Headquarters, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Apart from Onyema and Fadugba, other major players and airline operators expected to participate in this conference include Dapo Oyeleke, managing director, Bristow Helicopters, Jacky Hathiramani, managing director, Dana Airlines, Ado Sanusi, managing director, Aero, amongst others.

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L-R: Ude Okoli, head chef, Kol’s Bistro and Bakery; Mbari Uno, Hub manager; Julia Obinna, unit head, Aziza Design, Ese Ebojie; director/Co-founder, Mbari Uno, Chuma Anagbado at the official Launch of Mbari Uno(House of Collaboration).

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Monday 15 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

COMPANIES & MARKETS

COMPANY NEWS ANALYSIS INSIGHT

Consumer Goods

Apapa Gridlock, economic headwinds weaken Flour Mills improved Q4 2018/19 performance OLUFIKAYO OWOEYE

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arshoperating environment heightened by logistics challenges in Apapa, and economic headwinds ensured an unimpressive performance for food and agro-allied company, Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc. Figures from the company’s financial result show that revenue plummeted from N542.67bn in 2018 to N527.4bn in 2019. Cost of sale grew from N473.8bn in 2018 to N474.05bn in 2019.

Profit after Tax also dropped from 16.39bn to 9.94bn in 2019.

Selling and Distribution expenses ballooned from N6.18bn in 2018 to N8.16bn in 2019, with advertisement expenses surging from N671.63mn in 2018 to 1.79bn in 2019, selling expenses also increased from N3.67bn to N3.73bn in 2019.

Administrative expenses remain flat at N19.42bn however, General administrative expenses surged from 1.32bn in 2018 to 2.30bn in 2019, salaries,

wages and other staff costs, increased from N5.64bn to N6.6bn in 2019.

Gross profit from it revenue segment dropped from N68.7bn in 2018 to N53.34bn in 2019.

Analysis from its segment show significant drop in three of its four revenue segment.

Revenue from its food segment which is the milling and sales of flour, rice and production, sales of pasta, snacks, sugar and noodles, tanked from N345.7 bn in 2018 to N335.6bn in 2019.

Revenue from its Agro Allied, which involves farming of maize, cassava, soya, sugar cane and oil palm and

production and sales of fertilizer, edible oils and livestock feeds, also dropped from N90.68bn in 2018 to N88.10bn in 2019.

Revenue from its Sugar segment which involves the planting and processing of sugarcane, refining and selling of sugar, and sale of by-products from

sugar refining, dropped from N86.18bn in 2018 to N82.69bn in 2019. Revenue from its Support Services however surged slightly from N20.09bn in 2018 to N20.99bn Earlier this year, shareholders of the company approved a scheme of arrangement to transfer exist-

ing assets in one of its division Golden Penny Fertilizer to its wholly owned agro allied company Golden Fertilizer Company Limited. This will make Golden Fertilizer Company Limited will serve as the Holding company for all its Agroallied businesses.

Flour Mills of Nigeria Plc (FMN) was incorporated on 29th September, 1960 as a private limited liability company with a paid-up share capital of N1 million and converted to a public company in November 1978.

The group is primarily engaged in flour milling; production of pasta, noodles, edible oil and refined sugar; production of livestock feeds; farming and other agro-allied activities; distribution and sales of fertilizer; manufacturing and marketing of laminated woven polypropylene sacks and flexible packaging materials.

Flour Mills is also involved in ports operation of Terminals A and B at the Apapa Port, as well as shipping logistics. Shares of Flour mills traded at N16.20 on the floor of the exchange, with one year return down by 42.46percent

Technology

Energy360 Africa launches digital software for downstream market, fuel station optimisation AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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nergy360 Africa, a data analytics and technology solutions firm, has launched innovative cloud-based software to help downstream oil and gas sector to optimise fuel station operations and ensure proper control business activities in the stations.

The software, known as E360 Station Manager, was designed to centralise data across multiple fuel outlets owned by the same company, allowing for greater insights into stock levels, pump activities, pricing, margin management, historic

sales trends, expenses and customer behaviours across the outlets.

E360 Station Manager also offers other services including, station analytics which caters for businesses that run multiple stations, delivers realtime data from their network of stations at any time and location.

With the software, businesses would be equipped to handle big data; sales, stock, payments and other operational information that are aggregated to provide holistic visibility of the stations, thus enabling for accurate decision making.

Energy360 also rolled out software known as

e360 Volex, which offers businesses flexibility and improved controls over fuel management through access to real-time data from fuel points. It also features a secure payment integration to allow businesses receive payments seamlessly (especially from their B2B customers).

Speaking at the unveiling in Lagos recently, , Abayomi Elebute, chief executive officer of Energy 360 Africa, said the E360 station manager will help clients to manage, monitor and simplify their station processes and ensure they are on top of their sales and product levels.

According to him, En-

ergy360 Africa came up with the software to support the oil and gas downstream sector and help them reduce losses by at least 60 percent.

He said e360 Volex will help to boost the revenue of fuel businesses through fleet and customer loyalty programs that eradicates price change fraud and competitor pricing analysis.

“Prior to E360 Africa launch, these services were lacking in Nigerian downstream sector. Now, we have revolutionised the industry as we now cater for over 155 stations across over 18 cities in Nigeria. We hope to expand our services to other

African markets going by the tremendous feedback we are receiving from our clients and requests from other African markets,” said Ebenezer Maduako, head, Business Development.

He further said Energy 360 Africa offers services that would help oil and gas companies to cut down losses through cutting edge reconciliation and fraud analysis, adding that the software enables customers to get alerts on stock and sales exceptions, proof of deliveries and automated replenishment, forecasting and reducing the risk of fuel scarcity.

Energy360 also has a

bouquet known as Fuel Authorization & Management System (FAMS), a comprehensive cloudbased solution designed for the administration and control of platforms, processes and systems that guarantees the ability to accurately account for fuel products, either individually or collectively, at points of receipt, storage, distribution, consumption and issuance.

This solution also eliminates losses resulting from sharp practices by providing owners immense comfort via stateof-the-art controls that can be issued from the comfort of their offices or from any part of the world.

Editor: LOLADE AKINMURELE (lolade.akinmurele@businessdayonline.com) Graphics: David Ogar

Tuesday 16 July 2019

COMPANIES&MARKETS

BUSINESS DAY

19

Business Event

Technology

CWG’s new technology platform to boost corporative society’s activities, efficiency MODESTUS ANAESORONYE

I

n an effort to meet the operational needs of Cooperative Societies in Nigeria, CWG plc has developed a technological platform that allows for efficiencies in diving Member, Accounts and Credit Risk Management processes; with high end security features and access to a centralised financial services ecosystem among other benefits.

The platform CWG’s Unified Cooperative Platform (UCP), which was developed in partnership with National Cooperative Financing Agency Limited (CFAN) was unveiled at the International Day of Cooperative 2019 (CoopsDay) themed “COOPS FOR DECENT JOBS”.

The Abuja event focus was to inform the public that Cooperatives are people-centred enterprises, characterized by democratic control that prioritise human development and social justice within the

workplace.

The President of the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA), Ariel Guarco mentioned that “Cooperatives help to preserve employment and promote decent work in all sectors of the economy. Through participation, members have a motivation to change their lives, their communities and the world”.

We celebrate a future in which human development and social justice are priorities. Through #CoopsDay, Local, National and Global Policymakers, Civil-Society Organisations and the Public in general can learn how cooperatives contribute to a decent working environment; hence the theme for this year. The event underscored the contributions of the Cooperative movement to resolving some major problems addressed by the United Nations and to strengthening and extending the Partnerships between the International Cooperative movement and other stake-

holders.

UCP and all CFAN partners came together at the Public Lecture, to update Cooperatives on the advancements made in the various sectors, with particular attention on Financial Institutions, Renewable Energy,Non-interest Banking, all these initiatives will all be available within a platform. Driving enterprise with the use of technology and understanding how technologywill steward Cooperative movement to the next level of advancement.

UCP creates visibility to the Cooperative Societies and its members; closing the gap on access to key benefits like access to healthcare, food, insurance, pension, affordable housing and so much more. Details on how to join the movement was simply by the registration of individual Cooperatives via www.cooplatform.com. ng and follow the set-up process to get the best support from the solution.

L-R: Alfred Idialu, regional manager, International Banking ODDO BHF; Aminu Babangida, chairman of the board, Unity Bank plc; Gregorie Charbit, board member, legal and compliance, ODDO BHF; Thomas Etuh, chairman, TAK group; Tomi Somefun MD/CEO, Unity Bank plc, and Sunny Bakwunye, treasurer, Unity Bank Plc, at a high profile meeting at the ODDO BHF Headquarters in Paris, recently..

AXA Mansard supports innovation in Nigerian students

A

XA Mansard, a member of AXA, the global leader in insurance and asset management has again partnered with Enactus- the world’s largest experiential learning platform to hold the Enactus Nigeria 2019 National Competition.

This year’s event which held on the 10th and 11th of June at the Civic Center, Lagos was an interesting showcase of how young students from various states across Nigeria are transforming lives and enabling progress in communities through entrepreneurial action. This dynamic and inspiring event encouraged creativity and

rewarded results.

Speaking about the event, the head of Brand and Communication at AXA Mansard Insurance plc, Nkiru Umeh stated ‘We are proud to continue to be a part of an innovative program which encourages young minds to take entrepreneurial action for others creates a better world for us all.’

Enactus began operating in Nigeria in 2000 following a decision to extend the reach of the program around the world. Since this time, the Enactus program has grown to over 30 institutions of higher learning across 25 states of Nigeria with an average participation of

over 1,500 students annually. Every year, the Enactus network in Nigeria directly impacts over 100 rural societies by executing innovative developmental projects that have potentials to empower individuals and transform communities across the country.

Umeh concluded that “At AXA Mansard, we remain at the forefront of innovative thinking which will consequently make a Nigeria a better place. We continue to be encouraged by the contribution of Enactus to building courageous, innovative, dynamic, resourceful and purposeful change agents for the future.

L-R: Albin Hubscher, president/CEO, 2Scale IFDC; Michel Deelen, head of The Netherlands Representation in Lagos (Consulate-General); Sigrid Kaag, Netherlands minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, and Ben Langat, MD, FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria plc, after the signing of the partnership extension agreement between FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria plc, and International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) on the dairy development programme in Lagos.

Pic by Pius Okeosisi

Beechwood Park Estate offering exciting returns to savvy investors MODESTUS ANAESORONYE

A

re you an investor looking for where to maximize your investment in real estate, Beechwood Park Estate is offering exciting returns on investment to savvy investors?

Beechwood Park, a new gated community developed

by Mixta Africa according to the promoters provides a unique opportunity for the savvy investor to earn immediate returns on his/her investment, as the scheme guarantees up to 3 years rental income on the 2 bedroom bungalow units.

The estate is strategically located to benefit from the ongoing upgrade and expansion of the Lekki - Epe expressway

and is accessible through the Beechwood Estate, and is in close proximity to the exclusive Lakowe Lakes Golf and Country Estate.

Funmi Akinwolemiwa, head, marketing and corporate communications, Mixta Nigeria speaking on the project said “we only recently launched this scheme and it has so far been very well received especially by people looking to partner with credible real estate companies in order to earn good returns on their investments”.

She said the estate consists of serviced plots as well as 2 and 3 bedroom bungalows, and provides an opportunity to live in a fully serviced estate with solid infrastructure and around a growing community

of people.

We make proud to state that after over 20 years experience developing housing in Nigeria, none of our estates flood till date. This won’t be any different because we have put in place necessary infrastructure to ensure our estates maintain the standard we have always embraced, Akinwolemiwa said.

According to her development has started on site and progress is being made daily, with already visible infrastructure while more will come as development progresses.

“Upon completion of Phase 1, the estate would have 120 housing units completed and the price for a 2 bedroom bungalow is N13.5 million and the serviced plot is 10m for 300sqm.”

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L-R: Samson Akejelu, marketing manager, Spectranet 4G LTE; Ajay Awasthi, CEO, Spectranet 4G LTE; Jagadish Swain, senior marketing specialist, Spectranet 4G LTE, and Akonte Ekine, CEO, AbsolutePR, at the launch of Spectra-cular data plans for all forms of internet users in Lagos.

L-R: Ifeanyi Ochonogor, CEO, E-Terra Technologies Limited and /President, E-waste Relief Foundation (ERF); Boniface Ifeanyi Ochonogor, vice-chairman, ERF, and Oladele Osibanjo, chairman, ERF/National President, Waste Management Society of Nigeria (WAMASON), at ERF Board of Trustees meeting in Lagos recently.

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20

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

INTERVIEW

21

‘Hands-on training makes the difference in hospitality business’ MARY DINAH founded M.A.D Hospitality, a hospitality consulting firm with particular focus on the management of boutique hotels and service excellence training. The company has since grown and diversified into corporate hotel bookings with international clients that include Fortune 500 companies and more recently the luxury private residences where Naomi Campbell and Roberto Cavalli stayed while visiting Lagos. In this interview with LEHLE BALDE overlooking the Lagos Lagoon reminiscent of Seattle waterline, the Harvard graduate and founder of Job Link Foundation talked about her new venture as the CEO of Seattle Residences, Luxury Apartments in Victoria Island, Lagos. Excerpt:

H

ow did you get started in the hospitality business?

I have been in hospitality for 18 years, and that has been many years in hospitality for me. I’m quite lucky that I started young. I started at the age of 17 with the Hilton in London. I was the Conference and Banqueting Operator, helping with large meetings and conferences.

Hilton is the largest conference and banqueting hotel in Europe, their conferences sits about 3,000 people, we were having really big banquets and awards.

It’s a big stage to start on. I studied computer science at the University of Nottingham, and immediately after that I did a Masters in Hotel Management. In between the two, I worked with Four Seasons in London, on an internship for four months, after I finished the masters, I joined the Marriot Hotel Group, which offered a fast track to general management and most of my career has been with Marriot.

I worked in the front office, food, and beverage and I was a chef for some time. In any hotel, you will immerse yourself with foods and beverages; you can’t do without it, from the menus, menu engineering, work with the chefs, during events. I was a breakfast chef, pastry chef, and then I worked with housekeeping. To be able to be a general manager of a hotel, you have to work everywhere. After that, I focused more on sales and marketing and moved to Marriot head office team for sales in central London.

Shortly after that, I went to Harvard to study entrepreneurship, which pushed me to set up a management company called MAD, which is the hospitality business I have now run for about 10 years. At MAD Hospitality, we do a global distribution system, which is more focused on the technology type of hospitality.

MAD Hospitality partners with some of the big names in the industry: we partnered Saver to be their representative in sub-Saharan Africa, so the clients would never see us, but when they book our hotel in Nigeria we are behind it, and then we get fees from it.

We did a lot with BOA, and also the local banks like First Bank and a couple of other companies, and then we manage hotels, like the Panel Apartment in Abuja, Lagoon Quest in Lagos, Golf and Spa in Abuja, Harold Park Golf Club in Abuja.

I am now the CEO of Seattle Residence. The first time I came here to visit I just thought it was stunning and beautiful and perfectly in line in terms of what we do at MAD. I thought it was perfect because I’ve worked with executive apartments before, which is what this is: luxury, extended stay, serviced apartments.

There are normal apartments, but you can rent them on a nightly rate or a yearly rate, like three months, six months, it’s funny that they say short-stay because it’s actually longstay for hotels. It’s important to know what the differences are between nightly guest and people that stay for longer in serviced apartments; the housekeeping is different, the attention to detail is different, the service and the whole feel is more homely, it is genuinely a home away from home. To the extent that we don’t even say “home away from home”, we say “your Lagos home”. It’s where you call

home in the city.

It’s usually for people that travel a lot either local or international, people who want the opportunity to come and go as they please and know that everything is sorted for them, and even at their request, we can even clean their apartment daily while they are away and keep it exactly how they want it.

How do you see Seattle Residences contributing to Nigeria’s tourism?

How are you able to impact the tourism industry?

In terms of what we bring to tourism, one of the reasons I moved back to Nigeria is because I wanted to make an impact on the hospitality and tourism industry in Nigeria. I had all this experience quite young, I moved back about seven years ago, but I’m still very much in London, we are working with our hotel groups here, it’s my country, Nigeria, and I want to make a key the difference, a key contribution to the industry.

The industry is still very young, very much in its infant stage. In 2010, we only had about four internationally branded hotels in Nigeria. I moved back to Nigeria, I joined the 4 Points as their head of marketing for all the Starward Hotel in Nigeria, so that’s 4 Points Lagos, Sheraton Ikeja, Sheraton Abuja, Le Meridien Port Harcourt, Le Meridien AkwaIbom, which is a golf resort, so I was shuffling through the five, and reporting to our head office for Africa, which is in Brussels.

The marketing hub for Europe, Africa, the Middle East, which is the London Park Lane, so I was shuffling between the two, and it was a perfect job for me because I could perfectly connect everything that I was learning and what the company was doing in Europe with what they were doing here, and I was employed to bridge the gap and make sure that marketing concepts and promotion are exactly the same as what they do everywhere else in the world, that was what I did on that role.

I took a break from managing my own company to take on that role, now after three years, I went back to manage my hospitality company and we are managing various hotels. I think it was a necessary role for me because I learned a lot, and it put me in good stead to do everything that I’m doing now.

Going back to what we want to bring to the industry, we want to show a world class property, we do a lot of service excellence training, for me, the service quality in Lagos, Nigeria is not as it should be.

I think that Nigerians are very hospitable, some of the most hospitable people in the world, and it comes naturally, we are very communitybased, very family oriented, even in my language in Yoruba, when people are eating, they say in Yoruba “e wa jeun” (come and eat), they say “you meet me well, come and join,” and when you say no, they say bring a fork.

They are very hospitable, you have your family around, it is all-normal and that’s how the culture is. It is not that way in other cultures, neighbours don’t just smile at each other just because they are neighbours; they just walk past.

Some cultures are very conservative and they all keep to themselves, mind their business, and even siblings don’t necessary

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live together, even parents, when they are older, are moved into homes, as opposed to our culture where you move them to your home. I think we are very hospitable, but we somehow haven’t learned fully how to make it work, how to commercialise that hospitality, and so that is what I want to bring into the Nigerian culture, to show that we are hospitable, we are happy, smiley, friendly and warm, we are very social, we like to host, we like to welcome people it’s who we are and I want to make sure that we showcase who we are.

The trainings that I do is to bring it out of them, it is not to teach them anything new because it comes naturally to them, it’s to encourage them to keep that attitude when they work in the hospitality industry, to work with it, and be able to welcome people the way they would in their own homes.

One of the issues people complain about a lot in the hospitality industry is Service. What brings the difference in how you train your staff?

There is a very big difference. Almost all of the excellence training service that I’ve heard about in Nigeria is classroom based, and I do mine differently. It’s always on the job because service is a verb, it’s a doing word. When you give service, it’s an action, an act or a facial expression or a smile. It’s something that you do, it’s not cognitive and it’s not academic as something might be in other industries.

In hospitality, it’s very much action, so I don’t see the point in people sitting down and telling them this is how you should greet a guest, I would rather go to the front office and sit with them and say just continue, act like I’m not here and when they greet the guest and the guest goes, I say OK that was good, but you know the guest was holding a baby, did you ask if she needs a cot or it’s a businessman and he was holding a suit, did you ask him if he needs an ironing service, does he need a car to work.

The anticipatory service, the things that you look out for to think beyond what they’ve asked you to try and help them put together the things they’ve not even expressed, by the time they express it, it’s already a complain, or at least they are prompting you to do something. They would rather that you plan for them and ask them what they would want, based on cues that they’ve already given, the things that they need. That goes into going the extra mile for the guest, going into anticipating their needs goes into making their stay more memorable, more comfortable.

Hospitality goes as far back as biblical days; I’m a Christian and the bible talks about being warm to strangers in your community. For me, in terms of growing up in the church, every time they talk about hospitality in the Bible, there are so many stories about people welcoming others.

What is your favourite story about hospitality in the Bible?

There is a story about a man that welcomed a person into his home, and so doing welcomes an angel, and that angel then turns his life around. And the concept of it is, you never know who you welcome into your door or city, but there are many stories about being kind to strangers.

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I’ve thought about this for many years and I realised that travel comes with its own stress, no matter how luxurious the hotel, no matter how warm your smile, for me I’m not so interested in Economy, first-class, business-class or private jet. I can sit anywhere because everyone is still going through a travel process and it’s not the most pleasant of things, even if you sit in first-class, it’s all nice and all but there is the cabin pressure.

I did a module in a course in school on travel catering and what it takes to get them food on a plane, the air has to be sucked out so the food can stay fresh, that’s why when they bring it, it’s all packed in the foil.

It takes a lot to get it on the plane and it has to wait for possible overnight for the flight, for you to open it and it’s still fresh. It’s never perfect, it’s never restaurant quality, and it’s getting better with technology.

Everything about travel, from the airport to the car pick-up, comes with its own stress and it’s very growling. It is important that we go the extra mile for everyone you see that checks-in especially if they come from abroad, they are going through a lot already even if they flew first-class or enter a limousine and they open the car door, it’s a whole journey and they might have been on the road for 12 hours before you see them, you don’t know what they’ve been through, who they left at home.

The hotel that I started with at the Marriot, we had people who lived in New York and worked in London, every Monday they were in London and every Friday they flew out. It’s a lot deeper than people think, and how people write letters and say this whole trip for me was problematic and difficult, I just got a divorced, or I just moved home, I just had a baby, or I just got this job, reading those letters, and they mention how good

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the hotel service was or mention other people’s name or even your name and when your name is mentioned, you get employee of the month.

Those early days in hospitality, I realised this is so much more than just my passion for hospitality and it has a lot to do with real impact in people’s lives and people’s lives are much better because of me. When you individualize it, you realize that your job is so much more than you. I would liken it to the work that nurses do, it’s far more than just that, the experience with people, sleeping in hospitals, being admitted or just visiting for the day, it’s such a crucial time in their life and they will always look back to the caregivers, so we are caregivers as well.

I see hospitality within hotels as that service, people argue sometimes that it’s different because it’s expensive, and it’s 5-star. It’s so much more than just giving luxury, the champagne, the tea, the $1000 suite and things like that, but when you go beneath the surface we are caregivers, whether it’s in the hospital, or in a home, or a luxury hotel, it’s the same thing, we see the same people, just at different times of their lives and the care that we give them is just as crucial as anyone else.

So, that type of mentality and concept is embedded in the training that I give to the staff and I think that that’s what makes the service here different, and I think that because I’ve gotten a lot of feedback about the team and our service, and everything from the security.

The rest of the directors and I spend a lot of time training the security staff members, standing with them outside not in the classroom. We always have a classroom training for maybe 2 hours to discuss,

where we share some videos, presentations, the rest of the one-week training is hands-on training and I think that’s what makes the big difference.

Also, the type of properties that we manage: I’m very lucky to have fantastic owners, they really understand hospitality, they shared the vision that they wanted to create, it was spot-on the type of company and hospitality service that I wanted to put together and provide, so it’s a perfect team from the start.

So, when I explain we need to employ a certain number of people, they say go ahead, or we need to invest this much in training, they say go ahead. Their attention to detail and their understanding of it is far deeper than all the previous owners, I’ve worked with, from the quality of the hand towels to the scent of the candles and all of the equipment that we put in our wellness centres, everything has to be world-class. All of the equipment at the gym, our interior design option is the best, we appreciate indigenous, so we always look for the best indigenous companies. If for any reason we can’t find it, then we go abroad. They want local luxury.

It’s a Nigerian hotel and we want Nigerians to have it at the best, but at the same time, we don’t discriminate.

We have a lady from Senegal as our restaurant manager, the front office manager is from the Philippines, and our lifestyle manager is from India. I think I am GM or CEO of the top hotels in Nigeria that is Nigerian; all of the other GMs are foreign. Sheraton came to Nigeria in 1985 and they’ve never had a Nigerian GM, so it is great to say that I am the first lady to not only become the GM & CEO of the management company but also heading the whole operations; it shows that Nigerians can do it, you just need to get the right Nigerians and support them to do it.

How would you say the government is supporting Nigeria’s tourism business? What’s your take on the government efforts to improve tourism in Nigeria?

