BusinessDay 05 Nov 2019

Border closures across Africa question commitment to AfCFTA Odinaka Anudu

J

ames Agaba exports bathroom slippers from Nigeria to Burkina Faso through the Nigeria-Benin border. But since the closure of the border in September, he has not exported any item.

He had hoped that the border would be re-opened in November so that he would do some exports

in Christmas, but his hopes have been dashed by the jarring news of extension of the closure till January.

He is already planning to shut down in case the border closure is extended beyond January 31, and this includes sacking his six staff members, three of who are university graduates.

“I am a small business, and I cannot afford to do this export by sea. That will be too expensive,”

he said.

“I wonder how this so-called African trade agreement will work when any country can just wake up one morning and shut its borders,” he said, seething in anger.

Agaba’s sentiments capture the trend across Africa, where countries shut borders against each other for economic, social and political reasons, despite recent commitments to the imminent

African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).

Apart from the closure of Benin border by the Nigerian authorities to curb smuggling of petrol and rice, Sudan, in September, ordered closure of its borders with Libya and Central African Republic, citing security and economic dangers.

In June, Kenya shut its borders with Somalia for security reasons.

Kenyan authorities cited increased

illegal trade, as well as human and drug trafficking in the area as major reasons for the action.

In April this year, Eritrea unilaterally closed all border crossings with neighbouring Ethiopia less than a year after the two countries made peace.

Before the outright closure in April this year, Ethiopia-licensed

Continues on page 35

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Buhari signs law amending Nigeria’s oil contracts targets $1.5bn in additional revenue in first year IOCs kick, say amended law will constrain new investment

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Sale of Petrobras Nigerian oil assets not going according to plans …Vitol, Delonex’s exit from consortium could pressure Africa Oil’s finances ISAAC ANYAOGU & SEGUN ADAMS

W

ISAAC ANYAOGU, Lagos, & TONY AILEMEN, Abuja

hile international oil trader Vitol has quit a consortium planning to buy a stake in two Nigerian oil fields from Brazil’s Petrobras, its former partner, Africa Oil, said it would conclude the $1.5 billion purchase alone, but the company is scrambling for cash, a factor that may yet further delay the sale.

An analysis of the 2019 second-quarter report to shareholders shows the company may not have enough cash to complete the transaction.

Prior to Vitol and Delonex’s exit from a consortium that agreed a year ago to buy 50 percent stake in Netherlands-based

P

resident Muhammadu Buhari on Monday assented to the bill amending the Deep Offshore (and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract) Act, a move the government hopes will help it raise over $1.5 billion in royalties this year which will help fund the 2020 budget.

“This afternoon I assented to the Bill amending the Deep Offshore (and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract) Act,” Buhari said in a statement by the one of his media aides.

Buhari is in London on a private visit and aides say the law was signed in the presence of Abba Kyari, his chief of staff.

“Nigeria will now receive its fair, rightful and equitable share of income from our own natural resources for the first time since 2003,” Buhari said.

“In that year oil prices began a steep increase to double – and at times – triple over the following decade. All this time Nigeria has failed to secure its equitable share of the proceeds of oil production, for all attempts to amend the law on the distribution of income have failed,” he said.

The president blamed the

fgn bonds

Treasury bills

Continues on page 35

Inside L-R: Timipreye Sylva, minister of state petroleum; Aliko Dangote, president, Dangote Group; Ahmad Shakur, director, Department of Petroleum Resources, and Mele Kyari, group managing director, NNPC, at the facility tour of Dangote Refinery in Lagos inability to review the law on “a combination of complicity by Nigerian politicians and feetdragging by oil companies” which he said “for more than a quarter-

century, conspired to keep taxes to the barest minimum above $20 per barrel – even as now the price is some three times the value”.

The Federal Government and

the oil companies are in court fighting over contract terms.

Nigeria’s production sharing

Continues on page 35

Maturing OMO bills worth N351.7bn to bolster liquidity this week P. 2

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The giant next door (2) STRATEGY & POLICY

MA JOHNSON

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ispleased with Babandede’s gospel, some of our neighbours under the umbrella of Ghana Traders Union calls for total boycott of Nigerian products.

Currently, Nigeria’s border closure hits hard on rice-exporting countries namely India, Thailand and others as the price of the commodity was reported to have dropped by 46 percent.

But despite border closure, smuggling is still booming through illegal routes.

You need not ask why this is so because some people belong to the lineage of smugglers in our country.

In fact, some people belong to communities of smugglers in which older generations have transferred the know-how of smuggling to young ones for decades. If you come in contact with anyone from these communities, you would be told bluntly that smuggling is of the lucrative businesses ever known. They are not into smuggling because the economy is good or bad.

Neither are they looking for jobs in any private firm or government agency. I got this information from one young man who was arrested with alleged smuggled goods at sea in 1982. At the time of arrest, he had more than 600 bags of rice and about 200x 50 litres of vegetable oil ingeniously arranged in a boat which was seized by security operatives. Undoubtedly, the situation

has not improved. So, with a booming “smuggling industry”, coupled with closed borders, one reads on the pages of some newspapers that: Terrorists smuggling fish into Nigeria says Army- Punch October 21, 2019.

“In another development, a syndicate that specialises in the smuggling of smoked fish from the Lake Chad region for sale in some parts of Nigeria has been arrested by the troops of Operation Lafiya Dole. Reliable information available revealed that Boko Haram criminals, ISWAP and their collaborators are using the fish business to finance and sustain their heinous activities.

“The proceeds from the sale are believed to be channelled into the procurement of foodstuffs, groceries, drugs, toiletries, vehicle spare parts and other items for the sustenance of their criminal activities. Troops of Sector 3 of the operation, while acting on reliable intelligence, raided the residence of some suspected illegal fish smugglers near the Water Board Internally Displaced Persons’ camp in the Monguno Local Government Area of Borno State.

Four suspects were arrested and 16 sacks of smoked fish concealed in a room were recovered.”

“In a similar operation, nine vehicles loaded with illegal smoked fish consignments were equally intercepted at Bukarti in the Geidam Local Government Area of Yobe State en-route Hadejia in Jigawa State. Consequently, 18 suspects including the drivers, conductors, mechanics and agents were also apprehended.”

Navy arrests deaf and dumb, 11 others for allegedly smuggling rice into Akwa Ibom- Daily Post Nigeria, 23 October, 2019 “The Nigerian Navy, Forward Operating Base, Ibaka, Mbo Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State, said it has arrested 12 suspects in three differ-

ent operations for smuggling 708 bags of 50kg rice into the state. While handing over the suspects and the seized items to the Nigeria Customs Service on Tuesday, the Commanding Officer, FOB, Captain Peter Yilme, said though, the smugglers have devised new ways of evading arrest, yet the Navy will not relent in curtailing the illegal trade.”

Most times, countries close their borders when they feel their economies are weak, and that influx of migrants will draw heavily on their social services and take over all low skill jobs.

This is a persistent idea that is not completely true. Nigeria’s borders, it is said, has become too porous and were being exploited by Nigerians and foreigners to smuggle contraband in and out of the country.

In the business of smuggling, what is of utmost concern to the government and people of Nigeria is the trafficking of arms into the country and the smuggling of petroleum products out of the country. The illegal importation of rice, chicken, turkey, used cars etcetera, is another reason of concern. As patriotic Nigerians, these are legitimate concerns. Nigeria has every right to uphold her national interest over and above all other interests in order to protect her citizens.

Apart from its domestic implications, the border closure is inconsistent with the spirit and letters of conventions on regional economic integration.

Those in authority must remember that Nigeria spearheaded the establishment of ECOWAS in the mid-1970s with the objective of “free trade”. Nigeria’s border closure has implications for regional security and economic integration. So, one expects the closure of borders to reduce the inflow of small and light weapons and cross-border movement of kidnappers, bandits and murderers.

From the economic angle, bor-

‘

Without addressing the problems of inept customs and immigration services, as well as the porosity of numerous illegal borders, Nigeria would be treating symptoms of the disease.

Methinks Nigeria has not been serious with security of her borders and our immediate neighbours have taken liberty of this gap for too long

(Concluded).

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

Solving Africa’s working capital problem Africa’s continued growth depends on innovations in access to finance s the global economy undergoes rapid technological change, leaders worldwide are deeply worried about the future of jobs. The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), machine learning, and robotics will spur automation across industries and could undermine job creation at a mass scale.

