16 NEWS/BUSINESS
Tuesday, June 10, 2014
BASL Inaugurates Automated MMA2 Dangote appoints Mukhtar as new CSO BY Friday Atufe the functions within the newly created sectors across Africa, Asia, North Terminal Car Park America and the Middle East in corporate strategy department. , Lagos
BY NKEM OSUAGWU, Lagos
The automation of the Multistorey Car Park (MSCP) of the Murtala Muhammed Airport 2 (MMA2), Lagos, has been completed and inaugurated. The project was inaugurated at a brief ceremony yesterday after the contractor handling it, Mr Christophe Penninck, formally handed it over to the chief executive officer of Bi-Courtney Aviation Services Limited (BASL), operator of MMA2. Penninck, while inaugurating the project, expressed joy that the project was finally completed and commended the group managing director/CEO of Interswitch Limited, Mr Mitchell Elegbe, and his team for “a job well done.” According to the spokesman of the BASL, Steve Omolale, the BASL embarked on the project to lessen the burden of passengers and other airport users at the 800-capacity
multi-storey car park. He said, “The car park has been fully automated to make the use of the facility easier. Each of the three floors of the four-floor car park has a fully automated entry and exit barriers and column gates. “The new system comes with automated timestamped ticket and various electronic applications such as windscreen chip, access card and drive touch button. “The car park manager has a control system managing all points and in-phone facility for communications from his office to the cash points and entry point. This has eliminated the manual ticketing of the car park users.” He also said that a ticket holder had been installed in the column gate at the exit point to withhold successful tickets after being processed and reject failed tickets for further processing at cash points.
As part of its on-going restructuring for global expansion, the Dangote Group has appointed Dr Abdu Mukhtar as the new group chief strategy officer. The group said in a statement that with this appointment he is expected to deploy his rich experience to provide overall management oversight for all
Mukhtar will assist the group president, Aliko Dangote, to provide overall strategic direction for the group and develop short, medium and long-term plans to achieve the group’s strategic objectives and longterm vision. He has extensive experience in both the private and public
the areas of privatisation, publicprivate partnerships, private equity, management consulting and entrepreneurship development. Until recently, he was the group managing director/CEO of the Abuja Investments Company and has chaired the boards of a dozen subsidiary companies.
Ajaokuta Steel Equipment Still In Sound Condition – Administrator
some of the apprentices at the orlean invest nigeria ltd entreprenurship development center near onne port , rivers state. PHOTO BY OGOH JOSEPH
BY Ruth Tene Natsa, Ajaokuta
PIB, FCT Budget, Electoral Matters To Gain Priority Attention – Enang
Equipment at the Ajaokuta Steel Plant are still in sound and serviceable condition as opposed to reports that most them have been disbanded or destroyed at the moribund plant. This was revealed by the sole administrator of the plant, Mr Isah Joseph, when he received a delegation of the minister of mines and steel development, Mr Musa Mohammed Sada, minister of trade, industry and investment, Mr Olusegun Aganga and the Kogi state governor, Idris Wada, and members of the Bureau for Public Enterprise (BPE) . As at 1994 when active construction activities came to a halt on account of funding problems, the steel plant equipment had attained 98 per cent completion status. Today 20 years running, the plant is still in very sound and serviceable condition. Being a plant from the defunct Soviet Union, it is robust and rugged. Speaking on the purpose of the visit, Sada said, “We are very serious about seeing the steel complex move forward and we are here to review the activities of the company, dovetail its economic activities into the nation’s economic industrial revolution as well as appreciate the steel infrastructures on ground.” He also added that other
purposes for the visit was to ensure that the mistakes made in the past are not repeated “as we intend to follow and actualise the vision of reviving the complex. We want to look at it as the cell and nucleus to be fine-tuned for the total industrial revolution of the country,” he said. The minister assured that their visit which included a tour of the complex, KCM mining site currently registered as the Kogi Iron and being listed in the Australian Stock Exchange as well as the African Resource Exploration company were focused on three issues which include looking at business opportunities which exist there, looking at the environmental issues to ensure the environment is protected from the devastation that can result from mining activities as well as to look at community issues to ensure that community members are protected and profit from investments made in their communities. Wada on his part gave the full assurance of his administration’s support towards reviving the complex. He said, “The Kogi state government is happy to work with you and will give you all the political will and even borrow resources to ensure the resuscitation of the Ajaokuta Steel Company Limited.”
•••no Senate probe report will be swept under the carpet BY UCHENNA AWOM And JONATHAN NDA ISAIAH, Abuja
The chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Ita Enang, yesterday, said that the Senate would give priority attention to the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and all pending legislative matters immediately it resumes from the two-week recess. Enang said this in Abuja at a press briefing to give a rundown of the senate performance in the third session of the seventh Senate. He noted that some of the pending legislative matters included PIB, FCT budget, budget of government agencies, and matters dealing with electoral system restructuring and voters registration.
The senator also assured members of the public that all critical and sensitive reports submitted so far by its various committees would be debated upon and passed accordingly on the resumption of its fourth session, saying that none of them would be swept under the carpet. The politician further disclosed that the president of the Senate, David Mark, had directed that all pending matters should be given priority consideration when the senate resumes from recess. “The Senate president has directed that since all these matters are of great public interest we would have to prioritise them. So we will give priority to every major matter that is pending. Also conscious
of the fact that the fourth session is a peculiar session, we will prioritise these bills and expedite the report of these bills once we resume from the end of the third session’s break,” he said. Enang also noted that a total of 187 bills were introduced during the third legislative session which covered from June 2013 to June 2014. He explained that out of the 187 bills, 12 were passed while 14 passed second reading. Analysing the various stages of the bills, he said, “these include bills either passed, withdrawn, negated, read a second time, committed to standing committees, consolidated, and all bills published in the journal of the Senate.
$500m Airport Loan: Senate To Ensure Judicious Application by UCHENNA AWOM, Abuja
The chairman, Senate Committee on Aviation, Hope Uzodimma, yesterday, said that the committee would ensure judicious application of the $500 million Chinese loan. The loan was collected by the federal government to complete the on-going projects in various
airports in the country. Uzodimma, who stated this when his committee met with the Ministry of Aviation and relevant stakeholders in the aviation sector, explained that the loan was made available to the ministry for proper execution and completion of airport terminals and vowed to resist any attempt that would
jeopardize the transformation currently going on in the aviation sector. He also disclosed that the counterpart funding of $100 million from the federal government had been made available so that the $500 million loan would be effective for project execution.