At the moment, we are in-between governments, we have our new Governor-elect, and I’ve met with him several times. He, in particular, wants to focus on tourism, which is refreshing. I was an ambassador of tourism for about two years and we were able to do some projects on beach renovations.

I also did a lot of consulting in terms of the service industry, hotels, customer service, and hospitality. With Sanwo-Olu coming in, I think he is going to put a lot of focus on it and prioritise it to the extent of what the budget will allow. He is trying to make some moves in tourism, and I’m sure that we’ll work together.

He is interested with projects that come with their own funding, and for me, that’s as much as you can expect from the government.

In that regard, they’ve been very supportive, however but the budget is not always adequate. If you have a proposal and you take it to the Ministry of Tourism, if you have your own funding, they would almost always help you execute it and give a letter that they are endorsing it. Unfortunately, you can’t really ask for more than that.

I think the problem we have a lot of times www.businessday.ng

in Nigeria is that people expect the government to be a bank, so their focus is to meet government for money, but my own focus is to create money from private sector, banks or international lenders and then go to the government to partner.

So, what they can contribute can to do a large-scale training in security for instance: in terms of venue (because they have a lot of training centres) in that sense, they are always very supportive. Funding not so much, because they don’t really have it and there are so many issues with corruption and things like that, so I even prefer that they just support, and put their logo on your project, it goes a long way.

I think that in the new administration, Sanwo-Olu is going to be even more supportive and more open-minded because he has had a lot of exposure, and for tourism, and that is what you need. You need an experienced leader to say this isn’t the way things should be.

It is basic, maybe I will speak to him about this, for example, Lagos’ nightlife. We have a very buzzing nightlife. London has a great nightlife, but Lagos is different, the weather is warm and we need more security at night.

There is no reason why we can’t have one policeman every 100 metres between Adeola Odeku and Akin Adesola.

There was a time streets were not lit and it was dark, the street lighting was not consistent, and if it’s not lit up, it’s a security hazard.

But now, 24 hours a day, there is light everywhere; you will never find Adeola Odeku without light even at 4am. So, the next thing we need now is security all around, and if we have that, we can convince all the tourists that they can go clubbing and come back at 5am. I know it’s not something they can do in Surulere, Ajegunle, etc. but at least in these areas where you have all the nightclubs.

Naomi Campbell, Edward Eningful, Robert Cavalli and Andre Leon Tally all stayed at the Seattle Residences in May. What was it like?

It was really exciting to have them stay at Seattle Residences. It was amazing to house all of the big fashion people. They were all very happy with their experience here at Seattle and Lagos in general. Naomi Campbell made

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a very creative video essentially marketing Nigeria from the fashion shows, the beaches, Seattle Residences and the Lagos vibe. It is important for people to see the various sides of Lagos. Lagos is a dynamic city with luxurious experiences and we want people to see this side of Lagos too.

Apart from hospitality, you have a foundation called JobLink, what does the Foundation do?

JobLink is one of Nigeria’s fastest growing human resource development companies with its headquarters at 8 Kingsway Road, Ikoyi, Lagos. The company has a network of over 200,000 jobseekers from all states in Nigeria and over 500 top companies as clients. JobLink continues to focus on its main objective of reducing the unemployment rate in Nigeria by connecting candidates to jobs in diverse industries. To date, over 10,000 job seekers have been connected with employers.

In addition to recruitment services, Job-Link specializes in human capital development. Our employability training are designed to ensure all candidates have the soft skills required to excel at interviews and keep the jobs we connect them with.

Certificates of attendance are given at the end of the training, which candidates can add to their resumes and profiles to boost their chances of attracting employers. More than 2,000 people have been trained at our 150-seater training centre in Ikoyi with very encouraging success stories.

What advice do you have for young women navigating their professional lives?

My advice to young women is simply ‘Go for it’. The sky is the limit. Women in this culture are too concerned about their reputation and what other people think. A lot of people hold themselves back because of what they think people will say, the fear of being judged for being too assertive and out there. My advice is to stay focused on your objectives. Men in Nigeria are the ones closing all the deals and that is how they get ahead. Women need to believe in their abilities and go after what they want unapologetically.

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22

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDUCATION Weekly insight on current and future trends in education

Primary/Secondary

Higher

Human Capital

Professionals advocate strategic steps to achieve gender parity in education KELECHI EWUZIE

T

he clamour for an improvement to female education across the continent appears not to yielding the desired outcome despite on-going declarations from African leaders. In Nigeria for instance at 58 percent, literacy rate for females remains around eight points lower than the male literacy rate.

Statistics shows that the net ratio for female primary school attendance is also significantly lower at 56.7 percent compared to 61.6 percent for males. And these statistics need to be adjusted significantly for the North, which has some of the worst female education attainment rates of anywhere in the world. The proportion of girls to boys in school in some areas of the northern Nigeria is as low as 1:3.

Kathy Matsui, vice chair for Japan at Goldman Sachs in a recent study shows that educating more females can lead to a “growth premium” for countries increasing a country’s GDP and per capita income.

Matsui believes increasing Nigeria’s investment in female education could raise GDP growth in Nigeria by as much as 0.2 percent.

Muhtar Bakare, an education expert observes that improving female education undoubtedly has many personal benefits for girls themselves.

“The higher the level of a female’s education,

Mohammed Ahmed, Director Schools Education and Society, British Council Nigeria with participants at the International awards to outstanding schools.

the more likely she is to marry older, bear her first child older, educating girls also plays a positive role in breaking the poverty cycle, as the children of educated women experience better health, a better education themselves, and improved employment opportunities as a result,” he said.

Research suggests that the benefits of enhanced female educational attainment

go beyond the individual and her surrounding family and community. According to UNESCO, girls’ education does not only bring the immediate benefit of empowering girls, but it also seen as the best investment in a country’s development.

For some years now, governments, NGOs and private investors have been working throughout the country to get more girls into

school. Basic considerations such as access to female hygiene facilities and having female teachers present in the classroom are being addressed, and parents themselves are being educated so that they better understand the strong personal and community benefits that come with providing adequate education for their daughters.

As female enrolment rates improve, and more and more girls enter schools across Nigeria, focus needs to turn to ensure girls are actually learning in schools, and learning the skills that they will need to secure a sustainable future. The issue turns from enrolment rates to the quality of learning taking place. Delivering quality learning rests on having three important and interrelated elements in place namely: Having enough teachers and ensuring those teachers are suitably trained is fundamental to improving the learning outcomes of Nigerian girls. Providing on-going professional development training for teachers to keep them highly motivated and effective is also key.

Affording all girls access to quality learning resources that promote engaged and effective learning not only aids the learning process, the provision of these resources themselves is often enough to entice learners into the classroom and lastly, Embedding locally relevant and contextualised curricula that suitably prepares learners for a 21st Century, globally orientated workforce helps to guarantee future prosperity for female learners.

Mixed reactions trail dismissal, arrest of Grace Schools, Newhall International School, Nigerian professor from a Ghanaian university four others receive British Council Awards JOSEPH MAURICE OGU

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igerians as well as Ghanaians have reacted differently over the recent sack and arrest of a Nigerian visiting professor to Ghana over the allegations of making several unsavoury, unethical and damning comments about Ghana as well as its educational system.

Augustine Uzoma Nwagbara, a professor of English, was on a sabbatical leave to the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Ghana, when he was alleged to have made several “unethical” comments about UEW. Upon what it called subjecting the professor to the “internal disciplinary process” UEW found “(the professor) culpable of gross misconduct,” the university said in a statement signed by its registrar.

In a video that went viral, someone who identified himself as Augustine Nwagbara said degrees awarded by Ghanaian universities are only up to 20 percent the quality of those awarded by universities in Nigeria.

He expressed his disappointment in Nigerians who went to Ghana to acquire degrees, which were more expensive than what they paid in Nigeria, which were 80 percent less in quality than what was obtainable in Nigeria.

However, some Nigerians and Ghanaians have reacted to the development. While some thought the professor was merely expressing his private opinion and bragging about his country, others thought he should not have gone to the extent of talking down on the institution that hosted him.

BusinessDay sampled the opinions of few.

Korsi Asiseh, a Kumasi-based journalist, said degrees issued by Ghanaian universities were as quality as those issued by the Nigerian universities. The main reason why Nigerians trooped to Ghanaian universities was because of the intermittent disruptions in the Nigeria’s

academic calendar, which started several years.

According to him, the professor’s utterances should not have been taken seriously and given such media hype, as he did not pose any threat to either the university or to the country, saying none of the things he talked about would happen.

“The professor just decided to brag to a few gathered people”, he said, adding, “If Nigerians were not happy about the quality of education in Ghana, this trend would not have persisted till today.”

Baffour Osei George, a Kumasi-based entrepreneur, said it was appropriate to have sacked the professor. While acknowledging Nwagbara’s right to boast about his intellectual prowess, George said it was unnecessary for the professor to do such against the school that accommodated him.

“Sacked, yes! You cannot go bragging that you killed someone and expect not to be dealt with,” George said.

Adeseyi Akanni, a Nigerian lecturer in another university in Ghana, said even though Nwagbara could be said to be expressing his opinion, irrespective of authenticity of what he said, such opinion did not constitute good ethical behaviour in one’s working environment.

“That was his opinion though, but as a member of an organisation there are some things you cannot say about the organisation,” he said.

Michael Onoja, a former student of one of the universities in Ghana, said he studied in Ghana with one of the best facilities available in any university in Africa, and could not substantiate what the professor said to what he (Onoja) experienced in his days.

“Things may have changed,” Onoja said, “but Ghana offered me quality education.”

Emma Okon, Ceo/principal, Vision Education Foundation, Abuja, said Ghana needed to examine themselves to see if there was anything to gain from what Nwagbara said instead of sacking him and subjecting him to mental police torture.

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KELECHI EWUZIE

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n recognition of their work to bring the world into the classroom, CITA International School; Glisten International Academy; Grace Schools; Newhall International School; The Riverbank School and St Mary’s International School have received the British Council’s International School Award.

The International School Award is a badge of honour for schools that do outstanding work in international education, such as through links with partner schools overseas.

Fostering an international dimension in the curriculum is at the heart of the British Council’s work with schools so that young people gain the cultural understanding and skills they need to live and work as global citizens.

Stephen Forbes, director of Operations, British Council Nigeria in his welcome address at the award ceremony in Lagos, said “The British Council have been impressed by the great improvements shown through the range of international activities that have taken place within these schools and to hear the feedback on how these activities have helped to raise young people’s awareness and appreciation of other cultures around the world”.

Forbes said “As the British Council celebrates 75years in Nigeria; we would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate every school that has embraced the International School Award over the last five years in Nigeria and contributed to its success”.

These schools have demonstrated excellence and commitment to embedding

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international dimension and understanding within the ethos of their school and curriculum. Through collaboration activities in partnership with other schools and seeing their students bring stimulating projects alive from paper to play. The teachers also ensured to implement 21st-century skill set in their lessons such as; Critical Thinking and Problem Solving, Creativity and Imagination, Communication and Collaboration, Digital Literacy, Citizenship, Student Leadership and Personal Development.

Mohammed Ahmed, director Schools Education and Society, British Council Nigeria on his part opines British Council’s commitment in developing international education in Nigeria and fostering collaboration amongst international schools worldwide to positively impact the education sector in Nigeria and around the world. In his words “The British Council is enabling teachers and school leaders to create a learning environment where they can integrate global learning into the classroom”, Ahmed said Lynda Ashaolu, programme manager, Schools Education and Society, British Council Nigeria, said “The schools’ fantastic international work has rightfully earned them this prestigious award. The International School Award is a great chance for schools to showcase the important work they’re doing to bring the world into their classrooms. Adding an international dimension to children’s education ensures that they are truly global citizens and helps prepare them for successful future careers in an increasingly global economy”. She encouraged other schools to embrace this good work and register for the next cycle of the award.

@Businessdayng

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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EDUCATION What type of parenting is most effective these days?

OYIN EGBEYEMI

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uthoritative, authoritarian, permissive, tig er, snowplough, hu m m i ngb i rd , free-range…the list goes on.

Earlier this year, there was a certain scandal in the United States, which brought to light a practice that wealthy parents of high school (secondary school) children have been involved in for years in recent

times. These parents were essentially paying bribes through different steps of university admissions processes for their children so as to ensure that they gained admission into prestigious universities such as Yale and the University of Southern California (USC).

There was news of payment to professional test-takers to get “Ivy League–worthy” SAT scores; professionally written application letters; doctoring of application details to include information on achievements in extracurricular activities that these children did not even participate in; and many more.

This scandal ignited a conversation about the evolving approach to parenting with the times. Psychologists have been making observations and carrying out research on various methods in different parts of the world. In the past, it was easier to define three general methods: Authoritarian, authoritative and permissive.

Authoritarian parenting is what most of us would refer to as “old-school” parenting, whereby parents set and implement the rules (whether they are right or wrong); and straying from these in any way, shape or form would attract serious consequences which include harsh verbal and physical punishments.

Some people who are products of this type of parenting could go as far as describing

their parents as psychopaths or sociopaths because of the lack of emotional connection or concern for their emotional well-being as children.

Permissive parenting is the flipside of authoritarian parenting. This is essentially a liberal approach people could refer to as the way hipsters would raise their children; basically loving relationships with low demands on the children. It does have its benefits

Greenwood House School moves to Strengthen extra-curricular activities among pupils KELECHI EWUZIE

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ducationists have underscored the importance of organising extra-curricular activities for pupils in defined areas like arts to promote all round development of a total child.

Ekua Titilayo Abudu, administrator and Co-founder, Greenwood House School, Ikoyi, Lagos stated this at the 2019 stage performance of Esther and the King saying that by children getting involved in activities such as play acting, it brings out the creativity in

them because they are taking on roles they haven’t taken on before.

Abudu while speaking about the play says the outgoing year six children of the school displayed bravery, sacrifice, hope; faith which is what the Esther and the King play centered on.

She further stressed on the need for more selfless service among Nigerians which she said is currently lacking.

“In the country today where everybody seems to be more involved in themselves. The society today is filled with people who are selfish, people

are looking out for themselves, the exploit of Esther in bible to save her people against all odds should be an example to emulate”, she said.

She further said Greenwood house school don’t just focus on academics activities alone, rather the school have a wide range of extra activities because we believe it is very important to develop the child as a whole.

Yetunde Abe, school supervisor, Greenwood house said the play shows a demonstration of sacrifice stressing that it further exemplifies how children should relate and help one

another to achieve national development.

Abe said Greenwood House School children through the play bring history to life in a meaningful, realistic and inspiring way.

She urged the graduating class to take home the moral of what they have been taught while in school and focus on their academics.

The story of Esther is an impressive biblical epic. The American historical film was first produced in 2006 by Matt Crouch and Laurie Crouch of Gene8xion entertainment. It was directed by Michael Sajbel.

in terms of the strong emotional connection between parents and children. However, permissiveness could lead to a lack of independence because of this very attachment and children could struggle to cope with some adversities that come around in life as adults.

So, is there a middle ground? Yes, theoretically speaking. Between authoritarian and permissive parenting is authoritative parenting.

This method is balanced in demand and emotional connection, whereby parents have a firm hand on their children, monitor their activities but also place some focus on building emotional connections with them. This sounds like the perfect situation, right? Perhaps in an ideal world, it is. But we do not live in an ideal world, do we? Far from it.

The evolution of the world physically, politically, socially and psychologically has left parents with no choice but

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and in its host communities across the world.

Adesola Adeduntan, Chief Executive Officer of FirstBank made this pledge recently when he led a team of vol-

unteers on a visit to Wesley School for the Hearing Impaired, Surulere, Lagos in the spirit of the Bank’s commitment to encouraging people to Start Performing Acts of

Corona school Apapa pupils on an Industry excursion to BusinessDay Media Limited recently. www.businessday.ng

Random Kindness (SPARK).

SPARK, a values-based initiative is one of the key activities of the annual FirstBank’s Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (CR&S) Week.

Speaking to the pupils and teachers of the school, Adeduntan said the visit was aimed at demonstrating kindness, as it is one of FirstBank’s brand values that positively affect quality of life.

He said, “it is our belief that if all of us can show acts of kindness to people around us, we will make the world we live in a much better place for everyone. Our decision to come here today is to show appreciation to management for shouldering the enormous responsibility of taking care of these children with special needs.

This visit is also to assure the children who are schooling

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Oyin Egbeyemi is an executive administrator at The Foreshore School, Ikoyi, Lagos.

Maltina Teacher of the Year 2019 gets new submission deadline

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he submission of entries for the 2019 Maltina Teacher of the Year has been extended by two weeks. Nigerian Breweries Plc has said.

The extension according to the company became necessaryto allow more teachers to participate in the competition designed to identify, showcase and reward outstanding teachers in Nigeria.

Sade Morgan,Corporate affairs director, Nigerian Breweries Plc while speaking on the decision to extend the deadline, said the extension of entries was done in response

FirstBank restates commitment to children with special needs irst Bank of Nigeria Limited says it is committed to impact the lives of the less privileged and children living with disabilities across the country

to continuously adapt their approaches in order to ensure what they think is best for their children. Various branches of parenting have emerged from the authoritarian method as a result, for example hummingbird, free range, helicopter, snowplough and many more.

The good thing about this is knowledge that parents of today are generally more aware of their local and global environment and have a fair understanding of demands and expectations to survive and thrive.

Many parents would agree that parenting today is not an easy feat also because we live in “microwave-times” where things are changing so quickly that if we do not stay ahead, our children would suffer in the future.

here that, as the popular saying goes, you will not walk alone.”

Adeduntan encouraged the pupils of the school to seize every opportunity availed them to reach their maximum heights possible, stressing that as an institution, FirstBank, woven into the fabric of the society will always be there to provide them the support they require within its available means and resources. Asides the visit to Wesley School, 23 other charity homes/institutes, including camps of Internally Displaced People (IDP) were visited by FirstBank staff volunteers.

The 2019 FirstBank’s CR&S Week was held from 1 to 6 July across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones and the Bank’s business locations in Ghana, Gambia, Guinea, Senegal, Sierra Leone, DR Congo and The United Kingdom. @Businessdayng

to calls by teachers and other stakeholders to allow for additional time for more teachers to turn in their entries.

Morgan called on teachers to take advantage of the new window by filling directly or downloading the application forms from the Maltina website and can also pick up a form at their States Ministry of Education, Teacher Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Nigeria Union of Teachers or Nigerian Breweries offices nationwide “We have received so many enquiries and pressure from participating teachers and other well-meaning individuals for the possibility to extend the entry deadline for this year’s edition of the Maltina Teacher of the Year initiative. This has further revealed to us that the initiative is highly regarded by our key stakeholders,” she said.

She further charged prospective applicants who are yet to complete the application process to take advantage of this two-week extension, as there would be no further shift in the deadline.

Prizes to be won for this year’s Maltina Teacher of the Year initiative includes a total cash prize of N6.5 million and capacity training with a block of classrooms built at the school where the winning teacher teaches. First and second runners up will get a cash prize of N1m and N750, 000 cash prize respectively while each state champion will receive a cash reward of N500, 000 each.

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Making a match

How will we decide who we want? What if it isn’t meant to be?

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Filtering For Fit any of us forget that making a match is not just about finding “the One” -- the perfect person who fulfills your needs -- It is about making sure you and that perfect person are compatible.

The right skillset for the job to be done (JTBD) is not the most important consideration in the recruitment process; cultural alignment is. Cultural alignment is basically the degree to which the person you have hired can deliver what you hired them for, in the environment you have provided for them. In simple English, it is how well the new hire fits into your organisation. Whether the person’s ideas about what work involves and the manner in which the workplace should be run are in sync with yours.

Let’s take it back to dating. Let’s say you have done the work to figure out what you want in the dating world.

You’ve decided it is someone who really understands you.

Someone you can talk to anytime, about anything. So, you find Segun/Funke. The two of you have heartfelt, soulshattering conversations for hours on end. But, let’s say that Segun/Funke believes in discussing the personal issues in their lives with their three most trusted friends. You, how-

ever, come from a background that values discretion about important things above all else.

Though Segun/Funke fulfill your immediate desire for conversation, you will be deeply dissatisfied with how the information you share with them is managed afterwards. Yes, the love might be real, but you and Segun/Funke’s core values, beliefs, and behaviours are not in sync. Your communication cultures are not aligned. And your relationship will not last.

Getting and giving an honest answer to whether you and a prospective partner are compatible is imperative. When it comes to the recruitment process, making sure you and your prospective hire are culturally aligned is even more essential. The good news is that there is an easy way to measure both cultural alignment and competencies. It is called the ‘work trial’ .

Try before you buy A work trial is when you get the final applicants to spend a few days in the office, trying out the role, before you make a final hiring decision. Job candidates “shadow their future position” and test out their skills.

A 5-day trial might seem like a costly investment to make to screen a final set of candidates.

It might even be impractical in your business’s specific case.

Maybe you have proprietary www.businessday.ng

information you can’t expose anyone but official employees to. Maybe the candidates have a current job they can’t take that much time off from. Maybe you are hiring them for a role where they will be replacing someone, and their presence in the office will alert the soon-to-be-exemployee and cause hostility.

This is all understandable.

By (m)any means necessary However, if there is a creative way to accomplish a trial period, do it. If the applicant is unable to commit to five days at your business/company/ organisation, shorten the trial period to three or two days.

Even if the applicant can only spare a day, have them come in and try out the role for that brief time period. You will learn more about potential talent

through work trials than any formal interview can give you.

Even if you are recruiting for a position that requires onthe-job training you are yet to provide, just seeing how the final applicants approach the work to be done, will give you a window into their personality.

You can evaluate their critical thinking, initiative-taking and troubleshooting skills in real time.You get to see how they respond to feedback and whether they work well with your other employees. You gain invaluable insight into which candidates can answer written questions and be convincing in an interview, and which candidates can actually deliver.

No j u s t b e y o u we y d e y choose Just like in dating, any vet-

‘

Getting and giving an honest answer to whether you and a prospective partner are compatible is imperative.

When it comes to the recruitment process, making sure you and your prospective hire are culturally aligned is even more essential.It is called the ‘work trial’

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@Businessdayng

ting process you implement doesn’t just benefit you. It offers clarity to both you and the other person, on whether you will be a good match. Similarly, the work trial educates your job candidate on exactly what the role covers. They are able to assess whether their expectations of the role match yours. Are their views on how a workplace should function in sync with yours? Do the two of you share the norms and values necessary to make a workplace run smoothly?

Remember when we talked about motivators? How making sure that the prospective hire’s unique reasons for wanting to take the position, line up with the things the position provides? We gave an example of how a hire who wants a job that affords them leisure time will be dissatisfied working in a business where late closing times are the norm.

Think about filtering for fit in the same way. Someone who believes that the workplace culture should be based on a flat structure, where hierarchies aren’t enforced, will be horrified by a business that is organized according to rank and lower-level staff have no interactions with upper management.

If you fail to check for cultural alignment in tandem with competencies, you might think you’ve made a match, when you have actually missed the goal.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

25

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London Business School student takes his seat at a piano.

Hands poised over the keys, he prepares to play with a professional jazz quartet. Except the student has never played piano in his life. The one stipulation is that he can play only the black keys. Otherwise he can do whatever he wants while the other musicians improvise around him — and together they somehow make surprisingly pleasing music. The point is to encourage students to let go of being an expert and embrace the “beginner’s mind”.

The exercise is part of a twohour jazz session designed to help business leaders learn from the skills and behaviours of jazz musicians, and forms part of LBS’s Leading Change programme, a five-day executive education course and one of several at different schools applying the arts to business.

The LBS course was founded six years ago to prepare executives to lead their businesses during uncertain times — something that was becoming a top priority for companies, according to Dan Cable, professor of organisational behaviour. Three years in, Prof Cable felt the course needed to be more “personally immersive”, so he redesigned it around the “seeking system”, which he explores in his book, Alive at Work. The jazz session is designed to spark so-called triggers that re-engage curiosity and encourage creativity.

The jazz class comprises four practical exercises that demonstrate aspects of leadership, such as how to navigate complex situations through experimentation and how to understand the value of distributed leadership. Alex Steele, a consultant, academic and the professional jazz pianist leading the session, says it helps students “become more mindful [and] reflective”.