But African countries face a particularly daunting challenge: within the next two decades the continent will be home to nearly one billion working-age people entering the job market.

Unleashing private sector growth in African countries is critical to creating jobs at scale to employ the next wave of job seekers. While small business owners in countries with developed financial markets can choose from an array of financial service providers for loans, this is not the case in African countries. African markets face a chronic lack of working capital to catalyse private sector growth. The poor availability of working capital results from several factors: a low savings rate, lack of well-structured capital markets and a crowding out of the private sector due to high government borrowing.

To bridge the gap between banks and the real economy, impact investors and development finance institutions (DFIs) should invest in fintech start-ups and working capital exchanges. This would help unlock the flow of capital and jumpstart Africa’s entrepreneurial ecosystem to grow and employ more people.

Traditional sources of working capital for small businesses such as asset financing are not common in African markets. When they are

A

present, they are significantly more expensive compared to global benchmarks. High fees and interest spreads have led to interest rates across the continent which are nearly 20 percent higher than in other developing markets. Finance for small business is eye-wateringly expensive.

Small and medium-sized enterprises are often referred to as the “missing middle” since these firms cannot provide the required collateral, such as equity, a mortgage, or equipment, for loans from African banks, but are too big to qualify for microfinance.

The headlines about the explosion of digital money in Africa should not be confused with the less covered issue of the lack of financing for small businesses. In Zambia, for example, while 95 percent of SMEs have bank accounts and use digital banking services, only 16 percent of those businesses have credit lines. Given the importance of SMEs to economic growth and job creation, African businesses sorely need new and innovative ways to access capital.

Start-ups are working to bridge the gap between traditional financing and the needs of businesses. Africa is one of the last frontiers for banking services as 60 percent of its population is “unbanked.” To respond to this challenge, the fintech sector in sub-Saharan Africa alone has grown at a 24 percent annual rate over the past decade. In Kenya, where the financing gap for micro, small and medium enterprises is $19 billion, companies like 4G Capital are chipping away at the gap by offering “unsecured working capital” that is much easier for small businesses to access than a traditional bank loan. 4G Capital minimizes the risk of default by offering www.businessday.ng

der closure could be an aberration because of trade related reasons. The country’s neighbours, despite several engagements at securing compliance with trade, treaties and agreements had flagrantly dishonoured and disrespected Nigeria. With the poor attitude of authorities in our immediate neighbouring countries, one begins to wonder what happens when the common currency, Eco, to be introduced within ECOWAS is fully implemented in January 2020. I align myself with the Central Bank of Nigeria’s position that ECOWAS member nations should not rush into implementing the resolution until all loose ends are tightened.

Without addressing the problems of inept customs and immigration services, as well as the porosity of numerous illegal borders, Nigeria would be treating symptoms of the disease.

Methinks Nigeria has not been serious with security of her borders and our immediate neighbours have taken liberty of this gap for too long. This is the time for the “Giant of Africa” to show some seriousness and display her capacity at home and in the sub-region by managing the border closure efficiently.

If Nigeria closes her borders, those in authority must encourage production of goods and services within the country through sound monetary and fiscal policies. Nigeria as a leader within ECOWAS should not lead from behind. Overall, Nigeria should put her house in order because charity they say, begins at home. The time for Nigeria to get it right is now, as African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) would commence in July 2020. Thank you!

MOBOLAJI ADEOYE free business training to all of their clients. A 94 percent repayment rate speaks for its success.

Other start-ups take a more holistic approach. Pezesha, a Nairobi-based fintech, has created a financial marketplace that offers financial lending, literacy courses, credit and debt counseling for the underserved SME marketplace. Pezesha prevents SMEs from overborrowing and falling into indebtedness – a growing trend among Kenya consumers – by assessing applicants’ credit history through its subsidiary Patascore. To create an accurate credit score, Patascore tracks and analyses an individual credit history from more than 150 digital lenders. If an applicant’s loan request is rejected, Pezesha offers financial literacy courses and debt counselling to improve credit scoring. More such innovative approaches are needed to help, not hinder, African SMEs in funding efforts.

Yet, FinTechs have a limited impact on the market due to their small balance sheets.

Africa’s working capital gap cannot be closed by small firms loaning tens of thousands of dollars at a time. Investors can have a systemic impact on the private sector in African markets by setting up working capital exchanges that can provide millions in working capital at the same pace as FinTech’s. Investors should look to innovative firms like the U.S. firm C2FO, for example, which allows buyers to turn invoices into cash flow by requesting early payment from their suppliers at an agreed-upon rate. This allows more capital to flow to and from businesses and quickly creates growth opportunities.

An approach similar to C2FO could unlock

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capital in the consumer goods sector while a commodity-based exchange could serve the many natural resource companies that dominate African economies. For example, AFEX, a Nigerian commodity exchange, is providing working capital to 105,000 smallholder farmers. Creating working capital exchanges in Africa that are open to DFIs and institutional investors would grow the number of financing mechanisms that businesses have access to and the amount of financing those mechanisms can provide.

Local entrepreneurs seeking to scale their businesses across the continent and the world will drive the jobs of the future in African countries. The capital they need to grow, however, will not come from traditional financial institutions.

Impact investors and DFIs should step in and fund fintech firms creating solutions to this problem by taking equity or backing funds that invest in start-ups. They will not be alone: African fintech firms raised a record $132.8 million in 2018. Beyond fintech investments, there is still room for innovation in working capital exchanges to unlock millions more in financing for the African private sector. The continent’s continued growth and future labour force depends on it.

Mobolaji Adeoye is the Founder/Chief Investment Officer of Consonance Investment Managers, an Africa-focused early stage and growth investing platform.

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Does culture matter for development?

Rafiq Raji

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significant body of research identifies “intergenerationally transmitted” biological and cultural characteristics that affect economic development. Why are some countries rich and others poor? Significant and persistent long-run effects of geographical, historical and cultural factors on productivity are attributed. And despite the broad consensus that favourable geography, strong free markets and property rights institutions contribute to development, there is evidence that these factors are by themselves inadequate. In other words, countries with strong institutions and geographical advantages could still flounder. Why? Culture is attributed.

According to Boas (1911), culture is “an integrated system of symbols, ideas and values that should be studied as a working system, an organic whole”. Another definition, by Bates & Plog (1990), posits culture is “the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours, and artefacts that the members of society use to cope with their world and with one another, and that are transmitted from generation to generation through learning.” Development, on the other hand, is the “process of creating and utilising physical, human, financial, and social assets to generate improved and broadly shared economic well-being and quality of life for a community or

region” (Seidman, 2005).

Mokyr (2016) establishes a strong link between culture and development.

Mokyr argues that the unprecedented and sustained technological progress in the West stems from a significant change in “cultural beliefs about the natural world and the diffusion of knowledge” in 17th to 18th century Europe. A contrast is made between the cultural evolution in Europe, where it was dynamic, and in China, where it was relatively static.

An openness to new knowledge in the West encouraged the continued challenge of old beliefs with evidence. In the East, however, awe for long-held beliefs engendered conservatism. Put simply, the West encouraged new ideas and adopted them once they passed the test of rigorous scrutiny. On the other hand, the East largely held on to its orthodoxies.

Does China’s later economic success challenge this view? Not necessarily.

China’s rise is relatively recent. And even to this day, it lags the West with respect to technological innovation. Its early history suggests this should not have been the case, however. In Mokyr’s (2016) account, science and technology flourished in China during the rulership of the Tang (618-907 CE) and Song (9601279 CE) dynasties but subsequently declined and stagnated during the Ming (1368-1644 CE) and Qing (1644-1911/12 CE) dynasties. Thus, the reason Europe had an industrial revolution and China did not, is that in addition to a radical change in culture that allowed scientific inquiry and innovation to thrive, there was no truncation in the trend on occasion of conflict or politics.

It is not suggested that there was no resistance by conservative forces in

Europe to such liberalism. What differed in Europe from China and the Islamic world, where science and innovation initially thrived, was that the conditions, environment, politics coupled with the determination of its elite, allowed for liberalism to prevail over conservatism.

Europe was also more receptive and adopted new technologies far quicker than China. For instance, owing to the printing press, far more books were published in Europe than in China, where “movable type printing” only took off from 1800 (Mokyr, 2016).

