Monday, May 31, 2010
THISDAY, Vol. 15 No. 5517 Page 29
MEMART Review Delays Appointment of New NSE DG ~
ans by the Council of the igerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to review its Memorandum and Article of Association (MEMART) may delay the appointment of a new Director-General, TI-ilSDAY checks have revealed. The incumbent DG , Prof. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke will retire by November 2010 after attaining 60 years of age. Efforts are in top gear to name her successor and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in line with its rules, has directed that the new DG must be
FINANCE
By Godtly Egene
appoi nted six months before Okereke-Onyiuke eventually leaves. The appointment is expected to be made next month (June). However, market watchers said that the NSE may not be able to meet this target following its plans to review its MEMART. The NSE had last week disclosed the plans to review its MEMART. Its spokesman, Mr.
Sola Oni, told THJSDAY last Friday:" Every organisation constantly reviews its processes and reflects this in the enabling law where necessary." The last time NSE reviewed its MEMART was November 16,2006. Under the MEMARr, the Council of the Exchange has the powers to " appoint a Director-GeneraJ,and such other Officers as in their opinion are necessary for the due conduct of U", business of The Exchange,
with annual· salary or otherwise, to engage professional assistance, and to remunerate all persons employed by them." But it was gathered that given the transfonmation the Exchange is going through, a review of its MEMART is necessary, otherwise some its actions would be illegal. "As you are aware, the Exchange is changing its management soucture, where the DG will become the Managing Director while the positions of
Executive DirectoJ>; would be created. All these were not recognised in the existing MEMART. For these to become legal the MEMART has to be changed. Ths wiU definitely take some time because as it is, the Council is not functional. Besides, after making tlie changes, the MEMART has to be taken to SEC for approval. It is after the approval of the new positions for MD and EDs as provided for in the new MEMART that that positions will be filled ," an oper-
ator explained. The NSE has hired the ' ervices of leading consulting fum, A=ture, to handle to iecruit· mentof achiefexecutiveoffia~T and EDs. But SEC has insisted that the process of selecting the new helmsmen must be communicated to it. And in line with directive, the Council of the Exchange was said to have fonmally sent a complete document of the process from which the new leadership will emerge to SEC.
Food Security: FG Re-focuses on Soybean Production
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Federal Government has .sted steps to help it reposition soybean production in U",country. Speaking at the Soy Summit 2010 organised by · the Raw Materials Research Development Council (RMRDC) and Federal Institule of Industrial Research (RIRO), the Minister of Science and Technology, Abubakar Muhammed, said Government is attempting to boost soybean preduction by funding researches. subsidising inputs and providing extension services to reach fann· ers with new innovations. He said collaboration with research institutes like the Intemationallnstitule forTropicaJ Agriculture (IffA), RMRDC and FIIRO has led to breakthroughs
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By Crusoe Osagie in soya-bean production packages. He explained that the present administrntion is entirely committed to programmes and prejects of this nature, which seek to address the challenges of food security, improved health for all, providing employment and largely create wealth. He however stated that in spile of these efforts, soyabean is still largely produced on a smaIl farm holding, adding that its industrial processing is limited in the country. AbubakaY, tasked the Research and Development institutions to develop more high breed soybeanS variety to boost trnde. He said that the summit entitled: 'Promoting Processing Commercial UtiLisation of Soybean in the Food Industry' would push the national production output from 580.000 tonnes to 12 million tonnes by 2015. According to him, Nigeria is second to Zimbabwe in Africa in Soybean production. ''The health and industrial benefit of soybeans was not fully exploited, compared to other countries like the US ," he said. The Minister said the crop was still being largely cultivated by small farm holders, adding that the industrial processing is still relatively low. ''it is my hope that the stakebolders here will examine the adoption of improved soybeans and precessing IeChnology to encourage commercialisation," he said.
Nigeria High Commissioner to UK., Dr. Christopher Kolade, discussing at Ihe African regional conference of the Commonwealth Association/or Public Administration and Management in Abuja .. jecently PHOTO: NAN
Cooking Gas: How Six Offtakers Crashed Prices
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companies appointed by the Nigeria Liquefied . Natural Gas (NLNG) to distribute imited Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in Nigeria said they crashed the price of an average cylinder of cooking gas in Lagos from N6.ooo in ·2007 to N2,500 in 2010, and from NIO,OOO to N3,500 in. the northern part of the country during the same period, by tackling the problem of logistics. The six oillakers or suppliers Le Global; Glimons; Hyson, a subsidiary of the NNPC; Harig; Linetrade; and Greenfield Gas, were appointed under the Domestic LPG Supply programme of the Federal
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Government and NLNG. to distribute 150.000 metric tonnes per annum (MPTA) of cooking gas to the Nigerian market. Following the acute scarcity of LPG that hit the country in 2007 , fonmer President Olusegun Obasanjo had directed the NLNG to intervene in the supply of domestic gas by setting aside a portion of its gas output for domestic consumption. The NLNG responded by appointing the six companies as Gub of Oillakers and also making available 15O,(XXJ tonnes of cooking gas available yearly for distribution locally by the six companies. Managing Dinector of Gas Terminalling Limited, a subsidiary of LinetrnJe Gas, which is one of the six companies popularly referred to as the Gub of
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OfIlakers, Mr. Felix Ekundayo, told THJSDAY at the weekend that when the six companies commenced the LPG distribution programme in '1JJJ7, they discovered that the logistics .component constituted a greater cbunk of the end user price than the gas price itself. He said while the gas itself accounted for only 20 per cent of the end user price, the main aspect of the build-up in cost was the problem of logistics and lack of infrastructure for efficient logistics. Ekundayo attributed the high cost of cooking gas at that period to the issueoflogistics. ''In terms of consumption, the domestic price was expensive oompared to the export price. From what I knew, the domestic price waS four times the export price. So, there was clearly an opportunity in terms of how to overcome this problem. ''Now, in looking deeper at what the problem was, we realised that really it was an
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infrastructure issue. While the gas itself cost about 20 per cent of the end-user price. the main component - the main aspect of the build-up in cost was the logistics. So, that was really what was costing the end users a lot of money," he said. "So, one of the things we looked at was the market potential. What is the size of the market? What can we do? The comparison we looked at were countries with similar characteristics with ours - Ghana, Cote d'lvoire ,Cameroun ,and Senegal . "We found out that even countries that were to some extent poorer in terms of their Gross Domestic Product (GOp) and more importantly, countries that imported their LPG consume a lot more per capita somewhere in the region of five to 20 times as much as we consume. Ghana , for example, with a population of 25 rnilJion, consumes probably in the region of two times what we consume:' he added.
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