They can take away their new ideas and implement them in their teams, he adds. Jazz is a good tool for encouraging the “beginner’s mind”, he says, because it breaks down habits and switches off the “autopilot way of thinking about things”.

In one exercise four students are each allocated a musician in the band — which had never met before the session. When a student wants their musician to be the lead instrument, they put a hat on the player’s head. If they want their musician to play but not lead, they place a hand on their shoulder.

The exercise demonstrates how jazz tends to work in a non-hierarchical way. The students must communicate with each other using eye contact and body language. While all

Playtime: A jazz session at London Business School involving students and professional musicians

How the arts help hone leadership skills A business school is using a jazz quartet to teach students about leading others the hats can be on at the same time, by co-ordinating with one another they can create a more varied set while learning to understand how to take a step back as a leader, trusting someone else to take control. Sam Kronja is director of finance and corporate services at Presbyterian Ladies’ College in Perth, Australia, and took the course in March.

The jazz session certainly wasn’t a “programme filler”, he says.

Concepts from the class can be applied in Kronja’s work, because “I can walk into my next team meeting and describe what I saw and felt in such a way that they will be able to visualise and understand [them]”. The jazz session also showed the wider benefits of experiential learning. “Do you learn more about London by reading about it, talking with others who have been there, or going there yourself?” Kronja asks.

Other schools also use practical arts activities to offer leadership insights. At Warwick Business School in the UK, students taking one executive MBA elective perform scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. Students also write about and perform workplace dilemmas.

Spain’s Iese Business School offers a “Gaudí experience” on some executive education courses. Through a workshop and a tour round Barcelona’s Sawww.businessday.ng

grada Familia, the epic and still unfinished basilica designed by Antoni Gaudí, students consider how the architect persuaded people to build it and how the project has managed to continue over the past 100 years. Iese’s global EMBA also offers a jazz session where students work

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Leadership is a “lived experience”, he believes, and developing mastery in it is a life-long undertaking. The school has deployed the arts for both MBA and EMBA students in various ways, from visiting creatives — including a ballet dancer and an artist — to a pop-up choir

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with musicians to come up with their own tune and perform it.

Harry Davis, professor of creative management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has long been an advocate of experimentation and collaboration with artists. “It’s fundamental to my sense of what leadership is all about,” he says. Leadership is a “lived experience”, he believes, and developing mastery in it is a life-long undertaking. The school has deployed the arts for both MBA and EMBA students in various ways, from visiting creatives — including a ballet dancer and an artist — to a pop-up choir. The choir was a one-off event last year that was open to all students at Chicago Booth. Organised by Prof Davis, Mollie Stone, a choral director and lecturer at the University of Chicago, and Patty Cuyler, codirector of Village Harmony, a community-choir organisation, the event involved 40 students, faculty, and staff who in three hours learnt to sing together and performed for a live audience. Participating in the choir, says Prof Davis, “there is an enormous attention to ‘what does it mean to lead?’ and ‘what does it mean to follow?’. You have not only to listen to your own voice — you have to listen to your own section.” A choir has four different parts — tenors, al@Businessdayng

tos, sopranos and basses — but they are not silos, “as you might find in many organisations”, he adds. “We depend on one another, so every part is important.

Also, the whole is incredibly important.”

Prof Davis argues that performing in a choir requires a person to use their whole body and all of their senses, which is critical in expressing an emotion — and that is “not unimportant for leadership”. He stresses that it is more beneficial for students to work with artists, not just observe them. “We had an artist who was here for just three months. Students could see the output of what he did, but they didn’t get connected to the process,” says Prof Davis.

Yih-teen Lee, professor of managing people in organisations at Iese, has similar thoughts: he says the critical factor in the Gaudí experience is the visit to the basilica. This creates a unique experience that is intellectually stimulating and emotionally inspiring, so people can connect to the leadership lessons.

The use of the arts in management training has been growing, says Prof Davis, because “it’s essential in really helping leaders to grapple with some of the performance skills that they need”. After all, he says, “leadership is performance art”.

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

BDTECH

In association with

E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

‘Nigeria’s problems, mobile technology creates opportunities for innovations’ In this interview, Niyi Yusuf, Managing Partner of Verraki Partners, a business solutions firm clarifies the nexus between innovation and technology, highlights the barriers to innovation in Nigeria and called on the Federal Government to create access to markets for indigenous companies. Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson brings excerpts.

What does innovation with technology really mean? nnovation with technology simply means newer ways of doing things that add value to someone. Innovation is commonly juxtaposed with invention, but innovation is not about invention. Invention is when you create something new that doesn’t exist while innovation is when you improve what you used to do in a better, cheaper and faster way to meet new and hitherto unknown requirements. In today’s world, advances in technology have enabled major innovations and technology is now not only an enabler of innovation, but a major driver and source of innovation. To give some examples, let’s talk about mobility.

In the past as it’s raining in Lagos now, if I need to go to the Lagos Mainland, I would call someone to ask if there’s traffic but today, you can check traffic conditions on your preferred routes on Google Maps, and see where there is traffic and the fastest route to go, and even get specific directions on the route map. So, that’s technology in terms of journey management. In Nigeria, we use drones for entertainment; to take pictures and do video recordings. So, really it’s around how we use technology to do better, cheaper, faster; the things we used to do and for me, that’s what you call innovation.

tempt.

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What are the factors driving innovations in Nigeria?

I think there are a number of reasons why we’ve seen innovation boom in Nigeria. First; every problem is an opportunity. One of the factors driving innovation is tech-

Niyi Yusuf

nology, as technology is now more pervasive, especially mobile technology. With over one hundred and fifty million phone subscribers in Nigeria with access to mobile phones with huge computing power, phones more powerful than the computers I used in school. Technology is now more affordable, accessible and available. The second factor is the demographic shift; Nigeria has a youthful demography and population of young people who are quite aggressive in terms of their entrepreneurship and what they would like to do; and who are also more social and mobile. A third reason driving innovation in Nigeria is the linkage with Nigerians in the diaspora. Several Nigerians who schooled or lived offshore have now returned home with the knowledge, insight and experience

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that they’ve gained. Finally, there’s capital; looking for great ideas and looking for great returns. So, I think a number of these factors have driven innovation.

What are the barriers to innovation in Nigeria?

The lack of a structured process to innovation is a barrier. Innovation is a deliberate process, never accidental. Unfortunately, most companies do not dedicate enough time and resources to support innovation. Secondly, Nigerians generally want quick solutions within a short time; we want results like yesterday but innovation takes a while. Again, some Nigerians have a morbid fear of failure, which usually stops people from moving forward or trying anything and hardly will you succeed at the first, second or third at-

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What should the government do to foster innovation?

One of the most important is the Ease of Doing Business. To give you an example; we just launched Verraki Partners in April as a new company. While registering with clients, the government MDAs were asking for a three-year financials/audited report, for a new entity! So, part of the ease of doing business is understanding that there are established business corporations and there are start-ups. And for start-ups, we should have different criteria for assessment. Second is access to market, which for me is more interesting than providing subsidies. There’s an Executive Order, EO 5 that speaks to local content and buying national but beyond national, we should create another that focuses on buying from SMEs. Is a technology hub emerging in Nigeria or is this wishful thinking?

The right word is emerging. We are seeing green shoots that looks promising. If you take the Yaba area or district of Lagos, we have over 60 companies or start-up ventures in Yaba. Last year, Nigeria recorded about $178m worth of investment in to start-ups. So, we’re talking 64 billion naira going into about 148 start-ups – more than 97 percent of that funds came from outside the country and less than 3 percent came from the country. So, if you measure it based on the number of start-ups, based on the capital going into these entities, even based on number of employees, I think we are at the beginning of something promising.

@Businessdayng

What makes an innovation successful?

Start-ups and companies that are successful are typically those that start with why, that is, they adopt a purpose-driven approach in their business to solving real problems.

We see that these companies usually achieve better outcomes, outperform their peers and create more successful innovations. Why am I doing this and what problems do I really want to solve? To give an example, in the early 2000s, whilst I was still in Accenture, we worked with Telnet and FirstBank to create Interswitch working with other banks. And what problems were we trying to solve? Connectivity; connecting the banks together and allowing for online and real-time switching of transactions. Because back then, we only had two banks that had ATMs; First Bank and Societe General Bank. Between the two, they had less than twenty ATMs and these ATMs were offline. Fasttrack to today, we have more than twenty thousand ATMs in the country and they are all connected. So, that for me is a good example – solving and providing ability to switch transactions online across various channels. Another product with a purposeful why is Remita. Remita has been solving the problem of how do I pay and make transfers across my accounts in different banks. Most of these examples are FinTech based because FinTech started the journey well ahead of other sectors. So, companies like Flutterwave and Paystack have been very successful, have addressed the issue of how SMEs could be able to accept payments online.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

BDTECH

27

E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

Smartphone review: Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 with auto pop-up selfie camera Stories by JUMOKE AKIYODE-LAWANSON

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uawei has launched its most affordable midrange device, the Y9 Prime 2019 into the Nigerian market. This new device which is targeted at the younger generation packs premium features and innovations including a new and improved display and revolutionary autopop-up front facing camera – a distinct upgrade from the Y9 2019 released about 8 months ago.

For those who do not know yet, the Huawei trade ban has been lifted by the US President, Donald Trump.

So, finally, Huawei is allowed to use the Android license from Google and that means the newly released Huawei Y9 prime and all its devices are supported by Google.

Announced at a price of N83,900 the HUAWEI Y9 Prime 2019 is a very compelling product especially in today’s video-centric social media landscape and has been called the King of midrange smartphone devices by tech analysts. Its main features include; The all new ultra FullView display Sized at a massive 6.59

inches with a resolution of 2340 x 1080 FHD+ and an aspect ratio of 19:5:9, the display is 91 percent pure screen estate, allowing users to enjoy a display like never before. The display is also capable of authentic and rich colors with a wide color gamut of 85 percent. Be it watching videos, browsing social media or any simple task, the HUAWEI Y9 Prime 2019 promises users with an immersive viewing experience without any interruptions. However, a display like

this can result in extensive usage. The screen filters out harmful blue light emissions and intelligently adjusts color temperature and brightness to protect against eye strain. Additionally, when in low light situations, the screen brightness can also be brought down to 2 nits for a more comfortable viewing experience.

Auto pop-up selfie camera While most phones use the bezels and notches to house the front camera and

various other sensors, the HUAWEI Y9 Prime 2019 uses clever and innovative design to hide these sensors, but the front camera position is a sign of Huawei’s innovative technologies. Seemingly invisible, the front camera is tucked away and will only appear when needed. Once the camera is turned on and selfie mode is selected, the front camera will pop-up automatically out of the top of the phone. Additionally, it also includes an intelligent protective feature that

detects free falls and automatically retracts the lens as much as possible. Housing a 16MP lens and supported

by Huawei’s powerful AI, the auto pop-up selfie camera is capable of identifying up to eight scenarios for accurate scene and object recognition. The upgraded AI backlight imaging technology also fixes lighting concerns retaining stunning clarity and colors for stunning selfies. Additionally, users can also enjoy stunning studio effects in their selfies including 3D portrait lighting.

Innovative triple camera setup on the back The HUAWEI Y9 Prime 2019 packs a 16MP + 8MP + 2MP triple-camera on the back. Both the 16MP primary and 8MP secondary sensors feature a 6P (sixlens plastic array) design that reproduces minute details within an image and captures more photons. As a result, the phone empowers users to recreate scenes in their full complexity, with enhanced image clarity, contrast, and overall quality.

Powerful performance Under the hood, the HUAWEI Y9 Prime 2019 houses an Ultra Large 4000 mAh battery for extended periods of intensive use.

The device uses a Type-C

port, which is smaller, faster and reversible. Additionally, you can still find the 3.5mm headphone jack as well. The HUAWEI Y9 Prime 2019 runs Android 9.0 with the EMUI 9.0, which learns and analyzes user behavior which enables a more optimised user experience and has a 12.9 percent higher performance. The system is further optimised by F2Fs 2.0 (Flash-Friendly File System) and EROFS (Extendable Read-Only File System), which provides better memory management, improving performance and speed. In terms of storage, the HUAWEI Y9 Prime 2019 comes with 4GB RAM and 128GB ROM and an Expanded Memory up to 512GB. A futuristic gaming experience In order to provide a more enhanced gaming experience, the HUAWEI Y9 Prime 2019 utilizes artificial intelligence to identify gaming scenarios and match them with real-life sensations.

Price and availability Pre-Order for the new device commenced July 15 on Junia, Pointek, Slot and 3CHUB. However, the smartphone which comes in three different colours, will be available in stores nationwide from July 22, 2019.

‘How IT managers struggle to keep up with sophisticated cyberattacks’

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nformation Technology (IT) managers in different organisations are inundated with cyber attacks coming from all directions and are struggling to keep up due to a lack of security expertise, budget and up to date technology, a recent survey reveals.

‘The impossible puzzle of cybersecurity’, a global survey by Sophos, network and endpoint security company shows that criminals now use multiple attack methods and payloads for maximum impact.

The Sophos survey shows how attack techniques are varied and often multi-staged, increasing the difficulty to defend networks. One in five of the 3,100 IT decision makers from mid-sized busi-

nesses in the US, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, UK, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, India, and South Africa surveyed didn’t know how they were breached, and the diversity of attack methods means no one defensive strategy is a silver bullet.

“Cybercriminals are evolving their attack methods and often use multiple payloads to maximize profits. Software exploits were the initial point of entry in 23 percent of incidents, but they were also used in some fashion in 35 percent of all attacks, demonstrating how exploits are used at multiple stages of the attack chain,” said Chester Wisniewski, principal research scientist, Sophos.

“Organizations that are only patching externally facing high-risk www.businessday.ng

servers are left vulnerable internally and cybercriminals are taking advantage of this and other security lapses,” he said.

The wide range, multiple stages and scale of today’s attacks are proving effective. For example, 53 percent of those who fell victim to a cyberattack were hit by a phishing email, and 30 percent by ransomware. Forty-one percent said they suffered a data breach.

Weak links in security increasingly lead to supply chain compromises Based on the responses, it’s not surprising that 75 percent of IT managers consider software exploits, unpatched vulnerabilities and/or zero-day threats as a top security risk. Fifty percent consider phishing a top security risk. Alarm-

ingly, only 16 percent of IT managers consider supply chain a top security risk, exposing an additional weak spot that cybercriminals will likely add to their repertoire of attack vectors.

“Cybercriminals are always looking for a way into an organization, and supply chain attacks are ranking higher now on their list of methods. IT managers should prioritize supply chain as a security risk, but don’t because they consider these attacks perpetrated by nation states on high profile targets. While it is true that nation states may have created the blueprints for these attacks, once these techniques are publicized, other cybercriminals often adopt them for their ingenuity and high success rate,”

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said Wisniewski.

Lack of security expertise, budget and up to date technology According to the Sophos survey, IT managers reported that 26 percent of their team’s time is spent managing security, on average. Yet, 86 percent agree security expertise could be improved and 80 percent want a stronger team in place to detect, investigate and respond to security incidents. Recruiting talent is also an issue, with 79 percent saying that recruiting people with the cybersecurity skills they need is challenge.

Regarding budget, 66 percent said their organization’s cybersecurity budget (including people and technology) is below what it needs to be. Having current technology in @Businessdayng

place is another problem, with 75 percent agreeing that staying up to date with cybersecurity technology is a challenge for their organization. This lack of security expertise, budget and up to date technology indicates IT managers are struggling to respond to cyberattacks instead of proactively planning and handling what’s coming next.

Synchronized security solves the impossible puzzle of cybersecurity With cyber threats coming from supply chain attacks, phishing emails, software exploits, vulnerabilities, insecure wireless networks, and much more, businesses need a security solution that helps them eliminate gaps and better identify previously unseen threats.

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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property&lifestyle Abandoned public asset

Residential, commercial opportunities seen in Nigeria’s wasting public assets Temitayo Ayetoto

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he level of waste and under-utilisation arising from federal government’s abandoned public assets sitting on prime land in the country have become too glaring to be overlooked by many Nigerians especially real estate industry observers.

At a time when the government struggles to address huge housing deficit estimated officially at 17 million units, some federal government structures that have been empty since after the relocation of Nigeria’s capital to Abuja continue to lie fallow for reasons bordering on legal disputes and lack of consensus on alternatives uses between federal and state governments.

Most of all, the biggest impediment experts see in this waste is the lack of political will to address these wastages despite political party alignment at the federal and state levels in a state like Lagos.

The experts argue that if disputes around these assets are resolved with reduced

barriers for private investors to efficiently handle, it could impact on a robust housing programme at all levels.

Lagos State government last September confirmed the state was home to over 60 abandoned buildings belonging to the federal government.

Obafemi Hamzat, the deputy governor of the state, confirmed to BusinessDay that there were still many abandoned structures in the state including the Defence House.

“It just makes sense for us to utilise it. If we can fix them, we can share the rent from letting out to people that want offices and so on,” Hamzat said.

Lagos has an estimated 21 million population and also struggles with an estimated three million housing infrastructure deficit for its teeming residents.

These abandoned structures comprising the former Federal Secretariat Complex, Ikoyi, the Defence House cited in the Independence Building, the Glass House formerly housing the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Ministry of Education Building among others are resources experts con-

sider as good assets for both residential and commercial purposes.

Unlike the NET Building which the Lagos State government says is now being handled by private capital, the Federal Secretariat continues to waste and decay.

The Tafawa Balewa Square is also being managed by some private hands but continues to lack maintenance.

The old federal Secretariat was offloaded into the property market between 2003 and 2006 and was eventually acquired

by Wale Babalakin’s Resort International Limited. The goal was to restructure the facility into residential use, a move that continues to be resisted by the Lagos State government.

Dotun Bamigbola, Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Lagos state chapter chairman, said the federal and state governments have the opportunity to leverage on the political party synergy at both levels in resolving the rot at the old federal secretariat in particular.

The expert, who agrees with the Lagos state stance

on retaining the initial plan of the building in tandem with the town planning layout, equally believes both governments could still adjust measures to suit the wasting structure for a more efficient purpose.

“They should look at technical town planning issues that can be addressed to reduce the pressure that could be created from converting the Secretariat into

residential use. There will be need for parking lot because that road is narrow,” Bamigbola said.

“You also have to consider how many apartments you are redesigning that place for. Similarly like you can have residential apartments there, you can also have a commercial hub there.”

Kunle Awobudu, sharing his thoughts with Business-

Opportunity to buy, invest opens as construction begins on The Pacific towers CHUKA UROKO

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new residential and investment opportunity has opened for investors and home seekers as Global Property Partners (GPP), a leading real estate investment and development firm, begins construction work on its 14-floor mixed use development called The Pacific Lagos.

Emmanuel Odemayowa, the managing director of Cavalli Business and Invest-

ment Group, GPP’s parent company, told public and private sector operators who gathered for the groundbreaking event for the project recently that The Pacific was a product of many years of research, brainstorming and planning.

GPP, he said, was out to build “a vertical mixed highrise structure” that would meet the diverse lifestyle needs of its residents in terms of convenience, access to the commercial nerve centres of Lagos and premium facilities.

Located strategically on

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Ozumba Mbadiwe Street in Victoria Island, Lagos, The Pacific is modelled after mixed use property developments in some of the world’s leading economies and is designed to provide a live, work, and play environment that is comparable with the best internationally.

Odemayowa also told the gathering which comprised, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, chairman/CEO of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, represented by Yemisi Ibrahim, as well as other dignitaries, that the new high-rise project

was in line with the Cavalli Group’s vision of helping to reduce Nigeria’s housing deficit.

“We believe we can do this through the development of real estate modelled after international standard,” he said, adding that the Group had completed various real estate projects across Lagos.

Gb e nga O nab a n j o, chairman of Cavalli Group, disclosed that The Pacific comprised commercial and residential 1- and 2-bedroom Continues on page 30

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@Businessdayng

Day, said long abandoned structures have strong relationships with value depreciation, weakening of facilities and failure in integrity test.

“The federal secretariat is an edifice that has revealed futility of past efforts. It is something we really need to improve our advocacy on to see how the place will become useful again. It needs funds for maintenance,” Awobudu said Built in 1972, the National Stadium in Lagos was one of the biggest stadiums in the country with a capacity of 55,000 spectators. But what should stand as a national monument, pointing modern Nigerians to the efforts of past patriots, is more of an example of deterioration today. Just as the country’s governance seem defective in progressive continuation of policies, the centre of Nigeria’s independent celebration in 1960, the Tafawa Balewa Square also lacks maintenance.

There is widespread need for residential and commercial housing infrastructure, yet the 32-storey NET building continues to spend decades in decay.

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property&lifestyle Interview

‘I don’t think the country can afford a policy that is anti-foreign investment’ GBENGA OLANIYAN, the CEO of Estate Links, led a Nigeria trade delegation that was in The Gambia recently to explore investment opportunities in the West African country. In this interview with CHUKA UROKO in Banjul, the Gambian capital, Olaniyan explains why Nigerian investors should invest in the country’s economy, especially in real estate where the rental market is very active and the yield is way ahead of what obtains in Nigeria. He also speaks on other relevant issues. Excerpts:

W

hy do you encourage Nigerian i n ve s t o r s t o i n ve s t in The Gambia given the country’s small market and undeveloped economy?

There are two things that informed this decision. I see a lot of people who look at coming to invest in Gambia as a one-way thing. I have been coming to this country since 2008 and I have actually invested in its economy.

What I am thinking of is that if we must do direct foreign investment, let us as much as possible, keep it within Africa. Gambia provides a mid point where you have a vibrant tourism industry and tourists come around and rent properties.

So far, the investment I have been involved in here has done excellently well and that is real estate. Some members of this team are already looking at other opportunities. Someone is already looking at opportunities in manufacturing.

Actually, there are some

opportunities one could be looking at here.

But at the same time, in a small country like this that works, where electricity is almost uninterrupted, so many things are right.

There are so many things we can learn from here and take back home. For me as a regular visitor to this place, the small bungalows we saw at the Dalaba Estate struck me as something one could invest in back home. These are lower–middle income housing here which could be regarded as low income housing in Nigeria.

Besides economy, another major issue that concerns a potential investor is the political environment. Not long ago, there were political issues in this country. What has changed?

Interestingly, my first investment here was when the country was under a dictatorship. If things could work well then, you can just imagine what is possible now. I can assure you that things have been a lot freer

Gbenga Olaniyan

and easier. What I believe the country has got right is the way they are telling the world that they are proexternal investment. But that is understandable in a country that has over 25

percent of its GDP coming from tourism. They must be pro-foreigners. They must keep to that otherwise they will begin to see a quarter of their GDP fritter away. I do not think they can afford

a policy that is anti-foreign investment.

Yo u h a ve i n ve s t e d here. What has been your experience that those coming after you could latch on?

From landlord’s perspective, I can assure you that they are well protected here.

You don’t find a situation where a non-paying tenant continues to stay in a property for three months. Rents are quite regular. Rents are paid on monthly basis and this enables affordability and convenience in payment. People hardly owe one month rent and that helps an investor to do his projections.

Comparing the rental and sales markets here and those of Nigeria, what difference can be seen?

I see a kind of trade off.

If a developer is building to sell, it is more rewarding in Nigeria than what you get here because the developers here are satisfied with small margins. Though the construction cost has dropped a little bit in Nigeria since

after recession, it is still way ahead of what obtains in The Gambia.

The rental market is more active and rewarding here than in Nigeria. For an average of 5 percent rental yield in Nigeria, you can get a return of 8 percent in Gambia. In Nigeria, a N40 million property gives about N2 million a year just as a N100 million property gives you N5 million a year whereas in Gambia, it is more at 8 percent yield.

Construction cost is lower here than Nigeria.

Why? Yes, construction cost is less even though labour is not cheaper. This is because, here, they have access to cheap materials and they use a lot of local materials. Another reason is that import regime here favours some imported items especially construction materials. Additionally, construction cost is lower here because the developer gets money at 9 percent which is a deliberate government policy decision.

Expectations as Sunmonu becomes Alpha Mead Group chairman Why professionals should use made-in-Nigeria Premium Steel products

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mong the board and management of Alpha Mead Group, one of Africa’s leading total real estate solutions companies, the appointment of Mutiu Sunmonu (CON) as the new chairman of the group’s board of directors has raised expectations.