A contemporary case is the contrast in the economic evolution of mainland Chinese cities like Beijing and Shanghai and Hong Kong, which was a British protectorate until 1997. Lately, there has been sustained protests by Hong Kong youths against the increasing exercise of power by the mainland Chinese government over its special administrative region. Clearly chagrined by the prolonged protests, Chinese authorities have happened on a likely culprit: culture. Why do youths in Hong Kong behave differently from those in Beijing or Shanghai? They are educated differently. In mainland China, the young are indoctrinated with patriotic zeal at formative ages, via rote learning. In Hong Kong, the young are deliberately taught to think independently and critically.

Thus, mainland Chinese youths are not as likely to challenge the government as their counterparts in Hong Kong.

Malcolm Gladwell devotes a chapter to culture and air transportation safety in his 2008 book “Outliers: The story of success”. Gladwell posits Korean Air had the most plane crashes in the 1990s because of its hierarchical culture: copilots had difficulty pointing out errors

‘

It is not suggested that there was no resistance by conservative forces in Europe to such liberalism. What differed in Europe from China and the Islamic world, where science and innovation initially thrived, was that the conditions, environment, politics coupled with the determination of its elite, allowed for liberalism to prevail over conservatism

by their captains because of the airline’s (and broader Korean) culture of deference to elders. A culture of deference is also attributed to the 2013 Asiana 214 plane crash. Analysis of aviation accidents in sixty-eight countries supports the hypothesis that culture plays a role in safety. Enomoto & Geisler (2017) find the higher the GDP per capita and culture of individualism in a country, the lesser the number of plane accidents. Conversely, they also find the higher the number of flights and power distance scores, the higher the number of plane accidents.

Citing Pinker (2018), Spolaore (2019) argues that the cultural thesis of “open science” based on Robert Merton’s scientific virtues of communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, and organised scepticism and “inclusive institutions” for European progress in Mokyr (2016) presupposes that the current era of fast & seamless global communications should see unprecedented levels of progress across the world. Is that the case, though? Not entirely. Because even as global communications are easier and faster than ever, technological progress remains uneven. Put another way, that communications and international collaborations are easier now and yet technological progress remains skewed towards Western nations is perhaps evidence of the robustness of the cultural argument.

References are available at https:// rafiqraji.com/2019/10/31/culture-development-the-case-of-africa/ “Dr Raji is chief economist at Macroafricaintel.

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

The weaker sex and sexual abuse in our society

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he sexual act or coitus is an age-long practice that has existed among mankind since the beginning of the world. And, even animals, both the higher animals and the lower ones, indulge in the sexual act for procreation and pleasure. If humans choose to abstain from indulging in coitus, the human race will go into extinction.

So, our indulgence in the act of sex is critical to the continuance of the human race on the planet earth.

But religious and cultural prescriptions regulate and guide people’s sexual behaviour.

In Igbo land, the South-East of Nigeria, for example, an adulterous wife will be thrown out of her matrimonial home while the sexual escapades of her hubby are treated with levity and overlooked. However, now, educated ladies do not have the patience and temperament to continue putting up with the sexual misbehaviour of their hobbies. This is a proof that culture is dynamic and in a flux.

Again, as to the religious codes on sexual practices, the Bible, which Christians read and study, contains sexual laws by which Christians ought to live. The Bible frowns at our committing the sins of adultery, fornication, bestiality, and incest. Today, champions of gay rights in many countries are fighting governments that have criminalized homosexual acts, although homosexual acts and lesbianism are viewed by people as unnatural sexual behaviours based on their religious beliefs.

In addition to this, some men of the cloth, who ought to live good and exemplary lives, were found guilty of committing sexual misdemeanours. We read newspaper reports about catholic priests who were pederasts and paedophiles until the bubble burst. In

Nigeria, a renowned Pentecostal Pastor and church founder is at present in the eyes of the storm for allegedly assaulting a musician’s wife sexually in the past. Daily, sordid tales about the sexual misconducts of men of the cloth come to the open.

In most cases of sexual abuse, women are portrayed as the weaker sex and vulnerable people, who are sexually exploited by the domineering sex predators (men). And the feminists are ready with clubs to verbally clubber any man alleged to have sexually abused a lady without waiting to hear the man’s version of story. But the question is this: are women the weaker sexes, who are vulnerable?

It is a well-known fact that a great majority of women are gold diggers and schemers who lure men into the sexual trap in order that they (women) can achieve their goals.

Aren’t we aware of the term called “bottom power”? In order to achieve their goals, most women deploy their sexual assets and wares in discombobulating men and have them under their thumbs.

For example, in Nollywood, it is believed that many Nigerian star actresses have achieved stardom through the instrumentality of the casting couch. They exchange sex freely for a part or role in a film. And in some catholic churches in Nigeria, barely clad voluptuous middle-aged mothers do take tasty meals to Reverend Fathers before the start of morning mass in order to seduce them.

In government offices, female workers, who are desperadoes, offer their bodies to their superiors in offices for monetary gratification and to guarantee their speedy rise to the top cadre in their offices.

In commercial banks, the female market-

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ers, who must meet the targets given to them, have sex with moneybags business men. In acts of reciprocity, the moneybags will open accounts in banks where the marketers work.

This is how female marketers working in commercial banks secure their jobs.

On campuses, temptresses (students), who are keen on bringing about the ruination of lecherous lecturers, are on the prowl. Most of these way-ward female students have parents who circumvented rules and cut corners to secure university admissions for those female students to study courses, such as Law, Medicine, Pharmacy, Engineering, and so on. But being mentally and morally unprepared to withstand the academic rigours on campuses, they do seek ways to achieve their academic goals rather than be disgraced.

And exchanging sex for grades is one of the ways they use to realize their educational goals. These temptresses-female students- are emboldened to proposition male lecturers having been socialized into the vile culture of immorality and corruption by their parents. Didn’t their parents compromise those charged with university admissions with inducements so that their wards gained admissions into universities for academic programmes?

However, on campuses, there are lechers who are university teachers. They perceive female students as games that must be cornered and bedded. The lecherous lecturers will keep on importuning female students even when those female students brandish their wedding bands to ward them off. Those lecturers think less about the sanctity and sacredness of marriage provided that they have their ways regarding bedding their married female students. Consequently, lately,

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CHIEDU UCHE OKOYE some university lecturers in the South-West of Nigeria had been punished for committing sexual crimes.

Thankfully, laws had been made which can be invoked to punish erring randy university lecturers. It should be noted that the sexual abuse of female university students by their male teachers imperils the culture of scholarship in our tertiary institutions.

It is one of the reasons why products of our tertiary institutions are found wanting both in character and learning.

It should be noted that sexual harassment pervades all social strata in Nigeria; and it is not restricted to only schools. And, most times, ladies are the people who proposition male lecturers in our universities. And, in offices, ambitious ladies make sexual advances to their male superiors to achieve their goals.

When their sexual overtures are turned down, they’ll concoct lies to besmirch the reputation of those men.

But a man, who is unable to rein in his sexual urge upon seeing the erogenous zones of a lady, which propels him to perpetrate sexual misdemeanours, should be punished based on the law.

Okoye is a poet

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDITORIAL Publisher/CEO

Frank Aigbogun editor Patrick Atuanya DEPUTY EDITOR John Osadolor, Abuja NEWS EDITOR Chuks Oluigbo EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS Fabian Akagha EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, STRATEGY, INNOVATION & PARTNERSHIPS Oghenevwoke Ighure ADVERT MANAGER Ijeoma Ude FINANCE MANAGER Emeka Ifeanyi MANAGER, CONFERENCES & EVENTS Obiora Onyeaso BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT MANAGER (South East, South South) Patrick Ijegbai COPY SALES MANAGER Florence Kadiri DIGITAL SALES MANAGER Linda Ochugbua GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (North)

Bashir Ibrahim Hassan

GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (South) Ignatius Chukwu

Doing business in Nigeria: Ranking the reality

R

anked 131 out of 190 countries in the 2020 edition of D oing Business, the performance of Nigeria on the ease of doing business is commendable.

The ease of doing business ranking, which the World Bank compiles every year, is often quoted and popular among investors; it’s become a shorthand for judging how friendly a country is to business. It also spurs competition among countries – Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, has often lagged smaller African economies like Rwanda.

Nigerian was ranked 15th when it comes to getting credit, one of ten factors the index ranks. This improvement shows how technology is democratising access to credit. Financial technology companies (Fintechs) have tackled this once knotty area of banking in Nigeria: giving credit without collateral.

Getting credit is now the least headache of a business in Nigeria.

