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L-R: Former Nigerian Ambassador to South Africa, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, Chief Executive Officer, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Mrs. Sola David-Borha and Chairman/CEO, Omolayole & Associates, Dr Michael Omolayole at the 27thAfESEC OmolayoleAnnual Management Lecture and 50th anniversary of AfESEC in Nigeria on Wednesday in Lagos.
Et~salat
renews managed services contract with Alcatel i\
LCAIEL-Lucent, leader in
~obile, fixed, IP and optics
technologies, and a pioneer in applications and services has been selected by Etisalat Nigeria to continue providing managed service·s for their expanding mobile network. With this developmen~ Alcatel-Lucentwill continue supporting Etisalat Nigeria's network · transformation by developing and delivering new end-user services as required to meet its customers' growing demands. The renewed two-year multivendor managed services agreement, according to Alcatel, will significantly reduce operational expenses, wliile improving service quality for Etisalat Nige-
ria's subscribers. With the new development, Alcatel-Lucent will be responsible for ensuring the high quality and reliable performance
of the network in the South-West of the country including Lagos by providing world class services which include network operations , consulting, design, network optimization, spare parts management, maintenance services, and project management. By outsourcing the day-to-day operations and maintenance to
Food price increases: FG is implementing containment ·strategies i\
GAlNST the background of
~e reported global food price
increases,
the
Federal
Government has been implementing strategies to check its impact on the country. Prof · Sheikh Abdullah, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, disclosed this in an interview in Abuja. Abdullab said
Tourism: SA targets 15m foreign visitors by 2020 OUTH Alrica wants to increase the number of foreign tourist arrivals into the country to 15 million by 2020, up from its seven million figure in 2009, President Jacob Zuma said. Zuma spoke at the signing ceremony to mark South Africa's entry into the UN World Tourism Organisation's Golden Book'in CapeTown. The Global Leaders for Tourism (also known as The Golden Book) is a joint UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and the World Travel and Tourism
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Alcatel-Lucent, Etisalat Nigeria will be able to focus on their core business issues such as increasing average revenue per user (ARPU) and ensuring increased network quality and affordabllity while avoiding the complexity of network operations and management. "This new contract further strengthens our long-standing
cooperation with EtisaIat and highlights their confidence in our ability to create, deliver and manage complex nextgeneration networks with strong local support capabilities," Adolfo Hernandez, President of Alcatel-Lucent's activities in Europe, Middle East and Africa said, adding that "With our professional and managed services and advanced technologies, Alcatel-Lucent is committed to helping Etisalat's sustainable development in Nigeria and to ensure the highest level of service to its customers located throughout the country." "Since it began operations in Nigeria, Etisalat has been committed to providing Nigerians with world-class service forwruch Etisalat is known for in all th.e countries where it operates. That is why we have selected Alcatel-Lucent, a competent partner wi th global experience and we look forward to them meeting our high standards of network performance to satisfy the everincreasing demands of our subscribers," Steven Evans, CEO of Etisalat Nigeria, added. Alcatel-Lucenthas over 20 years of experience in managed services, and currently supports 250 million subscribers across 100 customer networks including AT&T, Bharti Airtel, Oi, Orange, Reliance, Telecom New Zeaiand, and Vivacom. The long-trusted partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries and governments around the world, Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in mobile, fixed, IP and optics technologies, and a pioneer in applications and services. AlcatelLucent includes Bell Labs, one of the world's foremost centres of research and innovation in communications technology.
Council (WTTC) initiative to position travel and tourism higher in the global agenda. Zuma, who said South Alrica had "ambitious but achievable plans" in the sector, stated that the country also aims to increase tbe number of domestic tourists from 14.5 million in 2009 to 18 million by 2020. He said that the country also targets the creation of 235,000 new tourism jobs by 2020, stressing that everything possible would be done to promote and grow the tourism sector to achieve the goals.
that available information revealed sharp increases in some baSic food items between June and December 2010. "There has been 57 per cent increase in the prices of grains including wheat, 55 per cent for oil and fat and 77 per cent for sugru;" he said. The increases, he said, were attributed to various factors including extreme weather conditions such as drought, catastrophic storms and wild fire. Other factors identified were structural limitations, low income, high population growth rate, land constraints and under investment iIi rural infrastructure. The list also included poor agricultural mechanisation and limited farmers' access to agricultural inputs . Due to this development, some states in the country recorded poor harvest occasioned by natural disaster such as flooding, inadequate farm input and declining interest in agriculture, particularly among youths, he noted. According to him, the high cost of food constitutes an "inherent" danger to national security. He said that the need to address the threat was urgent as the sector
accounts for more than 42 per cent of the GDP and employs more than 70 per cent of the nation's active labour force. One of the strategies to address the threat was the sustained attention being given to agricultural production and food security by the Federal Government in order to achieve overall national and economic development, the minister said. Secondly, Abdullah said that the government was working towards evolving policies that would address challenges faced by s~allholder farmers who constitute the major food producers in the country. He further said that the government ·had commenced the training of 10,000 youths in various agricultural fields of their choice. The·initiative, he explained, was to attract the interest of youths to agriculture by making farming attractive and a profitable b~siness.
On the issue of fertilizer procurement and distribution, tbe minister said that the government had embraced the Fertilizer Voucher Scheme as a more effective and efficient subsidy regime.
BRIEFS Exporters advise FG to provide cargo vessels to aid ECOWAS trade XPORTERS in non-~i1 trade have appealed to the Federal Government to provide them with cargo v essels to boost transportation of goods within ECOWAS countries . The exporters made the call at a workshop organised by the Nigeria E x port Promotion Council (NEPC) in Lagos . They said that efforts to boost trade, especially non-oil products , will not yield desired results except there were vessels to move goods within the sub-region. Mr Otunba Ajayi, President of Nigeria-Ghana Chamber of Commerce, said that other challenges facing the sector included bureaucracy, haulage and taxes outside those recommended under the ECOWAS Trade Liberalisation Scheme (ETLS). Ajayi said that ordinarily, ships should take two days to move goods from Nigeria to Liberia, but ships had to go to Europe or Asia before heading for Liberia due· to bureaucracy. He said that goods shipped from Nigeria often took about a month to get to Liberia. "We are disappointed that after about 10 years, the same problems have continued to be the discussion wi thin the sector. What it means is that the government is not committed to solving the problems," Ajayi said. He said that Nigeria, as the largest exporter of goods in Alrica, should pay pri ori ty attention to the sector to reduce the delay in export of goods .
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Guinea seizes mobile firm, MTN's assets in fee row UINEA'S Government has seized assets belonging to South Alrican mobile operator, MTN and is taking over the running of the company in a row over payment of a 15 million euro fee. A decree signed by Guinea President, Alpha Conde said the government had decided to requisi tion all personnel, equipment, facilities and assets of the company from May 2, until, the dispute is settled. "The Post and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority will provisionally administer the company until the final resolution of the dispute," tbe decree, which had no date, said. "We are confident that both parties will reach an amicable solution that will be in the best interest of all the stakeholders affected, including the millions of MTN subscribers in Guinea," Rich Mkhondo, corporate alfairs executive at MTN Group said. MTN, tbe West African nation's leading mobile operator with two million subscribers, operates under the Areeba brand in Guinea.
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