Sunmonu, a first-class graduate of Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Lagos, has over 30 years of professional and management experience. His remarkable career saw him rise from being a Computer Programmer and Business Analyst at Royal Dutch Shell Plc, to become the chair of Shell Companies in Nigeria and managing director of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) Nigeria between 2010 and 2015.

He is the current chairman of Julius Berger Plc and Imperial Homes Mortgage Bank. He also sits on the board of companies like Unilever Nigeria Plc, Petralon Energy, Air Peace, WAPIC Insurance Plc, to mention a few.

Sunmonu who is replacing Obi Nwasike, the company’s pioneer chairman, who has retired after leading the company since inception in 2007, will be bringing his wealth of experience to bear on the running of the company established to provide business support

CHUKA UROKO

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Femi Akintunde, GMD; Mutiu Sunmonu, incoming Chairman, and Obi Nwasike, pioneer and out-going Chairman, all of Alpha Mead Group, at Sunmonu’s investiture as the company’s new chairman in Lagos recently

services to local and international real estate investors or owners with interests in facilities management, real estate development and advisory.

At a private handing over ceremony in Lagos, Sunmonu said he was inspired by the achievements of Alpha Mead over the past 12 years, noting that the phenomenal growth and expansion that the company had achieved showed that it has a great future.

“I am confident that we can together leverage on past successes, embrace newly inspired innovations and take this company to new heights. I am very proud to be part of your future,” he added. www.businessday.ng

uilding industry professionals, particularly builders and civil engineers, have been advised to use premium steel products which are produced locally in Nigeria by Premium Steel and Mines Limited (PSML) for their building and construction projects.

Besides being produced in conformity with the United Kingdom BS 4449:2005 grade, premium steel bars also compare with similar imports from Europe and China.

The building professionals are advised to use the products because, accord-

ing to Prasanta Mishra, the company’s chief executive officer, PSML currently ranks amongst Nigeria’s foremost suppliers of certified steel products to ongoing national projects including railway, refineries, bridges, flyovers, malls, and high-rise buildings.

Mishra gave the advice at the presentation of some finished products of the one million tons per annum rolling mill to a group of business persons who visited the factory in Ovwian-Aladja, Delta State.

“Only buildings and structures that are constructed with certified quality steel and casting products can withstand the devastating impacts of

Opportunity to buy, invest opens as construction ...

Continued from page 29

apartments as well as penthouse suites and recreational spaces.

He explained that the building was designed to offer breath-taking views of the Lagos Lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean from its upper floors, adding that it was also equipped with a suspended mosaic-tiled swimming pool, round-the-clock security and facility management, as well as a recreational floor with gym, spa/massage facilities, game room, shopping mart as well as restaurant and bar.

The projected completion period for The Pacific is 36 months (2022) and a director at the Cavalli Group,

Tunde Adaramaja, assured investors that the GPP had financial arrangements to ensure it met this target date.

Asides the foundation laying, GPP also opened the Showroom for The Pacific where potential investors could access relevant information and ask necessary questions on the development.

The Pacific Mutual Investment Plan, a product introduced by GPP to offer flexible investment options for the project, starting from as low as N10 million, was also launched at the groundbreaking event.

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shocks and quakes,” he noted, adding that the demand for quality steel is undoubtedly increasing in Nigeria in the wake of recent building collapse incidents “but PSML is ready to meet customers demand for quality steel,” he assured. Other Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) certified products such as reinforcement Premium rebars that are produced at the factory were also showcased during the excursion.

Mishra said that the steel products were manufactured at the company’s newly groomed 18-stand rolling mill and tailored to meet the evolving needs of Nigeria’s building and construction industry.

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Investments

ENERGY INTELLIGENCE

Market Insight Companies Commodity Tracker Policy

OIL

GAS

PETROCHEMICALS

POWER

INVESTMENTS

Oil majors are betting big on blockchain technology ISAAC ANYAOGU

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il giants BP, Shell, Norwegian-owned Equinox (then Statoil), set the digital ecosystem abuzz when they announced plans to develop a blockchain-based digital platform for energy commodities trading in 2017. But now Shell is taking it a notch higher with another investment in the technology first made popular by bitcoin.

The world’s fifth largest oil and gas company valued at $262 billion, is investing an undisclosed amount in LO3, a New York startup, using a modified version of the ethereum blockchain to make it easier for individuals to buy and sell locally produced energy using the existing network of power cables.

While the bitcoin blockchain allows users track the flow of value without using banks to audit the system, analysts say LO3’s platform, called Exergy, is designed to track the flow of energy as it is added to a shared, local energy network, giving users absolute certainty on its source and operation.

If the project succeeds, this startup could disrupt traditional electricity transmission and distribution utilities. In Nigeria, this would be the equivalent of a sub-franchised DisCo alerting you on the power source, available output and units produced and sent out, when and where the grid is challenged, all in real-time.

Distribution of Energy based blockchain-cryto projects in the world

Such information will let industries plan heavy production around peak hours, settle bills with ease and let households better manage their energy use and remove the pain of visiting the local utility to resolve technical issues.

In oil trading, blockchain can be used as a shared database that updates itself in real-time and can process and settle transactions in minutes using computer algorithms,

with no need for third-party verification. Experts say the benefits are enormous including cutting the cost of oil trading.

“Ideally, it would help to eliminate any confusion over ownership of a cargo and potentially help to make managing risk more exact if there are accurate timestamps to each part of the trade,” Edward Bell, commodities analyst at Dubai-based lender Emirates NBD PJSC had told Reuters.

Source: inwara This may not be a passing fad.

In February this year, American oil giants such as ExxonMobil and Chevron, agreed to form the first industry blockchain consortium to explore the potential benefits that blockchain technology can deliver to the space.

Reports from international media organisations say ExxonMobil is exploring the potential of blockchain by partnering with startups such as Vakt, which is a digital ecosystem for

physical post-trade processing.

Analysts say the benefits of blockchain in the oil and gas sector are enormous. Through blockchain, crude oil transactions can be digitized, ensuring enhanced security, improved transparency, and optimized efficiency. It can also offer improved data storage.

It can foster the development of a cryptocurrency pegged to oil which could be a viable replacement for traditional financial transactions. This cryptocurrency could enable direct transfer of value between various parties in the industry without the need for a trusted intermediary like a bank.

Governments could better regulate the industry because all the transactional data is stored on a blockchain network, which can be accessed in real time for taxation, hydrocarbon tracking and environmental impacts.

However, in Nigeria blockchain technology for the oil sector has not been developed. “The blockchain technology is still in its infancy in Nigeria,” says Michael Glaros, principal program manager, Microsoft during the launch of the Interswitch Block chain earlier this year.

Blockchain technology in Nigeria finds application in cryptocurrencies and tracking goods by the Nigerian Customs Service. It seems only a matter of time before it becomes mainstream and tech companies that take positions now may emerge winners.

MARKET

Shell, Seplat in hunt for land rigs signals possible oil recovery STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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he hunt for land rigs by Anglo-Dutch super major Shell, and Nigerian independent Seplat Petroleum, probably shows exploration and production activities are about to pick-up again after active rig count in Nigeria fell by half last year.

Shell is getting ready for a major drilling programme and has gone to the market for two jack-ups and a pair of land rigs, one of which will have to handle high-pressure, hightemperature wells. Seplat Petroleum is also searching for a land drilling rig for work on Oil Mining Licence (OML) 53.

As of June 2018, Africa’s largest crude producer had 32 oil rigs according to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR). But this has fallen to 14 rigs as of June 2019, according to the oil cartel’s latest July MOMR. This is more than a 50 percent decrease.

Rig count is a function of the level of exploration, development and production activities occurring in

the oil and gas sector. A drop in active rig count means oil exploration and production activities in have decreased year-on-year.

“Both elements correlate. To replace oil reserves, you need to intensify exploration and production activities. This means more active rigs. It also means more investment www.businessday.ng

inflows into Nigeria’s oil and gas sector,” one major contractor told BusinessDay in confidence. “Falling active rig count and reserves mean there have been no fresh investments in the sector.”

Nigeria’s oil reserve decreased to 36.247 billion in 2011 from 37.200 billion recorded in 2010, while in

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2012 there was relative improvement to 37.139 billion but went down again to 37.071 billion in 2013.

In 2014, it stood at 37.448 billion before sliding down to 37.062 in 2015 while in 2016 it stood at 37.453 billion.

However, at an average of 1.8 million barrels a day (bpd), Nigeria pumps around 648 million barrels per year. When multiplied by seven years this gives 3.888 billion barrels of pumped oil, subtracted from the current figure of 37.453.

However, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has started pre-qualification processes for all its rig requirements, under four separate contracts, and responses were due for submission by 12 July.

Three of the four rigs will be chartered under firm two-year contracts, each of which will have one-year extension options.

The charter for the high-pressure, high-temperature unit is for two firm wells with a maximum firm contract of up to 12 months, followed by two one-year extension options. All the contractual work @Businessdayng

scopes cover drilling, completion and well testing operations and are due to start either in a year’s time or in early 2021.

A shallow-draft drilling and work over jack-up are set to start operations in the first quarter of 2021. The second jack-up that SPDC requires is for conventional drilling and work over duties, with work due to begin in the third quarter of 2020.

For its onshore campaigns, SPDC needs a pair of drilling and workover rigs, one with a 2000-HP draw-works that can handle pressures up to 10,000 pounds per square inch and another larger unit rated at 3000 HP and 15,000 psi, respectively.

The smaller unit must start work in the third quarter of 2020 and the larger unit in the first quarter of 2021.

Seplat Petroleum, as part of a joint venture with state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is pre qualifying contractors for a two-year contract, with a one-year extension option, that is due to begin this quarter. Responses were due for submission on 10 July. Seplat did not specify exactly where in OML 53 the rig would be working.

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

ENERGY INTELLIGENCE

Nigeria is missing out in deep offshore infrastructure boom STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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he advantages associated with Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSOs) vessels, over traditional semi-submersible oil rigs have positioned them as the preferred offshore infrastructure of the future for drilling oil fields, Nigeria may be missing out on this opportunity by delaying pending FPSO projects.

The latest global deals and investments are spurred by strong demand for FPSOs that operators are currently seeking to develop in oil and gas fields, especially in Brazil, Asia, and Africa.

There are 186 FPSOs currently in operation around the world, 43 of which are operating in African waters, this is just under 25 percent of the total. Ten percent of all FPSOs are operating specifically in West Africa, with one FPSO in Ghanaian waters, one off the coast of Mauritania, two in Cote D’Ivoire, and 14 off coastal Nigeria.

Particularly when focussing on deepwater fields, European FPSO developments are experiencing a slower rate of advancement than the West Africa region, and with a population equal to that of the United States, and a massive maritime zone of control, more attention should be paid to those waters. This is an opportunity Nigeria can latch on to by creating clarity through competitive fiscal terms and a legal framework that guarantees the sanctity of contracts in

the country’s oil and gas sector.

Malaysian FPSO vessel owner and operator Yinson Holdings is shoping for very large crude carriers in anticipation of possible FPSO conversion jobs for which the company is currently bidding.

The company last week reached agreements to buy two VLCCs respectively from Ridgebury Tankers and Neda Maritime Agency.

Addressing Yemi Osinbajo, vice-pres-

ident of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on August 10, 2018, during his tour of the Egina FPSO, Bayo Ojulari, managing director of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Development Company (SNEPCo) said about seven more FPSO vessels will be built in the next 15 years. But Ojulari added that Egina was possible because of government support. This highlights the critical role of government.

In his remarks after touring the

POLICY

ELECTRICITY MARKET

Oil forecasts point to fierce market share fight, is Nigeria ready?

ISAAC ANYAOGU

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uring the past week, three important forecasts for the global oil market were released: the OPEC market report, the IEA market report and a report from the US EIA. All three forecasts point to decline in crude oil demand next year.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the world’s largest oil cartel says global demand will fall by at least 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd).

On its part, Paris-based, International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the return of an oversupplied oil market next year, despite the recent rollover of an OPEC-led pact designed to restrain any glut. It said supply had exceeded demand by 0.9 million bpd in the first six months of this year.

The United States Energy Information Administration (US EIA) on its part forecasts a glut for oil markets largely due to rising US oil production. It reported last month that U.S. crude oil output in April surpassed 12 million bpd. Through

huge FPSO, then Acting President Osinbajo said the Egina project showed the need for the Federal Government to continue to ensure an enabling environment for businesses to thrive in the country.

Some FPSO projects in the pipeline in Nigeria include the Zabazaba deepwater project being executed by Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited (NAE) in partnership with SNEPCO in Oil Prospecting

License (OPL) 245 and the Bonga South West Aparo (BSWA) deepwater project being developed by SNEPCO. Three contractors with active interest in building the BSWA 150,000 barrels per day FPSO include South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries, with a base-case proposal, said to involve using the SHIMCI yard in Lagos which most recently handled the FPSO integration work on Total’s Egina project.

A consortium of China’s Offshore Oil Engineering Company (COOEC) and Italy’s Saipem are also in the race.

Iain Esau and Xu Yihe, analysts at Upstreamonline.com, an online platform that provides oil and gas news reported July 4 that an informed source said COOEC would build the topsides but would outsource hull fabrication work to other yards in China. Saipem will deal with the challenging local content aspect of the project.

A third group believed to be preparing to submit bids documents is China’s CIMC Raffles and Monobuoy, a Lagosbased engineering concern with a United States of America parent company.

CIMC was previously expected to tie up with Kavin Engineering and NOV, and it is not known if these two contractors remain involved.

Indications emerged earlier that major contractors bidding for Zabazaba submitted competitive costs and concrete plans to fabricate and integrate over 50 percent of the FPSO topsides in-country.

the use of fracking technology in shale formations, the U.S. has become the world’s largest crude producer.

As OPEC continues to hold off a glut in the oil market through a supply cap agreement that has lasted three years, recent difficulties in getting non-OPEC members to support the pact, may yet validate these dire forecasts.

OPEC pumped 29.83 million bpd in June, according to an average of the six secondary sources used by the organization to track member output, including S&P Global Platts.

OPEC, Russia and nine other allies last week agreed to extend their collective 1.2 million b/d supply cut agreement through the first quarter of 2020, but the data indicates they will have to cut further if they wish to keep the market balanced.

The challenge is that appetite for more cuts has begun to wane in Russia. Analysts say a stand-off between Saudi Arabia and Russia is OPEC’s biggest challenge at the moment.

Dissenting voices against the deal from Russian companies including Roseneft and Lukoil is getting louder because the restriction on their prowww.businessday.ng

duction is ceding more market share to US shale producers.

In its report, OPEC said its supply curbs would “avoid a destabilizing build-up in oil inventories,” and that in extending the deal, OPEC and its partners were “reaffirming their continued commitment to promote and enhance oil market stability.” OPEC will struggle to sell this corporation in the face of the shale oil threat.

Nigeria’s gambit Relative calm in the Niger Delta has helped Nigeria ramp production above 1.7 million bpd. Among OPEC’s members who boosted production, Nigeria led the increases with 129,000 bpd in June over May, while the largest producer Saudi Arabia raised its crude oil production by 126,000 bpd to 9.813 million bpd.

In this same period oil market analysts report many unsold cargoes and ships searching for buyers for Nigeria crude. In the emerging oil market, the money will not go to the most prolific producers but countries that are smart about developing and maintaining market share. To meet its budget revenue target, this would need to be Nigeria’s topmost priority.

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Power supply to Nigerian households declines marginally in Q2 – NOIPolls STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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igerian households enjoyed less power supply in the three months ending June compared to the first three months of 2019.

This is according to a new Power Poll released by NOIPolls for the second quarter (Q2) of 2019, which showed a marginal decline from 37 percent obtained in Q1, 2019 to 31 percent in Q2.

This decline has been attributed to the continuous breakdown of the national grid and other daunting challenges experienced at both levels of generation and transmission of electricity in the country within this period.

Although there has been a steady increase in power supply from the month of April to June 2019, the steady increase observed in Q2, 2019 could be ascribed to the raining season as the water level in the hydroelectric power generation is within expected capacity.

Quarterly analysis of results showed that a larger proportion of Nigerians (37 percent) reported that they experienced better power supply to their respective households in Q1, 2019 than in Q2, 2019 (31 percent). This signifies a 6 percent decline when Q1 is compared to the Q2, the NOIPolls stated on its Twitter handle.

More findings over the period in view showed that the average hours of cumu@Businessdayng

lative power supply to Nigerian households nationwide was also highest in Q1, 2019 at an average of 9.6 hours daily.

But it is important to note that there has however, been a steady decline in power supply from an average of 9.7hrs/ day in Q4, 2018 to an average of 9.2hrs/ day in Q2, 2019.

Dating as far back as 2013, a trend can be observed which shows that despite about N5 trillion pumped into the power sector in the last 20years, not much has really improved.

Nigeria is the largest economy in subSaharan Africa, but limitations in the power sector constrain growth. The country is endowed with large oil, gas, hydro and solar resource, and it already has the potential to generate 12,522 megawatts (MW) of electric power from existing plants, but most days is only able to generate around 4,000 MW, which is insufficient.

To fix the broken power sector, a BusinessDay report of July 3 suggested the Distribution companies need to be restructured. The Discos reported a combined loss of N446.85 billion in 2017, which was 64 percent higher than the previous year. Their total combined operating cost of N655.16 billion in the same period outstripped cumulative sales of N563.10 billion. Discos’ interest expense surged by 129.51 percent to N155.64 billion, indicating a balance sheet that is unsustainable.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

OFFGRID BUSINESS

33

Why off-grid operators are attracting serious investors ISAAC ANYAOGU

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eep knowledge of the local market, institutionalising corporate governance even when only at start-up phase, competent management, efficient customer service and convenient payment systems are key reasons local off-grid operators are attracting the biggest chunks of equity investments in Nigeria.

During a press briefing to announce over $9 million in equity funding to offgrid start-up Arnergy, in Lagos, recently, the investors said they were principally driven by the technical competence of the company’s management and their strong knowledge of the local market.

Within the past three years alone, off-grid operators have seen saw over $1 billion in new investments. These investments have often been backed by technical and governance support.

The mini grid space has attracted the most investment in the sector due to the high cost of building a minigrid. For example, the 85kw solar hybrid minigrid mini grid at Gbamu-Gbamu village, in Ijebu-East Central Local Council of Ogun state was built with a 500 million euros financing from GIZ, a German

development agency.

Besides providing funds, GIZ provided technical support by re-skilling its grantee on deploying a mini-grid.

The company also provided technical support having experts monitor the process. GIZ has expanded the training

opportunity to include local installers.

The World Bank too has provided the Nigerian government, a $350 million loan for the development of rural electrification projects in the country and is partnering a Federal Government agency disbursing the fund on strategies

to make the investment deliver value.

Local off-grid operators have been able to build knowledge of the local market by deepening engagement with the communities they serve. ColdHubs for example, began by offering local farmers knowledge on the latest trends in

farming and preserving produce without a fee before it began offering cold storage services. This helped to build trust and reduce the cost of marketing.

Some mini grid operators carry out extensive scoping exercises in various rural communities to determine that there will be a few local businesses that will take up the energy they produce for productive purposes. They also determine how they can assist the communities develop new businesses like viewing centres, grocery shops where cold drinks are sold. Sometimes they offer soft loans to these residents who invest in small businesses from which they develop the ability to pay for the energy they use.

Solar home system operators in rural communities where there are no banking institutions have developed smart pay solutions that allow users vend energy units as they would a mobile phone recharge card. They train the community people to man these shops and hire some to serve as their technical assistants.

This way they are able to operate in remote communities and have gradually began to scale, opening up more opportunities for bigger investments as they meet obligations from previous investments.

New report ranks Nigeria’s solar energy market top 5 globally … records $4.6m sales in appliances in 2018 BUNMI BAILEY

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frica’s biggest economy is amongst the top five countries with the largest cash market of off-grid solar energy with a value of $4.6 million, according to the latest Global OffGrid Solar Market Report.

From the report by the Global Off-Grid lightening Association (GOGLA), the global association for the off-grid solar energy industry, Nigeria Off-Grid solar cash sales increased by 58.6 percent to $4.6 million in 2018 from $2.9 million in 2017 but volume of products sold reduced by 5.3 percent to 204,155 in 2018 from 215, 575 in 2017.

The off-grid solar appliances such as TVs, fans, refrigeration units and water pumps were sold to people living in off- or weak-grid areas.

Also, GOGLA that builds sustainable markets, delivering quality, affordable products and services to as many households, businesses and communities as possible across the developing world said that Nigeria moved up by three places to the fourth position in 2018 from the seventh position in 2017.

The report which analysed 46 countries includes data for national markets where at least three manufacturers reported sales.

“The macroeconomic situation in Nigeria in the first half of 2018 seems to be more stable than it was

in 2017. Inflation has remained high and in double digits, but it is on a slightly downward trend compared to the previous two years. Foreign exchange is more available to enable imports but shortages of it still remain an issue,” the report stated.

Nigeria was in recession for five consecutive quarters but returned to positive growth of 0.72 percent in the second quarter (Q2) 2017 from -0.67 percent in Q1 2016. Since the exit from recession, there has been availability and stability of foreign exchange in Nigeria.

The top countries with the largest cash market are India, Kenya, Ethiopia and Nigeria with $94.3 million, $18.0 million, $10.8 million and $4.6

million respectively.

Ayodele Oni an energy partner at Bloomfield Law Practice said, “The grid in Nigeria is not as strong as it should be or has not produced much power and that is why people need an alternative source of energy. Remember that there is a direct correlation between poverty and lack of energy, so the more lack of energy people have, the poorer they become. Fossil oil like diesel is very expensive. But with solar even when the initial cost may be expensive but other time you will be spending no money because the sun is your source of energy, so it is much more cheaper overtime, cleaner, less stressful and less risky.”

Oni also said that solar market is

ANALYSTS: Isaac Anyaogu (Team Lead), Stephen Onyekwelu, Dipo Oladehinde

growing and that more businesses and investments are going into the sector because it is a larger market.

Affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy access for all is part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) s.

The report is divided to half (H) year periods. For H1 2017, between the period of January-June, Nigeria had $1.7 million and in H2, between July-December, it had $1.2 million totalling to $2.9 million. For 2018, H1 and H2 had $2.7 million and $1.9 million respectively, which give a total of $4.6 million.

The Off-Grid products are sold in cash and the PAYGo (pay as you

go) model. But from the report, both the PAYGo and cash model were used in 2018 unlike in 2017 when only cash model was used. On the PAYGo model, Nigeria slipped to the seventh position in H2 2018 having $2.4 million from the fourth position in H1 2018 with $2.6 million. The volume of products sold dropped by 35 percent to 32,439 in H2 2018 from 50,319 in H1.

“The PAYGO model works like you pay for recharge card. You pay as you make calls, so if you use it for two hours you pay for that time. You don’t own the solar panel system it is a rental system. When you rent, you pay for it. So most people don’t want to pay forever, they want to buy and know that they own it. And that appears cheaper in the long run than for you to be doing pay as you go because they factor several cost into doing that and because the cost of doing business is quite expensive and the cost of rentals at the end of the day will out weight the cost of buying it,” Oni said.

Nigeria’s electricity system is saddled with a huge gap between the cost of generating electricity and the tariffs it receives. This gap was estimated at $2.4 billion in 2015-17 by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to IMF, the gab can be closed by reducing the cost of generating and distributing electricity, and through increasing the tariff by at least 50 percent

Feedback: 07037817378, 08137433034, 08135447789

email: isaac.anyaogu@businessdayonline.com, stephen.onyekwelu@businessdayonline.com, oladehinde.oladipo@businessdayonline.com

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Media business Nielsen chief underscores importance of testing companies’ innovations before implementation

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Stories by Daniel Obi Media Business Editor

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arious books and seminars have emphasised the importance of innovations to keep organisations competitive or to gain market advantage but Ged Nooy, Managing Director of Nielsen Nigeria said innovation is not absolute as it must be subjected to testing before implementation to substantiate it.

Experts have said that out of every 7 new innovative products, only one succeeds and laying credence to this, Nooy who spoke at his company’s event in Lagos recently said concepts fail because a lot of managers rush to the market without testing the innovation before implementation and execution.