Starting a business is still a challenge, so too are getting electricity, registering property, paying taxes and trading across borders. These problems are related to regulatory capacity and policies, the uncertainty of which, is killing businesses in Nigeria.

Understandably, President Buhari and his aides will brag about this latest result; good performance on the World Bank ranking is useful for pitching to foreign investors.

From now on the expected refrain, dropped at every occasion and in every presidential speech, will be that Nigeria’s improvement on the ranking is a sign that this administration is keen on making doing business in Nigeria easier.

Unfortunately, the actions of the Buhari administration belie its words. It’s one thing to traverse the world on a charm offensive with the intention to lure investors, it’s an entirely different thing when the actions of government don’t match its intention. Take the closure of the borders; it’s a real challenge to doing business that even the recent

ranking highlights – Nigeria is ranked 179 out of 190 countries.

Reducing the time and cost of administrative processes is welcome. Making it easier to register a business, to pay taxes etc. are part of what makes doing business more conducive. Concrete and consistent actions, however, speak louder than indices. It’s hard to convince any investor to stake millions in the economy when regulations and policies are uncertain.

Despite the record low prices of stocks, regulatory uncertainty is keeping local and foreign investors away from the stock market, a barometer for judging confidence in the economy. Shutting borders indefinitely, forcing banks to loan to the real sector, restricting access to foreign exchange and limiting individuals and non-banks from trading in Treasury Bills contradict sales pitches about how it’s now easier to do business in Nigeria.

Uncertainty about whether electricity tariffs will be raised to reflect the true cost of generating and distributing it affect

constant supply. With regular electricity small and large businesses will save thousands of hours and millions of naira they otherwise spend on getting petrol or diesel and on their generators are in working order.

Even businesses that import goods which aren’t restricted from foreign exchange worry about uncertainty when their finished goods can’t be exported to other West African countries because the borders have been shut to prevent the smuggling of rice and chicken.

Contending with haphazard, short-term, poorly thought policies and regulations undo whatever gains the country has made on the ease of doing business scorecard.

There are other realities the rankings don’t capture and which frustrate Nigerian entrepreneurs: infrastructure, skills, security and corruption.

While an executive order can reduce the time and cost of getting a construction permit, it will take more than that to build goods roads, keep them safe from bandits, kidnappers and crooked customs officials.

HEAD, HUMAN RESOURCES Adeola Obisesan

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Imo Itsueli Mohammed Hayatudeen Afolabi Oladele Vincent Maduka Opeyemi Agbaje Amina Oyagbola Bolanle Onagoruwa Fola Laoye Chuka Mordi Mezuo Nwuneli Charles Anudu Tunji Adegbesan Eyo Ekpo Wiebe Boer Paul Arinze Boye Olusanya Ayo Gbeleyi

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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How Trump tariff wars worsen US trade deficit

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ince 2018, Trump’s trade wars have made US trade deficit only worse, while hurting the poorest economies the most and penalising global prospects.

According to the new IMF outlook, global growth is forecast at 3.0 percent for 2019. That’s the lowest since the global crisis of 2008-9. The decline is largely due to the US tariff wars, which have contributed to the projected slowdown in the US and China.

Due to the global slowdown, world growth prospects now hover at levels where they were last amid the darkest moments of 2008/9.

Trump tariffs widen US trade deficit Recently, international media reported that, in August, the politically sensitive US goods trade deficit with China decreased 3.1 percent to $32 billion relative to previous month.

Yet, US trade deficit actually widened to almost $55 billion in August. While exports rose 0.2 percent, imports increased more than twice as fast at 0.5 percent.

Unfortunately, monthly data does not reflect secular trends and overall deficit trend matters. In longer view, US trade deficit improved during the Great Recession, when imports declined. As the economy recovered in the early 2010s, multilateralism still kept trade deficit around $40 billion

per month.

The change came when President Trump’s trade threats turned into tariff wars in 2018. Since then, the trade deficit has been around $50 to $60 billion per month, while the trend line (in black) suggests progressive deterioration (Figure 1).

What about China’s trade surplus?

In September, Chinese exports declined 3.2 percent over a year earlier, which the White House’s trade hawks saw as progress. Nevertheless, imports to China plunged more than twice as fast at 8.5 percent. That’s what happens in times of trade friction and uncertainty; import growth declines.

The net effect? China’s trade surplus actually widened to $40 billion in September. In the long view, the trend line (in black) the relative strength of the trade surplus, even amid the US tariffs (Figure 2).

The bottom line? The Trump tariff wars are working – if the strategic objective is to further weaken the US trade deficit and to deepen trade friction with China and other trading nations particularly in developing Asia.

How US tariffs hurt most the poorest economies Worse, the Trump tariff wars are harming the most the poorest economies. In the post-war era, Washington’s trade, investment and financial ties broadened and deepened mainly with other major advanced economies in Western Europe and Japan. The post-war economic miracles of these rich economies did not support the rise of the Third World – developing Asia, Africa, Middle East and Latin America.

In the past decade or two, China’s economic ties have broadened and deepened dramatically not just with major advanced economies, but particularly with emerging and developing world regions. Moreover, the One Belt and Road (BRI) initiative seeks purposefully to accelerate modernisation in poorer economies in which industrialisation was never completed or has barely begun.

The implication is critical. Since China’s contribution to the rise of the poorer economies is now vital, any collateral damage that US tariff

‘

In the postwar era, Washington’s trade, investment and financial ties broadened and deepened mainly with other major advanced economies in Western Europe and Japan

Figure 1: The widening of US trade deficit

wars affect in China, whether directly through trade and investment abroad or indirectly through the reduction Chinese output potential, will harm disproportionately the poorest economies in the world – through their external trade ties and multiplier effects in their domestic economies.

The longer the US tariff wars prevail, the broader the collateral damage will be in emerging and developing economies.

Diminished global prospects In 2008-9, the global crisis was contained by massive fiscal stimulus packages, ultra-low rates and, when that proved inadequate, rounds of quantitative easing.

Now, a decade after the crisis, central banks’ rates remain ultra-low and most continue asset purchases, whereas soaring debt levels limit new fiscal injections.

The IMF projects growth to pick up to 3.4 percent in 2020. That, however, is predicated on improvements in a number of emerging economies in Latin America, the Middle East and developing Europe, which would require a trade recovery. And the latter is not likely as long as the misguided US tariff wars prevail.

The Trump administration’s tariff wars are the worst policy mistake in the post-war era. They will improve neither US trade balance nor global economic prospects. They have already made both worse.

Dr. Steinbock is an internationally recognised strategist of the multipolar world and the founder of Difference Group. He has served at the India, China and America Institute (US), the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Centre (Singapore). For more, see https://www.differencegroup.net/ A shorter version of the commentary was released by China Daily on October 31, 2019

Data from U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)

Donald Trump’s whims stoke fears of instability in the Middle East

Andrew England

Arab powers had thought the US president would prove a reliable ally but are disillusioned by his unpredictable policies

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t was an inglorious end to a crucial alliance in the US’s continuing battle against Isis.

As American troops in armoured vehicles pulled out of towns in north-east Syria and headed east to Iraq, Syrian Kurds hurled rocks, rotten vegetables and insults at the departing soldiers.

“What happened to America?” asked one man, as local traffic forced one of the imposing military vehicles to reverse down a street in Qamishli.

It is a question many in the Middle East are asking. President Donald Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw US troops from the frontier, paving the way for a Turkish offensive against Kurdish forces that Washington had armed and trained to fight Isis, is the latest act to give the impression of creeping US disengagement from the region.

Arab powers, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, which have for decades counted on Washington as their staunchest ally, condemned Turkey’s offensive as an “aggression” in a sovereign Arab state.

But it was not the fate of the Kurds that concerned them. What they fear is Mr Trump’s unpredictable actions and worry that arch rival Iran, which has capitalised on its support for the Assad regime during the Syrian civil war, will strengthen its foothold in the heart of the Arab world, analysts say.

It is creating uncertainty at a time of heightened regional tensions, fuelled by the stand-off between the US and Iran. At issue is whether Washington can still be counted on as a depend-

able ally — and whether Mr Trump, who is averse to costly military interventions, would be there if they got into a fight?

“People are disillusioned with the US. The truth is Trump is just staunchly pro-Israel. He doesn’t respond to Arab issues unless it’s for money,” says one Arab diplomat. “There will be consequences of the US’s slow disengagement, it’s going to be filled by others.” Mr Trump has said the US will send some troops back into north-east Syria to protect oil facilities and claimed a success after special forces killed Isis leader Abu Bakr alBaghdadi last week. But the moves are unlikely to assuage the broader concerns.