“Another challenge is that innovation is sometimes just done to extend the brand line instead of identifying what the customer needs”, Nooy further said at the forum which looked at the question of whether retailers and manufacturers are equipped to beat the odds they are facing in Nigeria by anticipating and preparing for the future.

Nooy and his team had invited clients to assess future consumption trends and how this can be shaped and the big drivers and some of the developments that will do that.

According to him, “everyone is fighting for growth, competition for consumers’ wallets has never been

Cross section of Felix King widows market Moni beneficiaries at the Batch One of the cheque presentation ceremony in Esan Central LGA Secretariat, Irrua Edo State recently.

greater, and growing share of those wallets has never been tougher. In a challenging environment, finding opportunities with the right insights becomes key to help beat the odds.”

In helping the clients beat the odd, Nooy said Nielsen creates a benchmark to determine how clients are performing. “If they are growing below the benchmark, we look at why until we find where the problem is”.

Also speaking, Ailsa Wingfield, Executive Director, Thought Leadership, Nielsen said, “Opportunities today and tomorrow are about understanding and delivering what consumers need and want. Times are shifting”, she said.

She noted that “there are more products on the shelf today than ever before, from new and existing brands, and a whole lot more information points, advocates and advertising telling consumers about them. The consumer is spoilt for choice. Brands need to identify their purpose and provide the right value to their customers, if they want to keep them loyal”.

Other insights from the event showed that Nigeria is a complex market. There are consumers who are upbeat and confident with 81% feeling good about the state of their financials, 60% of Nigerians say they can only afford the basics. 41% of Nigerians feel that their quality of life

is better but more than half feel that it is worse, leading to a polarization in the market with consumers at both ends of the spectrum. “Marketers need to cater to the demands of those who want value and at the same time those who are aspirational and want quality, premium products”.

“Another trend impacting consumer behaviour is the rise of disloyalty. 88% consumers across Africa & the Middle East are ready to defect and 45% consumers love trying new things. In such a scenario it becomes all the more important to understand consumer attitudes and perceptions and how they make choices”.

Increasing focus on consumer engagement signposts big business opportunity for experiential marketers - Experts

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perators in Nigeria’s experiential marketing, a segment of Integrated Marketing Communication industry that is going through excruciating times have been told to redefine themselves and lever-

Spectranet introduces Spectra-cular data plans, drives affordable connectivity

age the opportunities associated with the increasing focus on consumer insight and engagement by companies.

Today, the primary concern of businesses is to connect with the consumer and this resonates with

what experiential marketers do.

Therefore, speakers at the Experiential Marketers Association of Nigeria, EXMAN 2019 Business conference recently in Lagos said the industry should not complain of business lull but tap into the op-

From L-R: Emeka Onwuka, CEO Parkway Projects, Amal Hassan, founder/CEO Outsource Global, and Onwuka at the Nigeria Exports Summit and Awards Dinner which held at the Civic Centre, Lagos. www.businessday.ng

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portunities presented to them by the market demands.

“You are better positioned than other agencies in assisting businesses achieve their objectives, given where we are today”, Mike Ikpoki, CEO of Africa Context told EXMAN whose slogan is ‘growing Nigeria’s brands through meaningful experience’ Mike who was the first Nigerian CEO of MTN Nigeria said if the management is saying connecting with the customer should now be a priority and they need to do that speedily and engage their organisations around it, that is what you do, then why are you complaining about tough business, he said.

“You are in the golden age of business of experiential marketing.

That is what the businesses are saying that they want to understand their customers and connect with them.

You should be driving that course”, he challenged them.

He also challenged them to bring more value to the table through deriving data, insight and intelligence from customers when they organise events. @Businessdayng

s part of efforts to make internet connectivity affordable and accessible to subscribers, Spectranet 4G LTE has introduced Spectra-cular data plans.

Structured to suit the needs of all types of Data users – Casual users, Moderate users and Heavy users, these simple easy-to-understand plans named as Unified Value, Mega Value and Always On singularly focus on delivering superior value to the subscribers and resulting in significant savings.

According to Chief Executive Officer, Ajay Awasthi, “in a rapidly evolving Data market like Nigeria, the subscribers most often get confused by extremely complex and difficult -to-understand Data plans offered by various operators. At Spectranet, we understand Data users’ behaviour much better, being the first operator to launch 4G LTE services in Nigeria. Recently, we found that there is a significant shift in usage behaviour from day time to night time driven by Youtubers, online bloggers and other online entrepreneurs.

“The core idea behind the launch of these plans is to offer Data users superior value through simple, uncomplicated data plans packing in either bonus night time GBs or Unlimited Night time browsing. Our subscribers in all usage categories can now enjoy seamless access to Internet without having to worry about paying exorbitant charges.

Outsource Global wins Service Exporting Company of The Year Award

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utsource Global, Nigeria’s premier business process outsourcing company, has won the Service Exporting Company of the Year Award.

The award, according to a statement was presented during the Nigeria Exports Awards supported by the Ministry of Communications, Nigerian Communication Commission, and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) amongst others.

Speaking during the awards ceremony, the Founder and CEO of Outsource Global Amal Hassan said “our goal is to make Nigeria the leading outsourcing destination in the world, and we are glad that key domestic stakeholders are beginning to recognize the economic impact of Outsource Global in the industry and country at large. With over 850 employees, and plans over the next five years to increase that number to 6,000, outsourcing is an untapped market that only needs the right environment to thrive.”

According to Hassan, “the country’s significant comparative advantages over countries like India and the Philippines have given us leverage in UK, US and Japan where we currently serve clients looking for the best outsourcing destinations.”

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

35

ADVERTISING How Nigerian creative advertising startup hoisted Nigeria’s Flag at Cannes, France Nigeria is inching closer to winning the elusive Cannes awards as evidences of global recognition of Nigerian creative works point to that. This report looks at another effort in that direction.

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he Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has since its debut in 1954, remained the most globally recognised and prestigious creative advertising platform for recognising and celebrating excellence. Brands, agencies and individuals jostle every year for glory not just for themselves but also to give a good account of the country at the ‘World Cup’ of creative advertising.

This year’s edition (which was the 66th) which held in last month, did not see a resolution to Nigeria’s elusive first win of any works at the festival in France. However, the country no doubt continues to inch closer to achieving this feat and joining other African countries like South Africa, Egypt and Zimbabwe in registering its name among winners of the much touted and prestigious global creative event. Over the course of the last few years giant strides have been made in this direction by Nigerian agencies.

This year however, Nigeria’s glory in France at the creative festival rested on the shoulders of a young creative disruptive start-up agency that has consistently wowed the international community with the kind of works that come from its stable, Up In The Sky. Relatively small, nimble and continuously creative, this agency has consistently won at different global showcases since it commenced operations in 2016, winning accolades and recognitions for its cinematic and attention-grabbing work. The Agency became the very first Nigerian creative shop to host a full workshop at Cannes which ran for 90 minutes.

Workshops have been a part of Cannes since its first outing in 1954. The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has been bringing the Creative communications industry together every year at its one-of-akind event in Cannes to learn, network and celebrate creativity. It explores the value of creativity in branded communication: from product and service development to the creative strategy, execution and impact.

Hence, it gathers seasoned experts from across the world to share their experiences and insights through panel sessions and workshops. The time allotted to a workshop as opposed to a panel (a panel is usually between 30 - 45 minutes while a workshop is usually longer) is the first fundamental difference between the two types of sessions at Cannes.

Secondly, on panel sessions, speakers come to the table with their unique perspective on issues, leveraging their experience, markets and background. Workshops on the other hand are hands-on practical sessions with emphasis on actionable learning. It is a teaching session. Therefore, workshops are not held in any of the Cannes theatres, but in a dedicated workshop room. These sessions most often are more participatory for the audience as attendees are given the opportunity to put what they have learnt into practice - just as it happened at the one organised by Up In The Sky. The implication of Up In The Sky’s hosting a workshop at Cannes therefore, is

L--R: Idiare Atimomo, chief operating officer and Oje Ojeaga, chief executive officer of Up In The Sky at Cannes, France

significant as only the best gets to the stage at Cannes to speak. Indeed, at this year’s edition, only six workshops were held. As the organisers of the festival noted on their official website, “We interrogate the methodologies, approaches and achievements of all types of companies: from tiny start-ups to huge multi-nationals. Anyone with original ideas can enter speaking submissions or awards entries, but only the bravest – and most effective - will make it on to the stage,” and Nigeria’s Up In The Sky did just that in 90 minutes.

Recall that asides its consistent local and global wins, the agency is today among the Lagos Advertising & Ideas Festivals (LAIF) top five agencies in Nigeria. If you consider the fact that it has achieved this and more in

“

We proposed to share our unique workflow template at Cannes on how creative collaboration should happen between copy writers and film directors, how they work together, collaborate, all from the unique African and Nigerian perspective, with our body of work to support

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its less than five years of operations and the fact that Cannes trusted it with the onerous task of organising a workshop for the global stage, then the realisation that in the next few years it could redefine advertising locally, continentally and globally is in order.

The workshop which held on the 17th of June, was a major highpoint for Up In The Sky which has since carved a solid niche for itself as an Agency with a strong reputation in making globally acclaimed short films and running visually stimulating cinematic cause-related campaigns like ‘Special Day,’ a short film focusing on the plight of street children it executed for the Royal Diamond Orphanage. That campaign delivered its first win at LAIF in 2016 as well as international recognitions, including the Platinum Award for the Best of Category at the 2016 Summit Marketing Effectiveness Award competition.

On why of all the other creative advertising agencies on the West African coast, Up in the Sky was chosen to organise a workshop, Idiare Atimomo, Chief Operating Officer of the firm was reported saying that “the idea of the Cannes workshop began when we received communications from organisers of Cannes, where they asked us to pitch a proposal idea for a workshop. We looked at our body of work at Up In The Sky in the past three years and realized we have actually come up with a very unique process for creating films. This process of creating films was borne out of creative collaborations - how we believe copy writing and film direction can be harnessed. It was why Tolu Ajayi, a highly decorated film director was our first draft pick to join us in delivering a workshop such as we proposed to the Cannes team” Idiare explained.

“We proposed to share our unique workflow template at Cannes on how creative collaboration should happen between copy writers and film directors, how they work together, collaborate, all from the unique African and Nigerian perspective, with our body of work to support. The Cannes content team got back to us earlier in the year

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to say they were pleased with the idea. They thought that it was something that could enrich the quality of the festival this year, because of the content. They observed our body of work and our speakers and felt that we could make a positive contribution. Basically, the workshop idea was approved for us to come and run, based on the strength of the proposal itself and the supporting documents and the speakers we were bringing. They actually went through a vetting process before approving the workshop for us to run at Cannes,” he said.

Centred on the theme, “From Crap Script to Crazy Film” the workshop focused on the development of stronger craftsmanship in the copywriter and film director communities. These two disciplines are integral to advancing how the creative advertising industry interprets stories and are many times in conflict. Oje Ojeaga, Chief Executive Officer gave more insight: “Up In The Sky is an agency that has built its core from cinematic storytelling, it is something we do very well.

Two, in today’s world, the prevalence of video is global. Video is currently without a doubt, the most powerful medium for communication on any platform. You will find brands are making more videos, people are consuming more videos whether they are skits, memes or vlogs. If a brand really wants to speak to people, creating a video it’s a no brainer. The cost of the video is relative. It doesn’t have to be expensive but it has to be impactful.

Asked about the significance of the workshop to him and the team at Up In The Sky, Oje answered: “I find that when you are a start-up agency, it seems like you are always in a struggle for survival.

Living to see the next day becomes top priority. Sometimes, when you have huge achievements, they can just go under the radar. But this was different. There is literally, nothing bigger than Cannes for an Ad Agency. We are talking about the World Cup of Advertising!

“It is one thing to be given an opportunity to make impact and it is another thing to witness first-hand how people respond to that knowledge. Just the sheer amount of enthusiasm for the subject material by a truly global audience was overwhelming.

The audience at the workshop comprised of people from such countries as the US, Sri Lanka, Denmark, India, etc, cutting across the diverse portfolio of departments - Directors, Brand Managers, Copywriters – even Clients” “We do have a unique perspective. Yes, we are global, but we have a unique way in which we tell our stories. At the Cannes workshop, we did not shy away from telling that story, neither did we pretend like we are not Nigerians. We presented a uniquely Nigerian point of view. That has been our ambition and we will keep driving that.

That is how we aim to keep competing and changing the narrative about Nigerian creatives.”

It is inevitable that a Nigerian agency is going to win at Cannes soon.

@Businessdayng

36

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

FEATURE

Sanwo-Olu and the Apapa gridlock problem Lagos may be Nigeria’s business capital but it’s port city, Apapa has morphed into an orderly mess with nightmarish traffic gridlock, dilapidated roads and onslaught of unruly oil tankers. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the new governor is matching his intention to tackle the problems with action, writes ISAAC ANYAOGU

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ince his inauguration as governor of Nigeria’s commercial nerve centre, Lagos, Babajide Sanwo Olu has visited Apapa twice, which clearly indicates an intention to access the situation and seek a resolution to the problems.

So, as far as intentions go, many will agree that the new governor has demonstrated it. But intensions alone are not enough to fix the mess, Nigeria’s premier port city has become. Apapa is a crying shame, a slaughter slab for good intentions. In its current state, it is unbefitting to be associated with a state that says it wants to be known for excellence.

Ordinarily, the fact that a governor visits a community in a state, he presides should not be news any more than he had breakfast, but the situation in Apapa has morphed into a living nightmare, too critical to ignore yet ignored for far too long that any form of official attention makes headlines.

Residents and businesses have fled Apapa in droves because the air is foul, thick with plumes of smoke from tankers long pass their sell-by dates, who queue on roads that are worn and weary, with potholes deeper than gullies.

Smoke from industrial generators louder than angry thunders fill the air. Apapa has the rich ambience of chaos, a city both hostile and confining. Apapa has become the hymn that accompanies insanity.

Beyond the bridges whose joints groan every time a vehicle is driven across, the inner city roads inside Apapa are in a state of disrepair. Some parts of Creek road will pass as an open sewer and Point Road has lost its charm. Unlike in the past, officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority officials have been deplored to Apapa roads but the volume of vehicular traffic is overwhelming.

Sanwo-Olu-visits Apapa speaks on how he’ll tackle gridlock.

The Federal Government has run out of security agencies to intervene in curbing the traffic in Apapa. Before they were disbanded, the army, police and the navy have played a role in keeping Apapa roads sane. They often started off well and gently peter off into resounding failure. Following accusations that security agencies were profiting from the mess, the president disbanded the teams.

However, Sanwo Olu’s intentions towards Apapa is igniting hope. During his visit, two days after inauguration, Sanwo Olu said his administration would work with the Federal Government and other stakeholders to achieve the June deadline for the completion of the 1,000-capacity Tin Can Ports Truck Terminal to resolve the crisis.

Sanwo Olu said major tasks

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required to complete the terminal have been accomplished. “What is left to complete is the water system, toilet facility and power supply, which is the aspect left to fix. Once they do that, all the trucks on the Ijora bridge and others within that axis can use it,” he said.

Sanwo-Olu, has met with port operators who listed challenges confronting them at the Nigeria Ports Authority and Lilly Port Terminal. From these interactions with these interest groups including the Federal Government, the governor is recognising the full scale of the problems.

“We have discovered that the problem of Apapa is multi-faceted; one agency cannot resolve the issue. We have met with security officers and operators on ground.

We have seen that the problem is

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more than what one company can solve,” he said.

A contributor to Apapa’s problem according to Sanwo Olu’s diagnosis is that there is disconnect in the activities of picking and dropping off containers in the Ports. He plans to engage with NIMASA, shipping councils, NPA, the Federal Government and others to resolve the issue, “especially on how they can push the commencement date for the collection of demurrage,” he said.

“The final solution is around the corner; we are hoping in due course; we will get all these issues behind us. “We need to build another port. We will take it upon ourselves with the support of the NPA to develop the Lekki and Badagry ports,” the governor said.

Following the governor’s visit and the setting up of a task force to contain the problem, the 400-truck capacity Tin Can Trailer Park has been opened to trucks even though it is not completed. Truck drivers say there is no water, electricity and toilet facilities and officials manning it say the drivers are unruly and uncouth.

“I don’t know why the government is forcing open an uncompleted park with little or no logistics in place,” one traffic controller told our reporter. “We don’t even have toilets here.”

Kayode Opiefa, executive vice chairman on the presidential task force on Apapa gridlock says it is working to fulfil its mandate.

He told BusinessDay that while the contractor works to complete the park, the roads needed to be cleared to allow ease of movement. @Businessdayng

“Our mandate is to ensure that there are no trucks on Apapa roads and bridges and I am happy we are delivering on our timelines. The trailers have to move into the park even though work is still going on there.”

While these federal interventions are on-going, port workers interviewed told BusinessDay that the Lagos state governor must continue to intervene.

“I am happy tankers have left the road,” says Hassan Ibrahim, a port worker, “It is good the governor is showing interest in Apapa, but the problem is not over.”

Recall that last month, the Lagos state government through the permanent secretary, ministry of transport ordered a restriction of movement of trucks into Apapa through the Mile 2 Tin Can route from June 28 to July 1 to enable contractors carry out repair works on collapsed sections of OshodiMile 2-Tincan expressway.

The contractors had already begun some palliative works on Creek road, Apapa linking Liverpool towards the Tincan area of Apapa. The Lagos state government secured a 12-day demurrage period extension and charted a route for trucks coming into the ports empty and departing after it is loaded with goods.

However, fixing Apapa requires sustained effort.

Final solution Sanwo proposed that the final solution to the Apapa situation is to build another port. The governor says his government will support the Nigerian Ports Authority to develop alternative ports at Lekki and Badagary.

But Hadiza Bala-Usman, Managing Director of the Nigeria Ports Authority, is still considering the viability of the Badagry deep seaport when there are plans to construct another one in Lekki. Usman has engaged consultants to draw up a new masterplan after the initial one was cancelled.

“If you look at the Badagry and the Lekki deep seaport projects, they are all within the Western ports. The port master plan will guide us on whether it is okay to have two deep seaports in close proximity to each other,” she told journalists while announcing the cancellation of the contract.

The task before the Lagos state government will be to present a compelling case for alternative ports in the State. The priority for the NPA is to prioritize the construction of deep seaports that will have the required draft for larger vessels.

The Apapa port complex which handles 80 percent of Nigeria’s cargo is 14m in depth and today’s vessels require a depth of 17m making a case for an alternative port.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Live @ The Exchanges Stock market opens week on negative note Stories by Iheanyi Nwachukwu

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he Nigerian stock market still opened this week on a negative note despite analysts’ expectation of an increased activity on the Bourse as second quarter (Q2) earnings results season fast approaches.

At the sound of trade closing gong on Monday July 15, 2019 the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) decreased by 0.79percent, pushing the month-to-date (Mtd) decline to 5.43per-

cent and year-to-date (ytd) loss to -9.83percent.

The NSE ASI decreased from 28,566.79 points to 28,340.98 points while the value of listed stocks decreased by N111billion from N13.922 trillion to N13.811trillion.

Total Nigeria Plc recorded the highest loss, after its share price moved down from N140 to N130, losing N10 or 7.14percent; while that of Dangote Cement Plc followed after its share price decreased from N173 to N170, losing N3 or 1.73percent.

Nestle Nigeria Plc recorded the highest price advance, from N1225 to N1228, adding

N3 or 0.24percent; followed

by Nigerian Breweries Plc which moved up from N58 to N58.5, losing 50kobo or 0.86percent.

The volume of stocks traded increased by 74.52percent, from 100.37million to 175.16million, while the total value of stocks traded increased by 46.95percent, from N1.460 billion to N2.145 billion in 3,111 deals.

The Financial Services sector led the activity chart with 139.84million shares exchanged for N932 million; while Conglomerates followed with 15.036 million shares traded for N17million.

L – R: Jude Chiemeka, divisional head, Listing Business, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Oscar N. Onyema, OON, chief executive officer, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Austin Avuru, chief executive officer, SEPLAT Petroleum Development Co Plc and Roger Brown, chief finance officer, SEPLAT Petroleum Development Co Plc during Seplat Capital Markets Day at the Exchange in Lagos.

We will continue to sensitise investors on e-dividend - SEC

T

he Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has said that it will continue to collaborate with relevant stakeholders to sensitise investors on the need to regularise their multiple accounts as well as claim their dividends.

Mary Uduk, acting Director General, SEC said the Commission has taken various steps to ensure that shareholders benefit from their their investments in the capital Market.

She said the volume of unclaimed dividend is still huge but the commission is doing a lot to bring it down.

According to her, “Only recently, in our determination to reduce the quantum of unclaimed dividends in the Nigerian Capital Market and encourage beneficiaries of deceased investors to step up efforts to claim such dividends, the Commission exposed an amendment to our Rules which reduced the time, processes and costs of the transmission of shares from a deceased to the beneficiary.

“The timeline for the transmission of deceased’s shares has been reduced from three weeks to one

week. Going by that, registrars shall ensure that shares of a deceased are transmitted within a week of receiving the request from the administrators or executors.This effort will ensure seamless transmission and claim of a deceased’s shares by heirs and administrators.

Uduk said it is also the quest for investors to get the benefit of their investments that prompted the Commission to release a circular to shareholders of defunct Skye bank to claim all outstanding dividends.

She said sensitisation efforts are going on with other stakeholders to enlighten members of the public on the need to go and claim their shares through regularization of multiple accounts.

“If you cannot claim your shares, there is no way you will be talking about claiming your dividends.

One of the things the Commission has done is to encourage these people to come and regularize their accounts. As I speak about 2.6 million account holders have registered for e-dividend and many can testify that they are getting their dividends promptly”

she said.

She also said the SEC has informed shareholders of the defunct Skye Bank that unclaimed dividends declared by the bank are being held in trust on their behalf and urged them to claim their dividends.

This she stated, will further help reduce the volume of unclaimed dividends in the market and boost investor confidence.

Uduk said the Commission has also directed Cardinalstone Registrars and STL Trustees to ensure that all genuine claims of beneficiary shareholders are addressed forthwith.

The Acting DG said since the company is no longer in operation, these unclaimed dividends have to be made available to the rightful owners that are the shareholders, as that will go a long way in boosting investor confidence in the market.

“They invested in a company and since the company has gone under, there is no reason why they should not have access to their unclaimed dividends. That is why we are calling on them to take advantage of this opportunity and claim their dividends” Uduk stated.

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news 10 things Nigerians need to know Inflation eases to 11-month low of 11.22% in June ... about Rwandan ...

Continued from page 2

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than 67 percent of the rape victims counted to have been infected with HIV. 7. The media was used to play a major role as local radio stations and newspaper outlets were set up to circulate propaganda stories and broadcast reports, urging people to “weed out the cockroaches”, meaning kill the Tutsis.

8. About 200,000 people participated in the perpetration of the genocide. The murderers were incentivised in the form of money, food, or land, to kill their Tutsi neighbours.

9. Tens of thousands of Tutsis who made attempts to escape the horrific killings by running to churches, hospitals, schools, and government offices were murdered in cold blood in the genocide. These places were known by Rwandans as places of refuge. It was worrisome that the Hutu extremists did not allow the corpses of Tutsis to be buried, leaving their bodies where they were killed and allowing animals to feed on them.

10. The Rwandan Genocide ended after the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a trained military group consisting of Tutsis, who had been exiled in earlier years to Uganda with the support of Uganda’s army, took over the country by entering Kigali.

by 1.07 percent in June 2019, and 0.04 percentage points lower than the rate recorded in May 2019 at 1.11 percent.

The food sub-index increased by 1.36 percent in June from 1.41 percent the previous month, while core inflation increased by 0.85 percent from 0.75 percent recorded in May 2019.

FSDH Research, a subsidiary of FSDH Merchant Bank, had projected in the July edition of its monthly economic and financial market report that the June 2019 inflation rate was going to drop to 11.32 percent. That is 0.1 percentage points more than the actual rate reported by NBS for the month under review.

However, at the current level, the nation’s headline inflation remains higher than the threshold of 6 percent to 9 percent set by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The index has remained in the double-digit trajectory since February 2016 when it rose 11.38 percent.