The US has long been the dominant foreign power in the oil-rich Middle East, militarily and politically. But there is renewed talk of how Washington’s perceived pivot away from the region is providing an opening for Russia. The Kremlin backed the Assad regime, and has gained control of air bases and ports in Syria and brokered a deal with Turkey that means Russian and Turkish forces now conduct joint patrols in the north-east — the region from which American troops have withdrawn.

Moscow has also been strengthening ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the US’s closest Arab allies and the region’s most powerful Sunni states vying with Shia Iran. In a coincidence that came to symbolise the shifting dynamics, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, was receiving lavish royal welcomes in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi in mid-October, just as Mr Trump was fending off a Congressional backlash triggered by his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria.

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“If America decides to turn its back on us, the Gulf and the wider Middle East, it would set in motion the thinking that we need to turn our back to America,” says Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati commentator. “If there is less of America, even 10 per cent, there’s going to be a vacuum and someone is going to fill it.”

Others see another dynamic evolving from Mr Trump’s actions, particularly his apparent reluctance to use military force against Iran.

They argue that it has emboldened hardliners in Tehran at exactly the moment when Gulf states are more aware of their vulnerabilities to potential attack by the Islamic republic or its proxies than ever before.

Ultimately this could persuade Riyadh and Abu Dhabi to pursue their own diplomatic tracks with Iran to avert the risk of conflict, analysts say. In July, the UAE sent a maritime delegation to Tehran, the first such talks in six years.

Saudi Arabia is showing signs that in the wake of the September attacks on its oil facilities it has become more serious about ending the war in Yemen — holding back-channel talks with the Iran-aligned Houthi rebels it has been fighting in that country, western officials say.

Likening Iran to the region’s “school bully”, the Arab diplomat says Riyadh and Abu Dhabi tried to “enlist the support of their big brother from outside, but “it became clear the brother was not interested in fighting the bully”.

“They must either submit”, the diplomat says, “or try to take it [Iran] on in ways other than a direct fight. They have two options; either they sign their Versailles Treaty with Iran or they keep

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resisting. So far, they didn’t choose to surrender.”

Debate over a US withdrawal from the region has been simmering for a decade. The costs of interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have weighed heavily on Washington. “It’s real,” says veteran US diplomat Robert Ford, referring to the shift. “In the White House talking about the Syria conflict [during the Obama administration], boy I heard about Iraq — none of us wanted troops in Syria.”

While careful not to overstate the changing dynamics, he adds, “The era where only America mattered among foreign states effecting the Middle East, that may be over”.

From an Arab perspective, it was the US failure to back Hosni Mubarak during a popular uprising that ended the Egyptian president’s 30-year rule in 2011 that first triggered alarm bells. Two years later, those concerns were exacerbated by Mr Obama’s decision not to follow through on his “red line” warning to the Assad regime over the use of chemical weapons. The former US president then infuriated the SaudiEmirati axis by signing the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran.

For many in the region, Mr Trump was supposed to be different. Just over two years ago, he wooed Arab leaders by choosing Riyadh, where he raged against Iran, for his first foreign trip as president. A year later, he pulled the US out of the atomic accord and began imposing what he describes as the “toughest ever” sanctions against the Islamic republic.

FT

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Media business

Africa’s narrative quest gets boost as LAIF keys into course Daniel Obi

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ver the years, Nigeria and the rest of Africa have suffered bigoted representations from the Western media that deliberately chose to tell African stories from their prejudiced perspectives. Many of them portray Africa as a country and display demeaning pictures in Africa.

This situation is also not helped by some African journalists and media content disseminators, who according to africasacountry website, lack the continental consciousness to think or write in African way. It is not unusual for prominent newspapers and broadcast stations in Africa to take their ‘international’ and continental coverage straight from Western publications, often ones that stereotype Africans, the site.

The stereotype by Western media which has deepened poor image of Africa even among Africans has come to be accepted by the populace. It also has implications on investment inflow to the continent as image and return-on investments are critical factors determining capital direction.

In the recent time, Africa is waking up to this reality as there are pockets of conscious efforts in different countries and in Diaspora to re-create African narrative by Africans themselves. Nigeria’s advertising industry has since joined this train.

To further the move, the creative Nigerian advertising industry is

therefore dedicating the prestigious Lagos Ideas Festival, LAIF 2019 Awards to African stories. Themed Tori Tori of Laif, the award will relive the abundant African stories that will ignite the world.

This is the 13th edition of the award and “this year will be a celebration of our own culture. Instead of leaving our stories as Nigerians and Africans for other people to narrate, this time, let us concentrate on telling our stories. This informs the theme”, the chairman of the award, Steve Babaeko who is CEO of X3M Ideas told BusinessDay. According to him, changing the African narrative will not only reflect

on the content but on dress code at the award scheduled next month.

“Even in the dress code, it will be Nigerian. If we don’t celebrate our own, who will do it for? In terms of content, we expect higher content which the award is associated with, this is our own premier league”, he said.

This is a programme Nigeria’s Ministry of Information needs to partner to further African narrative in line with African Union quest.

As all hands are on deck to achieve this course, African Union recently signed MoU with Africa 24 Group that will see the two institutions partner to develop and disseminate

L-R: Steve Babaeko, chairman, Lagos Advertising and Ideas Festival (LAIF) Management Board; Temitope Jemerigbe, vice chairman of the LAIF Management Board; Bolaji Alausa, member LAIF Management Board; and Jenkins Alumona, publicity secretary, Association of Advertising Agencies of Nigeria (AAAN), at a media roundtable on 2019 LAIF awards in Lagos on Friday.

Global mobile phone maker, Xiaomi lures Nigerian consumers with four new devices

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ith confidence in Nigerian economy, global technology player, Xiaomi has introduced four brands of mobile phones in the country, the biggest market in Africa.

The products are Redmi Note 8 Pro, Redmi Note 8, Redmi 8 and Redmi 8A. This followed these devices’ debut in China.

Redmi Note 8 Pro: As the brand’s first-ever 64MP camera smartphone, Redmi Note 8 Pro features a quad camera setup with a powerful LiquidCool system, making it an ideal companion for photographers, gamers and anyone seeking an accessible flagship-quality experience, the marketing manager of the company Shomoye Habib said He further explained that the 20MP front camera’s built-in AI technology of this brand lets users put their best face forward through detailed portrait selfies, scene detection and face unlock. For enhanced durability, the device also leverages IP52 splashproof technology, offering effective protection against rain and sweat.

Shomoye said Redmi Note 8 Pro’s glossy frame and precise G3 curvature

content aimed at promoting Africa’s image and its narrative.

The partnership with Africa24 also reiterates the intent of the African Union to work with partners who share the common objective to popularise Agenda 2063 which include to build a positive narrative of Africa past, present and future potentials to audiences both within the continent and globally.

Nigeria as big market in Africa stands to gain tremendously from positive African narrative and it is important to see Ministry of Information supporting courses such as the AAAN Laif award targeted at enhancing Nigeria’s

accommodates a comfortable grip, while its three elegant color variants – Mineral Grey, Pearl White and Forest Green – are sure to suit any personality. It retails at N82, 999 for 6GB+64GB, N89, 999 for 6GB+128GB starting yesterday.

On Redmi Note 8, he described it as a photography powerhouse, sporting a quad camera setup on the rear. Its 48MP ultra high-resolution primary camera features a ½-inch sensor with an f/1.79 aperture and 79.4° field of view. Meanwhile, its 8MP ultra-wide camera with 120° field of view, 2MP macro lens, and 2MP depth sensor join forces to capture stunning images at any distance.

“On the front, Redmi Note 8 boasts a 13MP selfie camera with an f/2.0 aperture and built-in AI technology that helps users take a perfect selfie, every time. The front camera also includes a panorama selfie feature -- a first for the Redmi Note series -- that can capture group images without cropping anyone out”. Redmi Note 8 will be available in 3GB + 32GB, 4GB + 64GB, and 4GB + 128GB starting at N57, 999.

Speaking on Redmi 8 and Redmi www.businessday.ng

Advertising sectorial bodies partner APCON on national summit Daniel Obi

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he Advertising Agencies Association of Nigeria (AAAN), Advertisers’ Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN), Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) and Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MIPAN) will partner the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria on the forthcoming National Advertising Conference.