The urban inflation rate increased by 11.61 percent (year-on-year) in June 2019 from 11.76 percent recorded in May 2019, while the rural inflation rate increased by 10.87 percent in June 2019 from 11.08 percent in May 2019.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

Insurers require N271bn to meet new minimum...

Continued from page 2

earnings was a special case and would be treated according to its situation.

The official, who failed to provide clarification on what the actual components of the new capital are, noted that the paid-up share capital was the same everywhere and that those concerned know.

Contrary to the Nigerian scenario, Ghana, the country’s next-door neighbour, also came up with new capital requirement for its insurance industry, but specifically expects operators to meet the new requirements through fresh capital (cash) injection, capitalisation of audited profits (retained earnings) and or a combination of the above options.

The Ghana insurance authority had said in a statement that insurance companies operating life and non-life (composite) are to increase their new minimum capital requirement from initial GHC15 million ($2.75 million) to GHC50 million ($9.28 million), while reinsurance companies initially operating with GHC40 million ($7.43 million) are to increase theirs to GHC125 million ($23.21 million).

Insurance broking com-

panies and loss adjusters’ capital base was also increased from GHC300,000 to GHC500,000, while reinsurance brokers’ capital base remains at GHC1 million.

The recapitalisation commencement date is June 30, 2019 while the deadline is fixed for June 30, 2021.

Analysts say given the size of Nigeria’s economy and the opportunities it offers, it is time to recapitalise the insurance sector.

Herbert Wigwe, managing director/CEO, Access Bank plc, said at the recently concluded 2019 National Insurance Conference in Abuja that relative to the size of the Nigerian economy and the opportunities it offers, the insurance sector needs serious capitalisation to increase its capacity to underwrite transactions in sectors such as the oil and gas, marine, aviation, technology, etc.

He noted that the increasing the minimum capital for the insurance industry by over 200 percent was necessary.

“Whilst this will go a long way towards repositioning the insurance sector in terms of product offerings and customer experience, the sector must grow big enough to provide cover for huge exposures,” he said. www.businessday.ng

L-R: Jordi Borrut Bel, managing director, Nigerian Breweries Plc; Peter Costello, vice president, Shell Nigeria; Ifueko OmoiguiOkauru, chairman, ReStral Limited/ Franklin Anglophone West Africa, and Olukayode Ogunleye, human resources manager, Shell Nigeria, during the Shell Nigeria extended leadership network held in Lagos

No! Atiku and his team did not clear Nigeria’s entire debt in 2006 OLUWASEGUN OLAKOYENIKAN

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ormer Vice President Atiku Abubakar, in a series of tweets and a Facebook post on Friday, July 12, 2019, claimed the National Executive Council (NEC) which he chaired in 2006 paid off Nigeria’s entire debt, but available figures obtained from the Debt Management Office (DMO), Nigeria’s official debt agency, show the nation was still indebted to the tune of N2.2 trillion as of year-end 2006.

Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of the main opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 2019 elections, took to Twitter and Facebook using his verified accounts to express his thoughts on Nigeria’s current debt profile two days after DMO released the nation’s debt figures as at the end of the first quarter of 2019.

BusinessDay had exclusively reported that the continuous borrowings by the Federal Government of Nigeria from domestic sources largely sent Nigeria’s total public debt portfolio to

FACT CHECK N24.95 trillion in the period, causing an increase of N560 billion in three months as against N24.39 trillion debt stock recorded as at the yearend 2018.

“Nigeria’s debt has more than doubled from N12 trillion in 2015 to N24.9 trillion in 2019, yet we became the world headquarters for extreme poverty,” Atiku’s first post on Twitter in reaction to the debt figures read.

“Irresponsible borrowing results in unprecedented sorrowing. We mustn’t saddle future generations with debt instead of prosperity.”

The former vice president went ahead in another post to claim that the National Executive Council in 2016 paid off the country’s entire debt, a move which ought to set the nation free of all forms of debt.

“As head of the National Executive Council in 2006, under the leadership of exPresident Obasanjo, we paid off Nigeria’s entire debt,” Atiku posted on Facebook at 9:00AM and on Twitter at

9:06AM Nigerian time Friday, July 12, 2019. “It thus breaks my heart to see that after the sacrifice, Nigeria in the last 4 years returned to being a heavily indebted extremely poor nation.”

Atiku was the major contender of the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Muhammadu Buhari, in the 2019 presidential election. According to Nigeria’s electoral umpire, Independent National Election Commission (INEC), President Buhari polled a total of 15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest rival Atiku who scored 11,262,978 votes.

The former vice president is currently challenging Buhari’s victory at the presidential election petitions tribunal sitting in Abuja.

Atiku served as vice president for two straight terms from 1999 to 2007 under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Since Atiku posted the claim on Twitter, it has so far been liked by more than 2,000 times, shared over 1,000 times and attracted more than 400 divergent comments on Nigeria’s debt

portfolio, while a similar post on Facebook has been liked more than 3,300 times and shared over 900 times with comments in excess of 1,200.

BusinessDay gathered different datasets from the state-owned debt agency on Nigeria’s debt stock from end-December 1985 to the first quarter of 2019 to show the country’s debt trend and provide insights into issues surrounding Atiku’s claim.

According to the historical data compiled by BusinessDay, Nigeria owed a total of N2.2 trillion, comprising N1.75 trillion in domestic debt and $3.54 billion payable to external sources.

When the external debt was converted to the local currency, Naira, using the official exchange rate of N127/USD as of year-end 2006 while taking a cue from DMO’s usual conversion methodology, it was observed Nigeria’s external debt obligation was N450 billion.

The exchange rate figures were obtained from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

CBN sees banks moving in right direction on new lending ...

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can avoid being debited. So yes, there are some early signs there is compliance,” a source at the CBN who did not want to be named told BusinessDay on Monday.

“The CBN is already gathering data that will show the banks that are complying and the ones that are not, and that data will dictate what we do next,” the source said. “All the CBN wants is for banks to perform their core function, which is to lend.”

In a bid to ease lending to the private sector and stimulate an economy still reeling from a contraction in 2016, the CBN rolled out new lending measures in the past week and focus has now shifted to how far the apex bank will go to achieve its desire for banks to lend to small businesses.

The first directive was an order that banks lend at least 60 percent of their deposits to small businesses before the end of September.

Then a measure that cut

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how much money lenders can keep in interest-bearing accounts with the apex bank by 73 percent followed.

The central bank source said the apex bank was prepared to introduce “sterner measures” if it isn’t satisfied with the result of both measures.

The Abuja-based bank is, however, willing to extend the deadline for compliance with the loan to deposit ratio if it is satisfied with the efforts of banks to grow their loan books.

BusinessDay analysis @Businessdayng

shows that the banks would need to create loan assets of N1.3 trillion to meet the latest regulatory requirement.

Nigerian banks became risk-averse after an economic contraction in 2016 caused bad loans to surge.

The banks soon found solace in lending to government with the promise of double-digit return, thereby largely shelving private sector lending due to the perceived risk involved.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

39

Markets + Finance

‘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.’

Conoil Nigeria Plc: Innovative product underpins profit BALA AUGIE

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nvestors crave for a company with strong earnings and attractive valuation. This is because they expect to be paid bumper dividend, the reward for taking risk in the entity; after all they could have invested the money in other ventures.

Concoil Nigeria Plc, a major player in the downstream oil and gas industry just released its first quarter financial statement that showed improvement in key performance ratios.

The stellar performance means the company has bolstered the optimism of investors because it isn’t easy to thrive in a harsh and unpredictable macroeconomic environment.

Nigeria’s economy has been growing sluggishly since the country exited its first recession in 25 years in 2017 as GDP expanded by expanded by 2.01 percent in the three months through March from a year earlier.

That compares with 2.4 percent expansion in the fourth quarter.

Inflation rate was 11.40 percent in May, a figure that is higher than the 6 percent and 9 percent central bank target range.

Unemployment rate is at an all time high of 23 percent, as the country dethroned India to become the poverty capital of Africa.

The country’s decrepit infrastructures such as the menacing Apapa gridlock

and bad roads has continued to undermine the growth of downstream oil and gas firms that incur additional haulage cost.

Oil marketers are grappling with huge debt brought on by delay in the payment of subsidy arrears by the Federal Government. Consequently, a lot of firms are unable to settle outstanding salaries of workers and pay interest on money borrowed from banks.

Amid these monumentalor or huge challenges, Conoil continues to thrive as it recorded double digit growth in revenue and profit, while it maintains a solid working capital position.

Conoil reported a 13.85 percent increase in revenue to N35.63 billion in March 2019 from N31.81 billion as at March 2018.

A breakdown of sales figure shows revenue from white products- which make up 95 percent of top line- increased by 13.80 percent to N34.02 billion in the period under review as against N29.88 billion as at Marc h 2018.

The growth is coming at a time when most oil marketers are struggling to grow revenue since the Nigerian National Corporation of Nigeria (NNPC) is the sole importer of petroleum products.

Conoil’s costs of sales were up 15.64 percent to N32.67 billion in March 2019 as against N28.25 billion in the previous year. Cost of sales ratio increased to 91.58 percent in the period under review as against 90.25

Mike Adenuga, chairman, Conoil Nigeria Plc

percent the previous; this means the company spends N91 in input cost to produce each unit of product.

Operating expenses fell by 13.79 percent to N2 billion in the period under review from N2.32 billion the previous year.

Conoil has an excellent cost control mechanism that is responsible for costs being slightly higher than inflation rate. The company was able to prevent costs from escalating through investment in research and development as well as training of employees on new measures and better production and service delivery.

The company’s operating profit was up 28.65 percent to N951.0 million in the period under review as against

N739.46 million as at Mach 2018.

Profit before tax (PBT) moved by 53.89 percent to N448 million, as improved operating performance validates management and board of directors’ focus and market penetration strategies.

Profit after tax (PAT) increased by 53.89 percent to N325.17 million in the period under review as against N211.30 million the previous year despite a 54.54 percent increase in total tax liability.

Conoil’s operating profit can cover its current interest payment as interest coverage ratio stood at 1.87 times earnings, which is more than the 1.50 times generally accepted benchmark.

Finance costs were down

Conoil Nigeria Plc: Q1 financial highlights

3.70 percent to N506.25 million in the period under review as against N525 million the previous year.

The ratio is calculated by dividing a company’s earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) by the company’s interest expenses for the same period.

The lower the ratio, the more the company is burdened by debt expense.

When a company’s interest coverage ratio is only 1.5 or lower, its ability to meet interest expenses may be questionable.

Conoil has utilized the resources of its owners in generating higher profit as return on equity increased to 7 percent in the period under review from 4.67 percent the previous year.

The company also turned each unit produced in sales into higher profit as net margin, a measure of efficiency, improved to 0.91 percent in the period under review as against 0.67 percent the previous year.

Pretax margins followed the same growth trajectory as it increased to 1.34 percent in March 2019 from 0.99 percent the previous year.

Accomplishment ConOil initiated and

BD MARKETS + FINANCE Analysts: BALA AUGIE www.businessday.ng

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@Businessdayng

executed its first pre-drill site and pipeline survey within one month of award of block Oil Prospecting License (OPL) 113 (now OML 103) in 1991. It remapped Bella structure in OPL 113 and proposed back-to-back appraisal wells for drilling within two weeks of the discovery well.

In 1997, the company became the second E&P company in Nigeria to drill and produce a horizontal well.

Was the first E& P company in Nigeria to run the Halliburton Magnetic Resonance and Imaging Log (1997).

Purchased jack-up rigs and converted same to production platforms. Conceptual engineering design and construction supervision were all done by Conoil Nigerian personnel. Was the first E & P company to commission an ocean bottom cable 3D seismic survey in marine/transition zone in Nigeria.

Conoil has operated continuously as a responsible corporate organization in all dealings with stakeholders and executed various community development projects.

Corporate Review Conoil Plc markets refined petroleum products; and manufactures and markets lubricants and household and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for domestic and industrial use in Nigeria.

The company retails petrol, diesel, kerosene, gas, and other petroleum products through approximately 300 outlets and stations; markets lubrication and coolant products to commercial, industrial, and retail customers; and manufactures lubricants under the Quatro, Okada Golden Super, and Golden Super brands. Its retail automotive lubricants include multi-grade engine and gasoline engine lubricants, diesel and diesel engine oils, transmission oils, transmission and brake fluids, and two-stroke engine oils.

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

FT

BUSINESS DAY

41

FINANCIAL TIMES

World Business Newspaper

KIRAN STACEY AND DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO IN WASHINGTON AND JIM PICKARD IN LONDON

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resident Donald Trump has renewed his attacks on “radical left congresswomen” despite international condemnation of his weekend tweets, which called on the female US lawmakers to “go home” to where “they came” from, as “inappropriate” and racist.

Rather than apologise for his remarks, which appeared to target four outspoken Democratic women of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, Mr Trump lashed out at them again on Monday morning, saying they were the ones who owed an apology.

“When will the Radical Left Congresswomen apologize to our Country, the people of Israel and even to the Office of the President, for the foul language they have used, and the terrible things they have said,” he wrote.

“So many people are angry at them & their horrible & disgusting actions!”

Democrats at the weekend condemned the remarks, which are well-worn racist tropes used by white nationalists. But on Monday, the comments started gaining international censure, with a spokesperson for Theresa May, the outgoing British prime minister, calling them “unacceptable”.

“The prime minister’s view is

Trump renews attacks on Democrats despite charges of racism Call for congresswomen to ‘go back’ from where ‘they came’ denounced internationally

that the language used to refer to these women was completely unacceptable,” her spokesman said.

Although Mr Trump did not name the congresswomen, it was widely interpreted as an attack on four Democrats known as “The Squad”: Alexandria OcasioCortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley. All are American citizens, and all but Somalia-born Ms Omar, who arrived in the US as a refugee as a child, were born in the US. Ms Ocasio-Cortez, a New York City congresswoman who has emerged as one of the most prominent liberals in the Democratic party, on Monday noted that few prominent Republicans had condemned Mr Trump’s remarks.

“Until Republican officials denounce yesterday’s explicitly racist statements (which should be easy!), we sadly have no choice but to assume they condone it,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Twitter. “It is extremely disturbing that the *entire* GOP

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (R) pictured alongside US senator Bernie Sanders © AFP

caucus is silent. Is this their agenda?”

Although no elected Republicans have denounced Mr Trump’s remarks, they have become a lightning rod for the

“never Trump” wing of the party, with onetime party luminaries such as William Kristol attacking fellow Republicans for failing to denounce the president.

“Someone asked yesterday

how I thought one could ‘save the GOP’ when not one GOP member of Congress had criticized Trump,” Mr Kristol wrote.

“The response kept me up last night: ‘But not one?’”

AB InBev’s pulled IPO points Bondholders lobby US government to to heady price tag soften Venezuela sanctions Advisers rue lost fees as the world’s largest brewer scraps plans to list Asian business HUDSON LOCKETT in Hong KONG, ARASH MASSOUDI IN LONDON & DON WEINLAND in Beijing

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n trying to sell a stake in its Asian business, Anheuser-Busch InBev was pitching a premium brewer with fast-growing prospects, which deserved a correspondingly frothy price.

What Hong Kong investors found in Budweiser APAC — which markets dozens of brands including Budweiser and Stella Artois in countries ranging from China to Australia — was a standard, slightly flat beer group. That clash led to the collapse late on Friday of what would have been the world’s biggest initial public offering this year, leaving the heavily indebted parent to blame “prevailing market conditions” for the deal’s failure.

But analysts and bankers close to the deal pointed to the refusal of management at AB InBev to drop the price, after a lukewarm reception from investors. The fallout has left premier investment banks in the region — led by JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley — ruing an embarrassing flop and lost fees of a total of US$192m, according to the

offering prospectus.

The IPO plans also came at a critical time for Hong Kong, which has been experiencing political unrest in recent weeks, and as other companies including Alibaba look to carry out big listings in the city. Instead, it joins a list of shelved offerings that have raised questions about the state of IPO markets outside of the US. One banker involved in the deal — speaking on condition of anonymity — said it was clear from early market feedback that AB InBev’s target range was probably higher than investors would accept. But he added that the company felt it was under no pressure to compromise on the valuation. “We back up our client and respect their decisions even if they may differ from what would be our best advice,” the banker said.

Another was more blunt. “They are not carpet sellers that need to trade with a gun to their head,” he said, referring to AB InBev. He noted that the company’s rising share price since the start of the year suggested that investors were comfortable with the group’s more than $100bn of net debt. “They didn’t get the value they wanted so they pulled the deal.” www.businessday.ng

Creditor group says restrictions on trading could be forcing bonds into ‘rogue’ hands

COLBY SMITH IN NEW YORK

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S sanctions on the trading of Venezuelan debt could be forcing bonds into “rogue” foreign hands, according to a group of bondholders that is urging the government to soften its stance.

Several investors in Venezuela’s creditor committee — which holds roughly $8bn of the country’s debts — are lobbying the Treasury department to address what some call an “ill-advised” trading ban, in light of JPMorgan’s decision this month to all but remove Venezuelan debt from its widely followed emerging market bond benchmarks.

The move is likely to precipitate forced selling — especially by passive US funds that simply try to track an index — at a time when the sanctions bar US institutions from doing business in Venezuelan securities with other US entities. Should investors want or need to wind down their positions, they can only sell to non-US buyers — often at a steep discount.

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The sanctions are “having the exact opposite effect as . . . intended,” said Mike Conelius, a portfolio manager at T Rowe Price — one of the country’s largest bondholders alongside Fidelity, BlackRock, Pimco and Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

“The policy is hurting American investors and unknown, potentially rogue foreign investors are profiteering from the extremely distressed prices caused by forced selling,” he argued.

The trading ban was imposed during the US government shutdown in January, but concerns among bondholders have intensified in recent weeks. Since the end of June, the once-frozen market for Venezuelan debt has come back to life after buyers snapped up an estimated $300m to $400m worth of bonds at knockdown prices.

The trades, which some money managers speculate originated in Spain and the Middle East, were reported to a price-dissemination system run by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the industry’s self-regulatory body, triggering markdowns and large paper losses @Businessdayng

for holders. Certain maturities of Venezuela’s sovereign bonds now fetch below 20 cents on the dollar, and some instruments issued by PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, are trading even lower.

“This was a sophisticated non-US purchaser seeking to create additional selling pressure right around the same time that many investors would have to sell because of the JPMorgan decision,” said Hans Humes, chief executive officer of New York-based Greylock Capital, a bondholder. “That type of buyer can really mess up a restructuring process.”

According to multiple people familiar with the matter, the Treasury department justified the trading ban on the grounds that officials in the Venezuelan government led by President Nicolás Maduro were believed to hold a chunk of the roughly $62bn worth of outstanding bonds — the majority of which are in default.

Restricting trading would therefore prevent regime insiders from generating cash at the same time as the White House was tightening the screws on Venezuela’s all-important oil industry.

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NATIONAL NEWS

How India’s tallest building ended as an unfinished construction site Bets on expensive property go bad in downturn, scaring off buyers and choking credit BENJAMIN PARKIN IN MUMBAI

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t was meant to be the tallest building in India, with luxury flats, a swimming pool and cinema where billionaires and Bollywood stars could enjoy a life of perfect splendour looking down over the Mumbai skyline.

But the Palais Royale complex now sits unfinished alongside other partially built structures tangled in the megacity’s trafficchoked downtown streets, an apt symbol of a crisis that threatens a key part of India’s financial system.

Over the past decade, some of India’s largest financial groups have bet big that the country’s fastgrowing economy would breed a generation of rich bankers, lawyers and tech entrepreneurs eager to spend millions of dollars on luxury flats in the country’s largest cities.

A group of gutsy shadow banks willing to fund such projects were rewarded with roaring growth.

These non-bank financial companies, like Palais Royale’s financier Indiabulls Housing Finance and other large groups like Dewan Housing Finance, soon became a big part of India’s financial system.

Shadow banks grew to account for a fifth of all new credit last year, and became the largest source of funding for real estate thanks to loan growth of more than 20 per cent a year between 2013 and 2018.

But those bets on expensive property have now gone bad in an economic downturn, scaring off buyers and choking the flow of credit. That has left the real estate sector with a formidable mound of debt: developers collectively owe about Rs2.5tn ($37bn) to the non-bank financial sector.

“If the big players fail to get money,” said Sachchidanand Shukla, chief economist of the Mahindra Group conglomerate, “it can quickly have a domino effect.

And that is the real scare.”

Property consultancy Anarock estimates that half of the luxury real estate in Mumbai’s downtown alone is unsold: 11,000 properties worth a total Rs590bn.

Analysts say these billions of dollars stuck in illiquid luxury property now present a serious threat to India’s economic health.

“It has a massive impact,” said Ramesh Nair, India head of property consultancy JLL. “If the real estate economy doesn’t pick up, the overall country will be in trouble.”

Non-bank finance companies provide loans for everything from roads to housebuilding and new washing machines and cars for consumers. But the sector faced a reckoning in September when infrastructure group IL&FS defaulted on debt, prompting a government intervention dubbed India’s “Lehman moment”.

This episode highlighted how many of these companies had borrowed short-term money cheap

and made a profit lending to developers over longer terms. After the danger of this mismatch became apparent, investors rushed to recover their money, prompting the banks and mutual funds that had fuelled the non bank sector’s growth to pull back.

In Mumbai, the glut of expensive housing has only increased.

Unsold inventory in the city rose 14 per cent in the first half of 2019 from the same time a year earlier, according to Knight Frank.

Indiabulls is now auctioning off Palais Royale to help recover Rs9.9bn from the developer. The property did not sell after an initial auction for a minimum price of about Rs8bn, prompting the company to lower its price closer to Rs7bn for a second auction in June.

The company said it was evaluating bids. But two people familiar with the matter said that Indiabulls had homed in on a buyer, and the sale was entering its final stages.

The vision for the project, started a decade ago, was spectacular. At more than 300 metres, Palais Royale was to be the tallest building in India with some 100 flats and amenities including a spa and cricket pitch, according to promotional videos and property websites.

“Everybody who is in industry, the captains of industry, booked an apartment there. All lawyers, bankers, industrialists — all of them have apartments there,” said Vishal Srivastava, Anarock’s head of corporate finance.

But progress was soon slowed by legal challenges over allegedly unauthorised features, sparking a series of delays. Indiabulls became involved in the project in 2011, refinancing a loan originally provided by a bank, but by 2016 — with the project still not finished and ongoing legal challenges — the company wrote off its investment as a non-performing asset.

However grand the planned building, Palais Royale’s woes fit a familiar pattern: 30 per cent of real estate projects and half of all builtup space in Mumbai is under litigation, according to a 2019 Brookings India report, with projects taking an average of eight and a half years to complete.

Investors remain uneasy. Indiabulls’ share price has fallen 50 per cent from a peak in August, while the stock of major non bank financial company Dewan lost almost 90 per cent of its value over a similar period. Lending from mutual funds and others to the shadow banking sector remains muted.

Debt levels at a group of real estate developers sampled by Credit Suisse, meanwhile, rose by 50 to 100 per cent in the past four years.

“One risk is that, for real estate developers, the true magnitude of debt may be under-reported,” said Ashish Gupta, Credit Suisse’s head of India research. “Clearly the outlook isn’t great.” www.businessday.ng

Jenn Piepszak is a 25-year veteran of the bank

JPMorgan’s new chief financial officer to make debut before investors

Jenn Piepszak is seen as a possible heir to bank boss Jamie Dimon after quick but quiet rise LAURA NOONAN IN NEW YORK

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hen JPMorgan Chase’s new finance boss Jenn Piepszak makes her quar terly earnings debut this week, investors in the biggest US bank will be watching for more than just the usual guidance on dealing with low interest rates.

Tuesday’s results will be the first time JPMorgan Kremlinologists can assess Ms Piepszak and her rapport with the bank’s longserving boss Jamie Dimon since she was named chief financial officer in April.

The 49-year-old’s rise has been quick but quiet. Ms Piepszak has gone from a divisional financial controller to one of the most senior executives, with a seat on the operating committee.

That top table at JPMorgan has seen frequent change over the past decade, with numerous potential successors to Mr Dimon stepping — or being pushed — aside.