Organised by APCON, the conference, which holds at Abuja between 25 and 27 November, is billed as the biggest Advertising event in Nigerian history and will, for the first time, bring together the most important industry stakeholders. These include advertising and marketing communications professionals as well as scholars and students with interest in Advertising, who will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with specially invited government figures and business leaders.

Expected to be in attendance at the conference, according to a statement are Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo (SAN), who will declare the conference open, and Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), who will declare it closed. Also expected is Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who will be the special guest and chief host, with the leaders of industry sectoral groups as co-hosts.

The conference has, as theme, “Advertising in the Post-digital Age: The Profession, The Business and Nigeria’s Socio-economic Development”

Devon Kings sponsors reality show…

13 food entrepreneurs selected 8A, Shomoye said they come with a 6.22-inch (15.8cm) HD+ Dot Drop display. “Redmi 8 and Redmi 8A feature an aspect ratio of 19:9, promising an immersive experience and overall ergonomics. Wrapped in glass-like materials, Redmi 8 provides a premium hands-on feel with a polished and glossy surface, while Redmi 8A comes in a fine, textured matt finish with excellent grip and at the same time, reducing fingerprint residues to a minimum.

“With a 5000mAh high-capacity two-day battery, both Redmi 8 and Redmi 8A come with support for 18W fast charging support on the Type-C port (10W fast charger inside the box), and Qualcomm Snapdragon 439 octa-core chipset as processor. Each model offers a 2+1 dual SIM slot with dedicated microSD card support that allows storage expansion up to 512GB. He said Redmi 8 comes in Onxy Black, Ruby Red and Sapphire Blue. The 3GB+32GB variant and 4GB+64GB variant will be priced at N44,800 and N47,900 respectively. Redmi 8A will be available in Midnight Black, Sunset Red and Ocean Blue and will be available for N36, 500.

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n a bid to support entrepreneurs within the food sector in Nigeria, Devon King’s, foremost brand in the cooking oil category, has kick-started ‘King of Street Foods’ reality show, a programme produced by African food and lifestyle channel, Foodbay TV. The reality show is a contest in which food entrepreneurs across select states in Nigeria were identified and will be showcased, celebrated and rewarded. The weeks leading up to the maiden edition of the competition saw the brand and organisers kick-start the call-to-entry phase of the contest, as a diverse range of street food entrepreneurs across the country were asked to vie for a place in the competition by stating their business, their unique proposition and what they would do with a sizeable sum of money.

Thirteen contestants across Lagos, Calabar, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Abuja and Kano were eventually selected for the competition based on set criteria. The winner of the contest will win N1 million and additional prizes from Devon King’s, while the runners-up will be rewarded with @Businessdayng

consolation prizes.

PZ Cussons’ HR Director, Joyce Coker, expressed her excitement at the prospect of the competition’s maiden edition: “I am particularly excited about this competition as it presents an opportunity for Devon King’s to create a stronger connection with our consumers. I would also like to thank our partners, Food Bay TV, for coming up with such a unique contest.

Also speaking at the event was Bamise Oyegbami, Brand Manager, Devon King’s, who detailed the thought process behind sponsoring the contest/reality TV show, citing Devon King’s as a brand focused on delivering the true Nigerian taste in delicious local delicacies to consumers at every meal occasion.

“Street foods have been a part of the Nigerian culture, currently there has been an increase in its popularity for various meal occasions such as breakfast, snacking, lunch and dinner. This is in line with Devon King’s brand which is uniquely positioned as the go to option for delivering taste in every meal occasion.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

15

ADVERTISING Multi-billion Out-of-Home industry gets fresh air on account of Interaction Channel’s smart technology Nigeria’s out-of-Home industry has gone through changes, from analogue to digital, regulation and choice locations. This time, it is experiencing introduction of smart technology and a data-first approach to planning and buying on OOH. This is innovative as it will enhance clients’ decisions. Daniel Obi looks at the development that will revolutionise OOH in Nigeria.

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lobally, Out of Home industry has been g ro w i n g , b u t i n many markets the industry lacks data to determine why advertisers are spending money on the platform.

Another issue clients’ face is how to use AI to automate media decisions.

Lack of measurement and data on most media platforms particularly Out-of- Home campaigns are therefore forcing clients who have become more prudent, to be wary on their spending, a development that has slowed campaigns on certain platforms and markets. To stimulate the industry and encourage clients who rely on data for investment to refocus on Out of Home, Interaction Channels Limited, ICL, an indigenous company in partnership with Moving Walls of Singapore recently introduced digital solutions that will help reposition the Out-of- Home sector and also give clients performance data about their campaigns on any board.

The product was unveiled recently in Lagos at a forum of clients, media planning, buying and players in Out of Home industry with the theme, “Location Data Meets OOH Media.” Over the years, there is the notion that everybody that is passing by billboards is recorded as good performance; this may not be the case as the billboard should have its target audience. Every billboard advert is important, has a target audience and a story to tell. This is the core value of the solution, to capture and connect every billboard with the target audience and to the media buyer who is looking for a billboard to place advert.

It is expected that this 5th generation cutting edge technology will deliver great value to clients, media buyers and billboard owners and makes dynamic media and content planning easy for clients and brands that would leverage on the real time data that the ICL solution offers.

Tosan Omagbemi, Managing Director, ICL further explained at the forum that the technology lifestyle solution would aid marketers and sales personnel deploy their consumer initiatives with an unprecedented higher level of precision. A robust synergy is now possible across media types, for example OOH Media + Mobile.

Brands can now measure, optimize and track campaign effectiveness.

Advertisers will be able to custom-

L-R: Ayo Oluwatosin, GMD, Media Seal; Tosan Omagbemi, MD, Interaction Channel Ltd.; Srikanth Ramachandran, founder/CEO, Moving Walls; Ken Onyeali Ikpe, president, MIPAN and Emmanuel Agu, group marketing director, JOTNA Nigeria Limited at the launch of ‘’Moving Audience” by Interaction Channel Ltd in partnership with Moving Walls held in Lagos recently.

ize audience segments and use the understanding of time belt to reach specific audiences.

“What we provide is location intelligence. That solution goes beyond traditional OOH media to other non-OOH traditional opportunities including in-mall, etc.

We help advertisers/brands understand points of interests (POIs) where consumer’s visit and match with advertising opportunities to best expose brand campaigns.

We provide to drive optimal campaigns,” he said.

Speaking on why the event was targeted at OOH, he said “We decided to speak to out-of home specifically this time because as we are all aware out-of-home takes a lot of the marketing budget and it is in the forefront of offline media investment. However, there has not been a proper attribution of audiences to OOH locations and there is no scientific knowledge of performance, so we decided to talk about out-of-home today. The technology solution however can deliver on a numbers of variables including; retail analytics and event measurement” According to Omagbemi, “What we expect, first from the advertisers’ point of view is that they would be able to now target more precisely out-of-home, so they would be able to cut all of those wastages due to out of scope in audience targeting and thereby optimizing their spend and the media owners will also be able to sell their assets with audience data”.

Similarly, Srikanth Ramachanwww.businessday.ng

dran, CEO of Moving Walls said “advertisers have bought media for so long; it’s time to begin to buy audiences – time to reach your real target audience. We are optimistic that this new technology solution would serve as a catalyst for growth.

“Basically, Moving Walls operates Moving Audiences, a location intelligence platform that brings transparency and automation (OOH) media via planning, buying, content-serving, and measurement tools.”

Ramachandran believed that “Out-of-media is the only traditional media which is growing year on year, the rest of the traditional media are under pressure and what is surprising in this industry is that it doesn’t have any data to support why brands are spending so much money, that is really the reason we built our platform which we introduced to Nigeria.

We have measured over 1,500 billboards in Nigeria, so that clients can understand where their money is going, what is the kind of return on investment that their money is bringing, that is one part of the solution.”

He stated that the second innovation the solution is bringing to the Nigerian market is programmatic, adding that the aim is to connect billboard with consumers using automations.

How the solution works Explaining how the technology works, Tosan said “What drives us is that age long question and barrier of how do we know we are buying right, how do we know it’s

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effective and efficient? So, at ICL, our objective is to service the client’s or advertiser’s interest. We are also being very deliberate about this because we are cutting away from scope. What happens is that, let’s say I have a friend that owns a media asset or because I like Oshodi as there are a lot of people there. That does not mean your consumers are in Oshodi. It shows that your consumer is not everybody’s consumer. So, how exactly do you know that your consumers are part of that mix-multitude?

“What we are doing is removing the wool in OOH campaign planning and management! We are changing the Out-of-Home industry through smart technology and innovation and a data-first approach to planning OOH and activations in the offline world.

“What we do at Interaction Channel Limited is to measure the performance of your campaigns in terms of audiences reached, site performance and store attributions. We help clients use campaign data to plan and buy outcome-based outdoor advertising campaigns where they can optimize based on your target audience, budget, objectives and billboard type.”

A client for example can say, I want to do a campaign that is limited to Ikeja alone. I can easily get on my dashboard then circle Ikeja and call up every inventory that is there, to see what is available and what is not. I can do a plan based on the objective of the client. We can easily and quickly respond to @Businessdayng

the client’s briefs because of the automation of our platform. This is an end-to-end automation from raising a proposal, making a booking and even a Media Purchase Order can be issued at the click of a button directly from the system.

This will go straight to the media owner. We are very swift by nature.

It is also all about efficiency and transparency, so advertisers can plan by their budget and time”.

He recalled that before now, when an advertiser wants to do an outdoor campaign, he calls media owners to provide CDs so he knows what is available. “With our solution, we have pushed all that out of the window. On our database, we have inventory of all available and even non-available media assets all in one dashboard. With just a click, a client can see what is available.

“Through collaborations with the advertiser, we are able to help in planning and we are able to measure what actually happens.

Beyond that, we are also able to progress conversation beyond the event, long after the target audience have gone back to their places. We are able to follow them and generate through Google ad IDs that can be used to further retarget the audiences. That is the connection between where OOH meets mobile”.

Experts Thought Emmanuel Agu, Group Marketing Director, Jotna Nigeria explained that brands look at the impact of particular media on their return on investment and when it is time to cut budget, OOH budget has always been affected because of lack of data.

Ken Onyeali Ikpe, Media Independent Practitioners Association of Nigeria (MIPAN) President said times have changed and because of this, people and businesses need to align with new realities especially with ICLMW technology solution, stating that the innovation is a welcome idea. “The days when people hide behind ignorance are gone” Babs Fagade, Founder/CEO, Ocean Outdoor Limited and member of Outdoor Advertising Association of Nigeria (OAAN) executive said the Interaction Channel’s ICLMW technology solution is a good development for the OOH industry in the country and it would help in getting accuracy data about audiences.

Other experts present at the event applauded the innovative solutions from ICL and said the OOH and other industries would greatly depend on the technology.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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.’

CCNN’s merger with Kalambaina cement starts to bear fruit as profit surges …records fastest margin expansion among peers BALA AUGIE

CNN: Q3 Financial Highlights

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ement Company of Northern Nigeria (CCNN) Plc has released its nine months results that showed remarkable improvement across key performance metrics, validating the merger with Kalambaina Cement.

CCNN’s robust cash flow and low debt position gives it the leeway to finance its future expansion plans and take advantage of the country’s rising young population that crave for consumption and accommodation.

The United Nations estimates that Africa’s population will double to 2.5 billion by 2050.About 400 million of these people will live in Nigeria alone.

Analysts attribute the growth in earnings to management’s focus and market penetration strategies, while an appropriate energy mix helped underpin margins.

Despite the slow construction activities brought on by a budget impasse and the disruption caused by heavy

rain falls, CCNN recorded the largest profit and margin expansion among peer rivals, as it continues to surmount the macroeconomic headwinds.

For instance, its revenue surged by 117.20 percent in the first nine months of 2019, supported by higher cement volume and excellent distribution and marketing networks across the country.

That compares with Dangote Cement Nigeria Plc revenue decline of 0.81 percent in the period under review, and Lafarge Africa’s drop of 0.43 percent.

CCNN has control over direct costs attributable to projects than peer rivals, and it

has turned each Naira invested in revenue into higher profit.

The Sokoto based cement maker recorded a 114.04 percent expansion in gross profit, this eclipse Dangote Cement’s gross margin contraction of 1.96 percent, and Lafarge Africa’s (-8.59 percent).

Its net income surged by 119.10 percent to N8.76 billion in September 2019 from N4 billion as at September 2018.

The lowest profit figure it recorded was in 2017, when a precipitous drop in crude oil price that tipped the country into its first recession undermined government revenue, and caused a slowdown in construction activities.

The chart shows that CCNN’s revenue hit an all time high of N42.15 billion in the period under review, which compares with a low of N10.53 billion in 2016, a period that was concomitant with the economic downturn.

Over the past four years, both transportation and energy costs have been improving, as the company’s cost cutting strategies are reflecting in its numbers, and analysts expect the growth momentum to continue.

That means investors will get a higher return in form of bumper dividend payment and share appreciation.

Net margin improved to 20.61 percent in the first nine

months of September 2019, this compares with 2.61 percent recorded in 2016, as margins continue to increase in geometric progression.

CCNN maintained a low debt profile, which gives the company the impetus to tap the debt market, at an attractive yield for bargain hunters to swoop on.

Total borrowings shrank by 55.1 percent to N236.98 million as at September 2019, translating to a debt to equity of 0.1 percent, debt to Earnings Before Interest Taxation, Depreciation, and Amortisation (EBITDA) of 0.01x and a net cash of N1.71 billion.

In the finance parlance, a low debt to equity ratio means a firm is not exposed to finance risk, while it doesn’t have going concerns problems.

CCNN has the financial strength to reward its owners and meet obligations to both short and long term suppliers as cash from operating activities surged by 104.19 percent to N11.86 billion from N5.72 billion as at September 2018.

Also, it doubled its capital expenditure spend, a manifestation of increased capacity utilization, as acquisition of property plant and equipment surged by 162.45 percent to N7.69 billion as at September 2019 from 2.93 billion the previous year.

It is efficient in the utilization of its property plant and equipment in generating higher revenue as fixed asset turnover ratio increased to 19.09 percent as at the first nine through September 2019 from 16.05 percent the previ-

BD MARKETS + FINANCE Analysts: BALA AUGIE www.businessday.ng

https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

@Businessdayng

ous year.

CCNN has announced that its board is exploring a merger with Obu Cement Company Plc (Obu), after it obtained premerger approval from the Federal Competition Consumer Protection Council (FCCPC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

The consolidation of the two entities, which are owned

by BUA, will result in a total capacity of 8MT (CCNN - 2MT and Obu – 6MT), thus, creating Nigeria’s third largest cement manufacturer by capacity.

Analysts say the consolidation could further improve efficiency as the enlarged entity will potentially benefit from economies of scale, due to larger revenues underpinned by volume growth, relative to cost base.

BUA Cement, the parent company of CCNN, also announced that its newest 3 million metric tonnes cement plant which it started constructing in 2018 – the $ 450million dollars Sokoto Kalambaina II plant, is scheduled for completion in second half of 2020.

With the consolidation and addition of the Sokoto Kalambaina II plant, this will bring BUA Cement’s total installed capacity across all its cement holdings to 11 million MTPA. “This consolidation will cement BUA’s position as the second largest cement producer in Nigeria whilst also positioning it to take advantage of the combined synergies to effectively serve Northern and Southern Nigeria based on the strategic locations of these plants – as well as a sizeable export market,” said Abdul Samad Rabiu, Founder & Executive Chairman of BUA Group.

“We intend to continue creating value for the benefit of shareholders of the consolidated company by maintaining our focus on outperforming the Nigerian cement industry across key indices through a laserlike commitment to excellent products and service delivery, operational efficiency as well as maintaining our leadership position in our home markets,” Rabiu said.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

COMPANIES & MARKETS

17

COMPANY NEWS ANALYSIS INSIGHT

INDUSTRIALS

Beta Glass Q3 profit hits N3.91bn amid plans to expand furnace capacity OLUFIKAYO OWOEYE

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l a s s m a k e r, Beta Glass Plc reported 14.18percent uptick in sales to N21.9bn in third-quarter result for the period ended 30th September 2019 from N19.18bn same period in 2018. Interestingly, the third quarter was particularly strong with a 24percent growth in sales to N7.5bn.

Beta Glass keeps costs down with selling and distribution expenses as well as admin expenses declining by 14percent and 30ercent respectively.

Operating profit grew by 17 percent in the nine months to N4.85bn and by 49percent in the third quarter alone.

From its revenue within this period, it generated N19.98bn from local sales of products majorly bottles and glassware while N2.01bn was generated from export sales

as compared to N775.71mn realised in the same period in 2018.