Some at the bank now put Ms Piepszak in the category of pos-

sible heirs to the 63-year-old Mr Dimon, alongside Marianne Lake, who moved from chief financial officer to head JPMorgan’s cards and consumer lending operations as part of the same April reshuffle.

Gordon Smith, co-president at JPMorgan, himself seen as a candidate should Mr Dimon fall under the proverbial bus, put it differently.

“What Daniel Pinto [the other co-president] and I are trying to do, with Jamie, is to be constantly developing people who will be able to be part of the [top team of roughly] 15 people . . . to set up the bank for the next 10-plus years,” said Mr Smith.

Ms Piepszak, a New Jersey native who joined JPMorgan after a Bachelor of Science degree at Fairfield University, will have 25 years of experience at the bank to draw on when she addresses analysts on Tuesday.

Her first 17 years were spent in the finance function for various parts of the investment bank, before becoming chief financial officer of the lender’s mortgage division in 2011 — “probably during

some of the worst times there”, Mr Dimon told an audience at a recent New York conference.

The mortgages business suffered a pre-tax loss of $3.3bn in 2011 as defaults soared and fees slumped. Her boss at the time was Doug Braunstein, then JPMorgan’s chief financial officer, and now a major activist investor in Deutsche Bank. Ms Piepszak had “nothing but bad news” to tell him, a colleague recalled, and “learned to speak truth to power quickly”.

In 2015, Ms Piepszak, an ardent sports fan, was head of JPMorgan’s business banking division. “The day I became CEO, something changed that goes way beyond a title,” she wrote in a Forbes post, describing being “simultaneously humbled and empowered” by responsibility for her staff and almost 4m small business customers.

One of her early frustrations in the business bank, a colleague said, was “the cost and complexity of lending”, fuelled by her belief that the bank had “a lot of creditworthy business owners who just decided not to apply for credit” because it was too much hassle.

South Africa’s Jacob Zuma denies being ‘king of corrupt people’ Ex-president tells judicial inquiry that graft allegations were part of vast conspiracy against him JOSEPH COTTERILL IN JOHANNESBURG

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outh Africa’s Jacob Zuma said corruption allegations that ended his presidency were part of a vast conspiracy against him, as he used his first appearance before a judicial inquiry to deny being “king of corrupt people”.

Mr Zuma said the claims that he helped the Guptas business family loot the state during his rule were an “exaggeration” that his enemies used to unseat him, and that they had been aided by foreign intelligence agencies.

“I’ve been vilified, alleged to be

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the king of corrupt people . . . there’s been a drive to remove me from the scene . . . a conspiracy against me,” Mr Zuma said at the start of his testimony into the “capture” of the state by the Guptas.

South Africa’s governing African National Congress last year fired Mr Zuma and replaced him with Cyril Ramaphosa, as the country’s biggest post-apartheid political scandal engulfed the party. Mr Zuma’s voluntary appearance at the hearing is a watershed moment in a saga that it is likely to exacerbate infighting in the ANC, as Mr Ramaphosa battles to root out graft @Businessdayng

in the party’s ranks.

South Africans have for months been gripped by the often lurid testimonies that have emerged from the inquiry, as a series of former ministers and officials have revealed shocking allegations of corruption in Mr Zuma’s administration, including that he gave the Guptas control over public appointments.

When one ex-minister, Ngaoko Ramatlhodi, alleged that the former president auctioned executive authority to the family, Mr Zuma responded: “There is nothing of that kind . . . What did I auction? Table Mountain? Or Johannesburg?”

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

43

FINANCIAL TIMES

COMPANIES & MARKETS

@ FINANCIAL TIMES LIMITED

China’s economy grows at slowest rate in nearly 30 years US tariffs having ‘major effect’ on companies ‘wanting to leave China’, says Trump LUCY HORNBY AND XINNING LIU IN BEIJING

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h i n a’s e c o n o m y grew at its slowest pace in almost three decades in the second quarter as the trade war with the US took its toll on exports.

But resilient domestic consumption meant that Beijing was able to avert a deeper slowdown, giving Chinese president Xi Jinping some leeway as he tries to negotiate an end to the dispute with the US. Gross domestic product grew at 6.2 per cent year on year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Monday. The figure, which was in line with most analysts’ expectations, was the slowest since the NBS began calculating its current series of GDP data in 1992, at the beginning of China’s long bull run.

China reported 6.4 per cent growth in the first quarter and 6.6 per cent for full-year 2018.

Tax cuts enacted earlier in the year helped boost the domestic economy, offsetting the problems with trade, Mao Shengyong, NBS spokesman, told reporters on Monday. “China’s economic growth is more

and more reliant on domestic demand, especially on consumption,” Mr Mao said.

US president Donald Trump hailed the latest evidence of a slowdown, saying on Twitter that “United States tariffs are having a major effect on companies wanting to leave China for non-tariffed countries”.

“Thousands of companies are leaving. This is why China wants to make a deal with the US and wishes it had not broken the original deal in the first place,” said Mr Trump. “In the meantime we are receiving billions of dollars in tariffs from China and possibly much more to come.”

The CSI 300 index of Shanghai and Shenzhen-listed stocks pared earlier losses to trade 0.9 per cent higher after the release of the data, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng benchmark gained 0.2 per cent.

China’s softening economy comes after a period of tumultuous relations with Washington.

The two countries have threatened and imposed new rounds of levies on each other’s goods, but agreed to a truce after a meeting between Mr Trump and Mr Xi last month at the G20 summit in Osaka.

Gilead to raise stake in Belgian biotech in $5.1bn deal Drugmaker’s investment in Galapagos will gain it access to pipeline of drugs SARAH NEVILLE IN LONDON, AND MARK VANDEVELDE AND HANNAH KUCHLER IN NEW YORK

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S drugmaker Gilead Sciences has agreed a $5.1bn deal to increase its stake in Belgian biotech group Galapagos and gain access to a pipeline of drugs that are under development.

The deal marks an expansion of the alliance between the two companies, which were already co-operating on a potential arthritis treatment. It comes as Gilead is under pressure from sliding sales of its blockbuster hepatitis C drug, and is the first major move by chief executive Daniel O’Day who joined from Roche Pharmaceuticals in March.

Gilead will acquire the rights outside Europe to two additional drugs that are in development, which target osteoarthritis and lung scarring. It will also have the option to take up similar rights over any other new treatments that Galapagos invents over the next ten years.

The American company is pay-

ing an upfront fee of $3.95bn, and will also invest $1.1bn to nearly double its stake in Galapagos to 22 per cent. It will make additional payments if the two experimental drugs named in the deal are approved in the US. Gilead has also agreed to share some of Galapagos’ development costs.

Mr O’Day said he joined the company to expand its portfolio of world class research, and that this partnership was a “creative” and “unique” way to do it. Gilead did consider acquiring Galapagos but chose a partnership instead.

“I’m a believer that acquisitions, in this case, can often destroy value.

Many times you lose some of the very best scientists and people in the organisation. You create complexity. In early stage research, independence creates more value,” he said.

Onno van de Stolpe, Galapagos chief executive, said he wanted to create a “European powerhouse”, not sell out to a large pharmaceutical company. With over a billion euros in the bank, he said Galapagos came to the negotiations in a position of strength. www.businessday.ng

Most of the weakness in second-quarter GDP came from exports, which contracted in June © AFP

Citi offsets revenue declines with strong cost controls Bank posts rising profits in second quarter despite drops in trading and investment banking ROBERT ARMSTRONG, US FINANCE EDITOR

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itigroup kicked off the second-quarter earnings season for Wall Street with results that underlined the tough trading conditions for investment banks.

The fourth-largest US bank by assets suffered a 5 per cent decline in trading revenues in the second quarter and a 10 per cent drop in investment banking activities such as mergers and acquisitions advisory and debt underwriting.

However, Citi still managed to post a better than expected 12 per cent jump in earnings per share thanks to cost control, share repurchases and improved performance at its US consumer bank.

Mike Corbat, chief executive, said the bank had shown discipline in expense, credit and risk

management in the face of the “uncertain environment”.

Overall, second-quarter revenues rose 2 per cent to $18.8bn.

Lower operating expenses, a more favourable tax rate and a big fall in the share count translated that modest top-line growth into adjusted earnings per share of $1.83, a 12 per cent increase. Analysts had been expecting EPS of $1.80.

Moderately higher reserves for loan losses, primarily in its credit card, were a drag on earnings.

Investment banking revenue droppe d by a tenth, slightly better than the midteens decline the bank had forecast in its mid-quarter update, as debt underwriting activity improved towards the end of the quarter. The capital markets results were broadly in line with the forecasts of

other big US banks, which report later this week.

After Citi received a passing grade in this years’ Federal Reserve stress tests, it committed to returning $21.5bn to shareholders in share buybacks and dividends over the next 12 months.

In the second quarter, the bank’s share count fell 10 per cent from the year before.

The US retail operation, which struggled last year, grew 3 per cent, as the crucial Citibranded cards division picked up momentum.

Citi shares have rallied 40 per cent so far this year, nearly doubling the performance of the S&P 500, as investors have become more confident that the bank can hit its 2020 target of return on tangible common equity of 13.5 per cent. ROTCE was 11.9 per cent for the second quarter, unchanged from the first.

Bermuda court orders halt to US lawsuit against Apollo Pension fund had accused private equity firm of ‘looting’ an affiliated insurer MARK VANDEVELDE & SUJEET INDAP IN NEW YORK

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Bermuda court has ordered a halt to a lawsuit filed in New York against Apollo Global Management in a decision that could have implications for investors in foreign-registered companies traded on US stock exchanges.

The temporary injunction was obtained by Apollo’s affiliated life insurance company, Athene Holding, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange but incorporated in the island territory of Bermuda.

The order purports to bar a US-based Athene shareholder, Central Laborers’ Pension Fund, from pursuing a lawsuit that accuses Apollo of “looting” the

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insurance company by charging “extravagantly expensive” fees running into hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Apollo and Athene declined to comment on the Bermuda order.

Apollo has said it will “vigorously” defend the case, and that the allegations lack any legal or factual basis. The private equity firm’s contract to manage a $130bn portfolio of assets on behalf of Athene accounts for one-third of the management fees earned by the private equity firm.

It is unclear whether the Bermuda order will prevent the New York lawsuit from proceeding. “[US] courts often will respect the judgments of foreign courts, though they may not be obligated to do so,” said Aryeh Portnoy, @Businessdayng

a partner at law firm Crowell & Moring. But he added that “context matters”, with judges likely to consider factors such as when the foreign lawsuit was filed and whether any constitutional rights are engaged.

Even before the Bermuda court issued its injunction, the pension fund faced a potential battle to persuade judges that they should hear the lawsuit in New York.

Athene maintains that the suit should have been filed in Bermuda itself, which, under the company’s articles of incorporation has sole authority to adjudicate matters relating to the directors’ conduct. The pension fund says those articles do not apply because it is suing Apollo, rather than the Athene board.

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

ANALYSIS

FT

Tech crunch could herald US ‘earnings recession’

Quarterly results from US blue-chips could show second successive fall in profits RICHARD HENDERSON IN NEW YORK

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quity investors are bracing for a second successive drop in US quarterly profits, led by the technology and materials sectors, that could undermine a record-breaking run in the stock market.

Blue-chip companies across America are expected to reveal a 2.8 per cent drop in earnings per share for April to June, following a first-quarter contraction of 0.3 per cent, according to FactSet data. If this happens, the two back-to-back quarters of shrinking earnings would constitute an “earnings recession” — a phenomenon equity investors have not witnessed since mid-2016.

Contracting corporate earnings would underscore concerns over US economic growth, coinciding with the trade dispute with China and recent disappointing manufacturing data. The end of the decade-long US expansion could prompt investors to reduce risk by shifting assets into bonds to weather a downturn.

Despite the first-quarter earnings contraction, US shares have continued to soar. Last week the S&P 500 index of US companies touched 3,000 points after com-

ments from Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell reinforced the market’s view that the central bank will clip interest rates later this month.

Technology stocks appear particularly vulnerable to a drop in earnings. Analysts estimate earnings per share at tech companies will shrink by just over 7 per cent on average compared to the second quarter last year, tying with materials as the worst sector by earnings growth forecasts, according to Credit Suisse.

The tech sector — which, after an index reshuffle, no longer includes social media groups such as Facebook and Google’s parent company Alphabet and is instead dominated by hardware companies — is suffering a squeeze on its profits due to a tightening labour market, according to Goldman Sachs. Labour costs amount to about 16 per cent of revenues for the information technology companies, the second highest level after the industrials sector, according to the bank.

“The margin pressure for large tech companies is what is driving the drop in earnings,” said Patrick Palfrey, senior equity strategist for Credit Suisse. “There is earning pressure but it’s not universal — it’s being felt among a few companies, but they happen to be very large.”

Warner Music buys label behind Les Misérables and Mary Poppins Music group expects new genres to boost revenue as they adopt streaming services ANNA NICOLAOU IN NEW YORK

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arner Music, the label behind Ed Sheeran, has bought First Night Records, home to the recordings of famed West End musicals such as Les Misérables and Mary Poppins.

Warner, which has grown its market share in part thanks to big hip hop acts such as Meek Mill and Cardi B, is betting that more family-friendly music will increase revenues. The deal is part of a strategy to target genres that Warner expected to adopt streaming in the coming years, said Kevin Gore, president of Warner’s Arts Music division.

First Night Records was founded in London in 1984 and found global success with the original London cast recording of Les Misérables. It has since formed a close partnership with Sir Cameron Mackintosh, the musicals producer, recording all of his hits produced in London, including those from Mary Poppins, Oliver! and Miss Saigon.

The value of the deal was not disclosed, though it was believed to be less than $100m.

Pop music is dominated by hip hop, which is heavily streamed on services such as

Spotify, that have a relatively young user base. But Warner believes that as streaming becomes more mainstream, it should invest in “underserved” genres.

The company started an arts division two years ago, which addresses a market that makes more than $550m in sales annually, according to people briefed on the plans.

“Older audiences always take longer to catch up with how people are consuming music,” said Mr Gore. “We identified early on that was going to happen with streaming. So when we saw what was happening with pop and hip hop, we knew that classical, jazz, Broadway music was going to experience an uplift a few years later.”

Warner’s Arts Music division operates a group of labels including Sesame Street Records, home to the music of the eponymous children’s television show, which it relaunched last year.

The group last week started a new record label partnering with Build-a-Bear, the toymaker, and also focuses on classical music and film scores.

There is some evidence that Warner is on the right track. The two highest-selling albums last year were the soundtracks to movie musicals: The Greatest Showman and A Star is Born. www.businessday.ng

European Investment Bank: the EU’s hidden giant Clearer purpose sought for one of the world’s biggest and most peculiar banks ROCHELLE TOPLENSKY AND ALEX BARKER IN BRUSSELS

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afely hidden in the woods of Luxembourg sits one of the world’s biggest and most peculiar banks.

It issues more bonds than JPMorgan but is not supervised by any external regulator. As an EU institution, it spearheaded a €500bn plan to boost investment yet managed to shrink its loan book at the same time.

Created with a mission to lend in the public interest — to go where private banks do not care or dare — it rarely loses a cent on its bets. Only in 2006, after almost half a century of operations, did it write off a loan. Even today the bank will spend more on staff in a single year than it expects to lose on its entire €455bn loan book.

This is the strange world of the European Investment Bank, a huge, unsupervised leverage machine for Europe’s politicians that has comprehensively mastered the art of dodging risk.

“This bank has been growing more or less undetected in the woods of Luxembourg over the last 60 [or] 61 years — to an unknown dimension and firepower,” says Werner Hoyer, EIB president.

“I am sometimes surprised that political leaders are not aware what kind of instrument they have in their hands,” he adds. “It’s a political instrument.

It serves a political purpose.”

This reality is beginning to sink in. Europe is in the midst of an expensive transition to cleaner energy. Its capital markets are patchy and sometimes struggle with long-term finance.

Its leaders are watching China’s rise — propelled by state-backed soft-loans — with alarm and envy. There is a widespread

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sense it has fallen behind on technology.

The remedy for some of these issues may be hiding in plain sight in Luxembourg. The EIB has long been prized by the EU member states that own it and benefit from its big, long and cheap loans — without ever losing money. But some owners are beginning to ask whether they want more.

This year a “high level group of wise persons” including academics, bankers and former officials began to examine how it would operate outside the EU. Negotiations on the EU’s new long-term budget are also putting in doubt guarantees granted to the EIB to cover its lending.

There is even talk of splitting or relocating part of the bank’s operations.

The motivation: to give Europe’s public bank a clearer public mission. “The driving force of this bank is a sense of entitlement, individual entitlement, institutional entitlement,” says one senior EU official. “It is time for a serious look at what it does.”

Although its balance sheet, at €556bn, is more than double the size of the World Bank and almost 10 times the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, the EIB has largely steered clear of scrutiny. One former board member likened its approach to “méthode champignon”, a technique for growing mushrooms, where its nonresident directors “are kept in the dark and fed with manure”.

Over several months, the Financial Times pieced together a picture of the lender’s strengths and weaknesses, reviewing its loan book, leaked audit committee assessments and internal correspondence, as well as speaking to more than two dozen officials, directors and disgruntled staff who requested @Businessdayng

to remain anonymous.

It reveals a big-volume, ultraconservative lender in a period of flux. No multilateral bank rivals its support for climate finance, nor its ability to shoulder the biggest infrastructure deals.

Yet even as it tries to transform its functions, reach and appetite for risk, the bank is struggling to change old habits.

EIB critics say it too often falls for easy-to-fund, no-risk projects that flatter its balance sheet without substantial added public value. One of the “wise persons” reviewing the bank says: “Those who live with it get used to it and only see a small part of the elephant. They never see the whole monster . . . that it lacks a raison d’être.”

Founded in 1958 with 66 staff, the EIB was one of the original institutions of the European project, born of compromise.

To satisfy Germany’s desire for prudence and independence, the EIB was called a bank and made to raise its own finance.

But its actual activities more resembled the French vision of a development fund, politically controlled and aimed at helping poor regions. Judith Clifton, a professor at Cantabria University in Spain, says the contradiction “lasts to this day”.

Over time its most important function became passing on the cheap money, raised through its triple A rating, to member states old and new. Bridges, roads and infrastructure funded by the EIB helped to stitch together the single market, from the Channel tunnel and Warsaw airport to Lisbon’s Vasco da Gama bridge.

While it is now also involved in development finance and innovation, its modus is still to lend big and safe. It has written off just €330m from the roughly €1,390bn of loans granted since its launch — a breathtakingly low loss rate of 0.02 per cent.

Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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POLITICS & POLICY Tribunal admits video recording against Buhari, APC, INEC Felix Omohomhion, Abuja

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he Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, sitting in Abuja, Monday filed against President Muhammadu Buhari and its party on the video evidence presented by the candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.

The tribunal chairman, Justice Mohammed Garba dismissed the objection by Buhari and the ruling Al APC. He said their objection to tendering and playing of the said video recording before the tribunal on the ground that they were not front loaded was unsustainable.

Justice Garba held that Buhari, APC and INEC are bound by the pre-hearing report they freely signed to the effect that documents to be tendered from the bar can only be opposed at the final address stage.

The tribunal chairman in the unanimous ruling also

Muhammadu Buhari

held that none of the four parties to the agreement can renege on any of the terms and, therefore, admitted the video clips as rendered by the two petitioners through their star witness.

After the ruling, a video recording of the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Akwa Ibom, Mike Igini, where he admitted that the electoral body would

Atiku Abubakar

transmit election results with the use of smart card reader to the INEC central server, was played in the court room.

Igini spoke with Channels Television shortly before the election was conducted.

During the play of one of the recordings, Igini was emphatic when he told the Channels TV crew that the electoral body would surely

use smart card to transmit election results into the INEC server.

Atiku’s counsel, Chris Uche (SAN), who tendered 48 compact disc and admitted by the tribunal in evidence, said they were part of efforts by the petitioners to prove that election results were transmitted electronically as against the argument INEC that results were

received manually.

Uche, who led Atiku and PDP legal team at yesterday’s proceedings, tendered the 48 video recordings through Segun Showumi, one of the media aides to the PDP presidential candidate.

However, under crossexamination by INEC-led counsel, Atiku’s witness admitted that Igini was not the official spokesman for INEC.

Meanwhile, one of Buhari’s counsel, Alex Izinyon sought the order of tribunal to play counter video recording today (Tuesday).

In another video recording played in the courtroom, INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu expressed optimism that the electronic system would be used during the conduct of the 2019 general election.

Also, three witnesses, Babagana Kukawa, Abana Pogu and Suleiman Mohamed Bulama from Borno and Yobe states had testified that voters in the two states were harassed, intimidated and threatened to either vote for APC or risk being ejected from their farmlands.

In his evidence, Bulama alleged that the APC used soldiers to molest, attack and injured some voters suspected to be sympathetic to PDP. He also alleged village and district heads were allegedly used to coerce the voters into voting for Buhari. Hearing continues Tuesday.

EDHA cuts short adjournment to confirm Gunmen with in black Jeep chased us out of polling unit – PDP witness Democratic Party (PDP) is in and started shooting spo- Austine, was however, obObaseki’s commissioner-nominees IDRIS UMAR MOMOH & challenging the declaration of radically and indiscriminately jected to by counsel to APC, IDRIS UMAR MOMOH & CHURCHILL OKORO, Benin

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embers of the Edo State House of Assembly on Monday cut short its adjournment again to confirm the commissioner-nominees of Governor Godwin Obaseki.

The House, which had on June 17 adjourned plenary session to July 17, after the controversial inauguration of the 7th state House of Assembly, had on the third time cut short its adjournment to address a crucial matter.

The house had on June 24 and July 3, cut short its adjournment to swear-in additional three lawmakers respectively.

The additional lawmakers sworn-in are Emmanuel Okoduwa (Esan North-East 11), Sunday Ojezele, Esan

Godwin Obaseki

South-East and Emmanuel Agbaje (Akoko-Edo 11).

The confirmation was sequel to the presentation and consideration of the report of the ad-hoc committee on the screening of the commissioner-nominees at plenary session.

Recall that the state Obaseki had on July 10 forwarded the 6-man commissioner-nominees list to the House for consideration and confirmation.

The nominees screened by the ad-hoc committee are Damian Lawani, immediate past lawmaker, represented Etsako Central constituency; Joe Ikpea, former chairman of Esan South-East Local Government Area; Felix Akhabue, also, former chairman of Esan West Local Government Area, Moses Agbakor, Momoh Oise Omorogbe and Marie Edekor.

Presenting the ad-hoc committee’s report, Roland Asoro, chairman, said the nominees were educationally qualified to be appointed as commissioners in the state.

Asoro, who is the majority leader of the House, recommended that the nominees be confirmed as commissioners in the state.

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CHURCHILL OKORO, Benin

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imufa Kemi, a witness to Omosede Igbinedion, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the February 23, Ovia Federal Constituency election on Monday said the election in her polling unit was cancelled because the exercise was disrupted by gunmen.

Kemi, who is a ward leader in Ovia South-West Local Government made the allegation while testifying before the Edo State election petition tribunal sitting in Benin City.

Omosede of the People’s

Dennis Idahosa, as the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Kemi said she did not vote during the election because gunmen in black jeep stormed the polling unit and shot sporadically into the air to chase voters away from the unit.

The witness, who was being cross-examined by counsel to INEC, Ehiabhi J.O, said: “I did not vote because there was problem in my unit (Ward 04, polling unit 007) in Ovia South-West Local Government Area.

“As voting was ongoing, suddenly, a black jeep drove

into the air. Because of that, the election in the unit was cancelled. I went to the INEC office at Iguobazuawa to lay complaint and met the electoral officer”.

Also, under cross-examination by the counsel to the APC candidate, the witness said only five people were accredited before the card reader developed a fault.

According to her, voting and accreditation resumed after it was fixed and thereafter, election process was disrupted.

Meanwhile, a report document from a witness, Sunday Adele, tendered by the petitioner’s counsel, Osarenkhoe

Enahoro Aghomon.

Aghomon argued that it is only certified true copy of a public document that is admissible in court and not photocopy by virtue of section 105 of the evidence act.

But counsel to INEC, Ehiabhi J.O, also aligned with the rejection of the report form because the alleged electoral officer, Evans Chukwu did not acknowledge the letter and it was not also stamped.

The Justice Ogundana-led 3-man tribunal who admitted the document as exhibit, however, reserved ruling and objection on it till the final judgment.

APC will be history in Edo if Obaseki is forced out – Idahosa IDRIS UMAR MOMOH & CHURCHILL OKORO, Benin

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chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Charles Idahosa on Monday said the party will be history in the state if the state governor, Godwin Obaseki is forced out of the party by 2020 governorship election.

Idahosa, who was a former political adviser to the former governor of the state, Adams Oshiomhole and now the national chairman of the party, made the remark at a press briefing in Benin City.

“If Obasski is forced to

leave APC, I will go with him, and the party will also die in the state naturally”, he said.

The former candidate of the Democratic People’s Party (DPP) during the 2007 governorship election in the state, noted that those opposing the governor’s second term bid were not accusing him of non-performance but not dancing to their tune.

According to him, “The question we should ask ourselves is, is the man working?

Nobody has accused him of non-performance. He has been paying salaries as and when due, infrastructural development, among others.”

While noting that winning

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the entire 24 seats during the last assembly election was the people’s referendum on the state governor’s popularity, he however, added that the only way to settle the political crisis in the state was for the warring factions to comply with the directives of the national leadership of the party.

“The way forward is that we should take a cue from the national leadership of the party.

The party is supreme. The way forward is for everybody, both those in Benin and in Abuja, to take the decision of the party as final. The lawmakers should comply with the directive of the national leadership @Businessdayng

of the party,” he added.

He said, the template the national leadership of the party used in electing principal officers in the National Assembly, which has already been adopted by the state leadership of the party, should be respected.

“For the purpose of clarification, Oshiomhole as national chairman, called a meeting of all the members of the National Assembly on the platform of the party. In a meeting with them zoning of leadership positions for the Senate and House of Representatives was announced zoning of leadership of the house.

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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Tuesday 16 July 2019

BUSINESS DAY

47

Live @ The STOCK Exchanges Prices for Securities Traded as of Monday 15 July 2019

Company

Market cap(nm)

Price (N)

Change

Trades

Volume

Company

Market cap(nm)

Price (N)

Change

Trades

Volume

PRICES FOR MAIN BOARD SECURITIES (Equities) BANKING ACCESS BANK PLC. 234,598.49 6.60 -1.49 138 4,919,104 UNITED BANK FOR AFRICA PLC 200,066.62 5.85 -0.85 311 24,244,222 ZENITH BANK PLC 590,254.08 18.80 -1.05 314 7,777,039 763 36,940,365 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS FBN HOLDINGS PLC 209,987.46 5.85 -2.50 162 13,369,956 162 13,369,956 925 50,310,321 TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES MTN NIGERIA COMMUNICATIONS PLC 2,625,732.18 129.00 -0.50 46 921,011 46 921,011 46 921,011 BUILDING MATERIALS DANGOTE CEMENT PLC 2,896,886.26 170.00 -1.73 160 1,124,775 LAFARGE AFRICA PLC. 217,455.24 13.50 -1.10 87 895,478 247 2,020,253 247 2,020,253

EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION SEPLAT PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PLC 311,875.62 530.00 - 8 270 8 270 8 270 1,226 53,251,855 REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUSTS (REITS) SKYE SHELTER FUND PLC 1,710.00 85.50 - 0 0 UNION HOMES REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST (REIT) 10,175.81 40.70 - 0 0 UPDC REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST 14,408.66 5.40 - 0 0 0 0 0 0 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS NIGERIA ENERYGY SECTOR FUND 411.91 552.20 - 0 0 VALUEALLIANCE VALUE FUND 3,312.39 103.20 - 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 CROP PRODUCTION FTN COCOA PROCESSORS PLC 440.00 0.20 - 0 0 OKOMU OIL PALM PLC. 59,094.72 61.95 -0.08 17 156,195 PRESCO PLC 44,800.00 44.80 - 5 10,777 22 166,972 FISHING/HUNTING/TRAPPING ELLAH LAKES PLC. 8,520.00 4.26 - 0 0 0 0 LIVESTOCK/ANIMAL SPECIALTIES LIVESTOCK FEEDS PLC. 1,440.00 0.48 - 4 26,500 4 26,500 26 193,472 DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIES A.G. LEVENTIS NIGERIA PLC. 794.19 0.30 - 1 100,000 JOHN HOLT PLC. 179.01 0.46 - 2 2,094 S C O A NIG. PLC. 1,903.99 2.93 - 1 20 TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION OF NIGERIA PLC 41,867.43 1.03 0.98 91 14,610,798 U A C N PLC. 16,999.65 5.90 -1.67 41 322,741 136 15,035,653 136 15,035,653 BUILDING CONSTRUCTION ARBICO PLC. 711.32 4.79 - 0 0 0 0 INFRASTRUCTURE/HEAVY CONSTRUCTION JULIUS BERGER NIG. PLC. 26,334.00 19.95 - 21 68,513 ROADS NIG PLC. 165.00 6.60 - 0 0 21 68,513 REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT UACN PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT COMPANY PLC 3,325.95 1.28 - 3 6,760 3 6,760 24 75,273 AUTOMOBILES/AUTO PARTS DN TYRE & RUBBER PLC 954.53 0.20 - 0 0 0 0 BEVERAGES--BREWERS/DISTILLERS CHAMPION BREW. PLC. 13,231.85 1.69 - 2 210 GOLDEN GUINEA BREW. PLC. 242.22 0.89 - 0 0 GUINNESS NIG PLC 104,043.18 47.50 - 18 44,630 INTERNATIONAL BREWERIES PLC. 146,129.65 17.00 - 4 2,537 NIGERIAN BREW. PLC. 467,818.77 58.50 0.86 58 1,464,449 82 1,511,826 FOOD PRODUCTS DANGOTE FLOUR MILLS PLC 87,500.00 17.50 0.57 84 1,371,176 DANGOTE SUGAR REFINERY PLC 124,200.00 10.35 -2.36 82 1,103,125 FLOUR MILLS NIG. PLC. 66,426.15 16.20 - 63 170,311 HONEYWELL FLOUR MILL PLC 7,930.20 1.00 - 24 264,746 MULTI-TREX INTEGRATED FOODS PLC 1,340.10 0.36 - 0 0 N NIG. FLOUR MILLS PLC. 766.26 4.30 - 0 0 NASCON ALLIED INDUSTRIES PLC 41,066.29 15.50 - 13 43,130 UNION DICON SALT PLC. 3,321.07 12.15 - 0 0 266 2,952,488 FOOD PRODUCTS--DIVERSIFIED CADBURY NIGERIA PLC. 22,444.51 11.95 - 12 37,008 NESTLE NIGERIA PLC. 973,381.88 1,228.00 0.24 78 555,827 90 592,835 HOUSEHOLD DURABLES NIGERIAN ENAMELWARE PLC. 1,680.31 22.10 - 0 0 VITAFOAM NIG PLC. 4,628.12 3.70 4.52 24 550,649 24 550,649 PERSONAL/HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS P Z CUSSONS NIGERIA PLC. 24,616.96 6.20 - 21 99,592 UNILEVER NIGERIA PLC. 189,585.18 33.00 - 17 39,405 38 138,997 500 5,746,795 BANKING ECOBANK TRANSNATIONAL INCORPORATED 182,578.03 9.95 - 64 1,206,779 FIDELITY BANK PLC 46,939.17 1.62 -0.62 43 1,548,172 GUARANTY TRUST BANK PLC. 853,504.20 29.00 -3.01 252 16,035,758 JAIZ BANK PLC 12,964.27 0.44 - 9 171,700 SKYE BANK PLC 10,687.83 0.77 - 0 0 STERLING BANK PLC. 63,338.92 2.20 -0.45 16 2,012,811 UNION BANK NIG.PLC. 218,405.65 7.50 - 24 204,226 UNITY BANK PLC 7,598.07 0.65 - 5 50,284 WEMA BANK PLC. 23,530.42 0.61 - 19 356,954 432 21,586,684 INSURANCE CARRIERS, BROKERS AND SERVICES AFRICAN ALLIANCE INSURANCE PLC 4,117.00 0.20 - 1 5 AIICO INSURANCE PLC. 4,851.14 0.70 7.69 13 1,964,830 AXAMANSARD INSURANCE PLC 18,900.00 1.80 - 0 0 CONSOLIDATED HALLMARK INSURANCE PLC 2,439.00 0.30 -9.09 12 1,501,501 CONTINENTAL REINSURANCE PLC 19,811.94 1.91 - 0 0 CORNERSTONE INSURANCE PLC 3,240.49 0.22 10.00 5 928,807 GOLDLINK INSURANCE PLC 909.99 0.20 - 0 0 GUINEA INSURANCE PLC. 1,228.00 0.20 - 0 0 INTERNATIONAL ENERGY INSURANCE PLC 487.95 0.38 - 0 0 LASACO ASSURANCE PLC. 2,270.26 0.31 6.90 19 15,108,815 LAW UNION AND ROCK INS. PLC. 2,277.06 0.53 - 0 0 LINKAGE ASSURANCE PLC 5,120.00 0.64 - 2 91,054 MUTUAL BENEFITS ASSURANCE PLC. 2,234.55 0.20 - 12 1,286,557 NEM INSURANCE PLC 11,617.11 2.20 -3.08 10 237,697 NIGER INSURANCE PLC 1,547.90 0.20 - 0 0 PRESTIGE ASSURANCE PLC 2,583.62 0.48 - 3 8,279 REGENCY ASSURANCE PLC 1,333.75 0.20 - 0 0 SOVEREIGN TRUST INSURANCE PLC 1,751.57 0.21 -8.70 10 1,523,800 STACO INSURANCE PLC 4,483.72 0.48 - 0 0 STANDARD ALLIANCE INSURANCE PLC. 2,582.21 0.20 - 0 0 SUNU ASSURANCES NIGERIA PLC. 2,800.00 0.20 - 0 0 UNIC DIVERSIFIED HOLDINGS PLC. 516.46 0.20 - 0 0 UNIVERSAL INSURANCE PLC 3,200.00 0.20 - 0 0 VERITAS KAPITAL ASSURANCE PLC 2,773.33 0.20 - 3 10,400 WAPIC INSURANCE PLC 5,353.10 0.40 - 14 42,033,104 104 64,694,849

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MICRO-FINANCE BANKS FORTIS MICROFINANCE BANK PLC 11,799.67 2.58 - 0 0 NPF MICROFINANCE BANK PLC 2,583.90 1.13 - 4 25,390 4 25,390 MORTGAGE CARRIERS, BROKERS AND SERVICES ABBEY MORTGAGE BANK PLC 3,780.00 0.90 - 0 0 ASO SAVINGS AND LOANS PLC 7,370.87 0.50 - 0 0 INFINITY TRUST MORTGAGE BANK PLC 5,796.93 1.39 - 0 0 RESORT SAVINGS & LOANS PLC 2,265.95 0.20 - 0 0 UNION HOMES SAVINGS AND LOANS PLC. 2,949.22 3.02 - 0 0 0 0 OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS AFRICA PRUDENTIAL PLC 6,800.00 3.40 -2.86 55 1,058,809 CUSTODIAN INVESTMENT PLC 36,467.56 6.20 - 2 2,825 DEAP CAPITAL MANAGEMENT & TRUST PLC 660.00 0.44 - 0 0 FCMB GROUP PLC. 31,288.28 1.58 0.64 29 1,068,311 ROYAL EXCHANGE PLC. 1,131.98 0.22 - 0 0 STANBIC IBTC HOLDINGS PLC 409,622.12 40.00 - 15 52,553 UNITED CAPITAL PLC 13,200.00 2.20 -1.36 53 1,042,829 154 3,225,327 694 89,532,250 HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS EKOCORP PLC. 1,680.29 3.37 - 0 0 UNION DIAGNOSTIC & CLINICAL SERVICES PLC 852.75 0.24 - 8 1,789,999 8 1,789,999 MEDICAL SUPPLIES MORISON INDUSTRIES PLC. 544.04 0.55 - 0 0 0 0 PHARMACEUTICALS EVANS MEDICAL PLC. 366.17 0.50 - 0 0 FIDSON HEALTHCARE PLC 9,492.94 4.55 - 1 238 GLAXO SMITHKLINE CONSUMER NIG. PLC. 9,925.77 8.30 - 13 66,260 4,140.56 2.40 - 6 514,755 MAY & BAKER NIGERIA PLC. NEIMETH INTERNATIONAL PHARMACEUTICALS PLC 987.56 0.52 - 10 124,114 NIGERIA-GERMAN CHEMICALS PLC. 556.71 3.62 - 0 0 PHARMA-DEKO PLC. 325.23 1.50 - 0 0 30 705,367 38 2,495,366 COMPUTER BASED SYSTEMS COURTEVILLE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS PLC 781.44 0.22 -8.33 21 2,781,143 21 2,781,143 COMPUTERS AND PERIPHERALS OMATEK VENTURES PLC 1,470.89 0.50 - 0 0 0 0 IT SERVICES CWG PLC 6,413.06 2.54 - 0 0 NCR (NIGERIA) PLC. 648.00 6.00 - 1 50 TRIPPLE GEE AND COMPANY PLC. 346.47 0.70 - 7 2,550 8 2,600 PROCESSING SYSTEMS CHAMS PLC 1,220.98 0.26 -7.14 5 187,800 E-TRANZACT INTERNATIONAL PLC 9,996.00 2.38 - 5 719 10 188,519 TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES AIRTEL AFRICA PLC 1,215,762.01 323.50 - 39 21,491 39 21,491 78 2,993,753 BUILDING MATERIALS BERGER PAINTS PLC 2,028.76 7.00 - 2 9,893 CAP PLC 19,250.00 27.50 - 13 41,498 CEMENT CO. OF NORTH.NIG. PLC 190,580.76 14.50 - 24 257,001 FIRST ALUMINIUM NIGERIA PLC 844.14 0.40 - 0 0 MEYER PLC. 313.43 0.59 - 0 0 PORTLAND PAINTS & PRODUCTS NIGERIA PLC 1,959.74 2.47 - 0 0 PREMIER PAINTS PLC. 1,156.20 9.40 - 0 0 39 308,392 ELECTRONIC AND ELECTRICAL PRODUCTS AUSTIN LAZ & COMPANY PLC 2,256.91 2.09 - 0 0 CUTIX PLC. 2,906.18 1.65 - 10 57,100 10 57,100 PACKAGING/CONTAINERS BETA GLASS PLC. 33,173.14 66.35 - 3 1,020 GREIF NIGERIA PLC 388.02 9.10 - 0 0 3 1,020 AGRO-ALLIED & CHEMICALS NOTORE CHEMICAL IND PLC 100,754.14 62.50 - 0 0 0 0 52 366,512 CHEMICALS B.O.C. GASES PLC. 1,889.75 4.54 - 4 10,000 4 10,000 METALS ALUMINIUM EXTRUSION IND. PLC. 1,781.64 8.10 - 0 0 0 0 MINING SERVICES MULTIVERSE MINING AND EXPLORATION PLC 852.39 0.20 - 0 0 0 0 PAPER/FOREST PRODUCTS THOMAS WYATT NIG. PLC. 92.40 0.42 - 0 0 0 0 4 10,000 ENERGY EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES JAPAUL OIL & MARITIME SERVICES PLC 1,377.79 0.22 - 8 1,640,920 8 1,640,920 INTEGRATED OIL AND GAS SERVICES OANDO PLC 49,725.65 4.00 - 49 1,328,787 49 1,328,787 PETROLEUM AND PETROLEUM PRODUCTS DISTRIBUTORS 11 PLC 56,974.05 158.00 - 19 10,717 CONOIL PLC 14,156.62 20.40 2.00 37 191,611 ETERNA PLC. 4,434.09 3.40 -6.85 14 75,710 FORTE OIL PLC. 26,961.36 20.70 - 63 284,800 MRS OIL NIGERIA PLC. 6,354.80 20.85 - 1 3,384 TOTAL NIGERIA PLC. 44,137.84 130.00 -7.14 41 102,998 175 669,220 232 3,638,927 ADVERTISING AFROMEDIA PLC 1,820.01 0.41 - 0 0 0 0 AIRLINES MEDVIEW AIRLINE PLC 17,551.17 1.80 - 1 100 1 100 AUTOMOBILE/AUTO PART RETAILERS R T BRISCOE PLC. 341.14 0.29 - 0 0 0 0 COURIER/FREIGHT/DELIVERY RED STAR EXPRESS PLC 3,065.38 5.20 - 9 5,709 TRANS-NATIONWIDE EXPRESS PLC. 342.26 0.73 - 3 1,305 12 7,014 HOSPITALITY TANTALIZERS PLC 642.33 0.20 - 0 0 0 0 HOTELS/LODGING CAPITAL HOTEL PLC 4,723.78 3.05 - 0 0 2,847.95 1.37 - 2 993 IKEJA HOTEL PLC TOURIST COMPANY OF NIGERIA PLC. 7,862.53 3.50 - 0 0 TRANSCORP HOTELS PLC 41,042.18 5.40 - 2 220 4 1,213 MEDIA/ENTERTAINMENT DAAR COMMUNICATIONS PLC 4,800.00 0.40 - 0 0 0 0 PRINTING/PUBLISHING ACADEMY PRESS PLC. 241.92 0.40 - 7 2,565 LEARN AFRICA PLC 1,080.03 1.40 - 6 522,665 STUDIO PRESS (NIG) PLC. 1,183.82 1.99 - 0 0 UNIVERSITY PRESS PLC. 776.54 1.80 - 8 800

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BUSINESS DAY Tuesday 16 July 2019 www.businessday.ng

CEO in focus

Wale Olawole: Disrupting traditional ‘man guard’ security business MICHAEL ANI

I

n the past, when businesses needed to secure their premises and assets in different locations across the country, they would have to deploy individual guards to man those places. Today, the security landscape continues to evolve with the emergence of technology, globalization, migration, geopolitical shifts, changing nature, balance of power and new knowledge driven

by Artificial intelligence (AI), which have all increased the world’s vulnerabilities.

As such, the global economy is changing approaches to tackling security issues beyond just the physical way of assigning personnel as guards, rather, to deploying digital security tools.

Even though the Nigerian economy is still challenged with several security maladies ranging from kidnapping, insurgency, banditry, militancy, cyber-crime, Bokoharam and farmers-headers conflicts, it sure is not left out in the global revolution of security businesses.

One of such success stories for Africa’s most populous nation in the transformation of security business is its foremost private security company, Halogen Group, under the watch of Wale Olawole, group managing director of the firm.

Olawole took over the helm of affairs in Halogen exactly 10 years ago. Prior to that time, he occupied the position of the Managing Director of the company and was recognised as one of the primary drivers of the security implementation that saw the birth of mobile technology companies in in the country. The company is credited with designing the security plans that enabled ease of operation for telecommunication companies such as MTN and the then Econet (now Airtel), to work successfully in the country as it worked with the Telcos to install mast in very remote areas in the country.

Aside the telecommunication industry, Olawole and his team worked in developing creeks infrastructure for the International Oil Companies (IOCs) during the time of the Niger Delta Crisis.

At that time, the firm was strictly into physical security where people were manned at gates. However, there was the realisation that the business environment was changing with the use of technology, drawing lessons from global contexts and replicating them to the local environment in Nigeria.

When Olawole assumed position as CEO of the group, he flagged off the transformation agenda, which helped in repositioning from the traditional physical man-guarding business to employing no less than 3000 Nigerians, moving from a static company to an end to end global premium risk management company. This helped to put food on the table of many Nigerians as well as empowering Nigerians and equipping the next generation.

Reforming the Nigerian Security Business Halogen at inception, started with 20 individuals who went to police college for training in 1992, today it has grown to employing more than 20,000 Nigerians and

Wale Olawole

more than a million Nigerians have passed through its system in those years.

The firm has also focused on building and supporting the local economy in leaps and bounds as most of its inputs, gadgets and uniforms are produced locally. Beyond that, the firm over time has led the industry to ensure that its standard operations has changed for good, by ensuring that the regulations are now well entrenched around technology, electronic security, investigation and background checks, advisory response, telemetry and alert system, to help in tracking down one of Businesses biggest threat; cyber security.

It also developed products cutting across the lengths and breadth of the industry value chain for physical asset, static asset, virtual asset, mobile asset for individual, businesses and homes.

In 2007, Halogen became the first Nigerian security company to be certified by International Standard Organisation (ISO).

According to Olawole, “the certification is phenomenal given the number of years we were able to do all these and today not only are we moving our industry across our sub region, we are poised to become the reference point in enterprising risk for cyber security”.

Leveraging and Investing in Technology Halogen has taken the fore front when it comes to leveraging and investing hugely in technology in driving the security business. In 2017, the firm develop a techno-

logical hub where it partnered with two of the country’s universities (Babcock and Obafemi Awolowo University), to develop a certificate discourse management, and professional MBA to train and develop the capabilities of the youthful population in the fight against cyber security.

“Technology is one of the three legs on which Halogen stands,” according to Olawole. “It has created a raise to our world and is used as a tool to proffer solutions that also protect. One of the key differentiators of Halogen is the response capabilities that come with our use of technology.”

The Olawole led-transformation of Halogen Security Today, what was once seen as Halogen Security Company Limited has evolved into Halogen Group; Six technology- driven group of specialist operating companies offering integrated, end to end security solutions to the world. The transformed Halogen Security Company Limited has grown into a global best practice security solutions leader, leveraging cutting edge digital technology, deep local knowledge, vast geographical reach and a motivated, highly knowledgeable team of security risk experts to provide safety in today’s open and continuously volatile world.

Halogen Group’s six operating companies are: Avert Halogen – digitally connected remote surveillance & monitoring services; Avant Halogen – identity management, risk consulting and resourcing; PS Halogen - manned guarding and event

management; Armour X Halogen - virtual and cyber security; Armada Halogen - secured Mobility and Academy Halogen Halogen School of Security Management & Technology.

The Philosophy of the “Power of One” With the philosophy of the power of one, the group is now one super security chain of businesses while the six operating companies act as sister organisations, working independently but cooperatively as one, under the parent - Halogen Group.

According to Olawole, the power of one is at the heart of the new Halogen group as it means that in every area of its business, it has the ability as Halogen group to use any of its companies to manage clients’ risk no matter the circumstance or location.

“We are wired to provide an end to end cover to our client s with the power of one.

With one of the operating companies, you are able to leverage on the capacity of the group. We manage your business, assets and deliver safety across board with one contact point and we address your entire risk management needs.

He noted that the value proposition of safety in an open world enables it to provide comprehensive security protection, with a view to enabling every individual be all they can be. “For this reason, Halogen Group describes its reason for being in a 3-prong mantra; to propel achievement, to forestall threats and to take away the burden of security-related anxiety. To achieve these, the company listed 3 pillars - knowledge, technology and emergency response capabilities as central to its solution delivery approach,” Olawole added Halogen management recently said, “with the transformation, Halogen has invested aggressively in developing the infrastructure and tools to provide end to end security solutions that comprehensively address the security risks which businesses and individuals, and indeed the whole nation face today. With the evolution of a digitally connected, open and continuously volatile world, security risks and needs have changed in step with deep and radical changes in lifestyles and business dynamics.”

Halogen further explains that, it embarked on an aggressive programme of business re-engineering, necessitating deep and profound changes in the way the company designs and delivers security risk solutions. “We are poised to further deliver world class valued solutions across the security industry’s value chain. At this moment, our commitment is to changing the direction of the business to where the global pendulum of security dynamics is swinging,” it says.

In all, the Group has competence in people risk management, physical security, electronic security, virtual & cyber Security, telemetrics, travel security, outsourcing, background checks and polygraph examination. Other areas of Halogen’s focus are security education inclusive of training- for organizations, businesses, government establishments and individuals.

Published by BusinessDAY Media Ltd., The Brook, 6 Point Road, GRA, Apapa, Lagos. Advert Hotline: 08034743892. Subscriptions 01-2950687, 07045792677. Newsroom: 08169609331 Editor: Patrick Atuanya. All correspondence to BusinessDAY Media Ltd., Box 1002, Festac Lagos. ISSN 1595 - 8590.