Foreign exchange gain increased by 21percent in nine months, with much of it coming in the third quarter with a 245percent increase.

Net profit surged 10.7percent to N3.9bn from N3.53bn the same period in 2018.

The company announced in early October that its $30m investment to expand the furnace capacity at its plant in Agbara, Ogun State was on track to be completed in June 2020.

The new furnace when completed will pioneer use of the Narrow Neck Press and Blow (NNPB) Technology in West Africa, enabling Beta Glass to bring lighter weight, non-returnable glass bottles to the market in Nigeria for the first time.

Analyst say Beta Glass impressive performance amid a tough macroeconomic environment vali-

dates management and board of directors’ focus and market penetration strategies.

Shrinking wallet among consumers, insecurity in the northern part of the country, decrepit infrastructure, high incidence of smuggling, counterfeiting locally manufactured products and the menacing gridlock at the Apapa Ports have made it practically difficult for manufacturers to make profit or bolster margins as amid sky-high cost of production.

Other challenges bedeviling the industry are high excise duties on products, exorbitant cost of haulage, and congestion at the Lagos seaports arising from the non-functionality of other seaports in the country.

Beta Glass is a subsidiary of Frigoglass Industries Limited, exporting glass packaging materials to 13 countries. The company has manufacturing plants in Ughelli, Delta State, and

Agbara, Ogun State, with three furnaces that exceed 600 tons of produced glass containers per day. Brewer-

ies account for 43 percent of its total glass unit sales while soft drinks constitute 29 percent. Wine and spirits make

up 12 percent just as pharmaceuticals and cosmetics’ patronage is estimated at 16 percent.

L-R: Vickram Gopaal, catergory head, Apple Africa; Daniel Olawumi, sales executive, Redington Nigeria; Manu Sanon, business manager, Apple-West Africa, and Manoj Rajasekharan, regional head, West Africa, Apple Business, at the official launch of iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max models organized by REDINGTON in Lagos

COMPANY RELEASE

Mikano rewards customers with prizes at its mega sales promo grand-finale LOLADE AKINMURELE

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ikano International Limited, a leading power provider and partner in the electrical, lightening, power, mechanical, steel fabrication and general civil industries has announced its grand-finale and winners of its 2018 mega sales promo raffledraw held last week at its corporate head office.

The promo which was part of the company’s 25th anniversary in 2018 commenced with the company rewarding its customers with instant vouchers ra ng i ng f ro m N 2 0 , 0 0 0 to N200,000 to purchase needed household items from spar and Game’s store nation-wide and raffle-draw tickets that automatically qualifies customers for promo star prize (50KVA Mikano yorc generator) and other consolation prizes.

The lucky winner of the star prize in the Mikano 2018 Mega Sales Promo, a 50kva Mikano YORC Generator, turned out to be one of Mikano loyal customers’ “Inlaks Computers Ltd Victorial Island, Lagos”

The consolations prizes are Intel Core 13…15.6 Inches Laptops, 10 Mikano vouchers worth N2,500,000 43” LED TV sets, cool-links 1-year satellite internet subscription amongst others; went to other lucky customers from different geographical zones like Abuja, Port-Harcourt, Kano, Mina, Gombe, Owerri, amongst others.

Total consolation prizes given were 35 and winners were invited to Mikano offices to pick up their prices.

As rewarding her esteemed custumers has become her yearly culture, Mikano International Limited is currently finalising plans to kick-off the 2019/20 promo, which is planned to be much bigger. The star prize of this new promo is likely a luxurious Sedan car; assembled by Mikano.

To ensure product quality service delivery, Mikano has set up a state of the art automobile assembling plant in her multi-use eight warehouses, occupying a 120,000sqrm space along the Lagos Ibadan express way; “The Karamey Industrial City” Speaking during the

event, Lokman Jouni, deputy CEO, Mikano said Mikano is a Nigerian company made and designed for the Nigerian consumers and the Nigerian market and having operated for over 26 years in the Nigerian market, the company delivers excellent services for its consumers.

“Every year, Mikano is committed to celebrating the festive year with everyone in Nigeria by opening special promo during November to January. We are not just suppliers, we are partners and service providers in Nigeria.

Last year, we also did the raffle draw and everyone saw it. We promise and fulfil our promise and we are willing to do this next year and the years to come. We are very generous. We thank our consumers,” he said.

Jouni said business in Nigeria has been great for Mikano and the economy is good.

“Mikano is committed to enhancing and improving our business. We are part of the Nigerian economy. We have got several licences. We are now going into auto assembly in Nigeria. We have built the state of art assembly

plant in Nigeria along Ibadan express way and there are more to come,” he disclosed.

He commended the government for being very supportive in terms of local production and local content, adding that the company has been getting the certifications it requested for.

Orunko Samuel, Vetting Officer, Advertising Prac-

titioner Council of Nigeria (APCON) who was present at the event said the raffle was done according to best practice.

“Everything was real. We saw how the raffle was done, how the winners were picked and the winners were called to confirm and this is in line with our establishing act.

“As many that have been

doing promotions, we have to come to see what they are doing. We are trying as much as possible to protect the interest of the consumers,” Samuel said.

The raffle draw event was honoured by Mofid Karameh, the company’s Chairman, management staff, top government officials, customers and notable dignitaries.

L-R: Busayo Afolabi, human resource executive, School Kits Limited; Sola Oyegbade, head, training academy, First City Monument Bank (FCMB); some of the winners of the FCMB organised #Flexxtern Contest, an internship and employment opportunity programme for young graduates; Tunrayo Olomofe, operations manager, Lumenave International Limited, and Diran Olojo, group head, corporate affairs, FCMB, during the inauguration ceremony of the winners in Lagos

18

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

COMPANIES&MARKETS INTERVIEW

Eyowo is a bank that does not require a bank account – Amao (1) In this interview with BusinessDay’s Companies & Markets Editor, LOLADE AKINMURELE and editorial analyst, SEGUN ADAMS, co-founder, and CEO of Eyowo, TOMI AMAO, talks about a revolutionary bank that seeks to change the face of financial services in Nigeria.

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It also remits these payments automatically without the SME having to employ extra hands.

These are some of the services that we have layered on top of the Eyowo platform.

hat is Eyowo all about and how does it work?

Eyowo is a revolutionary peer-topeer payment system that allows people to send and exchange value using their phone numbers.

The reason we use phones is that the majority of individuals have this piece of technology; it is almost ubiquitous and we thought it would be very useful in driving a revolution in areas like financial inclusion, which is aimed at getting everybody onboarded into the financial system.

So fundamentally Eyowo is like a Bank on your phone number.

It provides access to financial services on your phone number.

Tomi Amao

What is the product offering Eyowo is offering?

Consumers need to exchange value with each other, so what we have built is a peer-to-peer revolutionary system that allows people to send and receive money.

How the platform works is very simple. If I am an Eyowo user and I need to send money to you, I just need to look for your contact on my phone and it is done, without any bank account.

One of the things I have found out is that everybody that I want to pay probably has a phone number and is on my contact list. So I tap your number on my contact list and just click send.

Now what is very magical and revolutionary about what we have built is that you do not need to have heard about the system to receive funds; the money is accessible on your phone and you will get notification from Eyowo that somebody has sent you that particular amount of money.

These are ways you can access the funds automatically without you even knowing about the service.

I mean if you look at the old system, you need to state what bank you use and what your account number is. In this case, that has been eradicated. I just type in your phone number send you money and you see it instantly.

Eyowo does the heavy lifting of notifying the recipient and ensuring they have access to the funds.

A very good analogy is Whatsapp; I mean everybody knows Whatsapp but what made it become popular is that you do not have to be on the platform before I can send you a message.

Whatsapp does the heavy lifting of notifying you that I sent you a message and getting you on-

boarded to access the message.

What Whatsapp has done in messaging, we are doing the same thing with money.

The second is that we provide several services. A good example is savings, I mean if you have money on the platform, you can make it generate more money. So we have got a savings option on the platform and I think arguably the kind of returns on investment we give to our users is quite good.

We also, offer dollar virtual cards because some of our users need to make payments internationally. So we give them a Visa virtual card. Asides that, we have another service we call the cardless ATM withdrawal. If you need to access cash without using a physical plastic card, our platform can allow for such, through codes we send you that can be used at the ATM. We also, offer our users the ability to pay for bills including airtime to recharge their phones.

You can pay for your internet subscription, for your TV subscription.

So we offer the typical banking services but also have services for other categories of users.

Let’s take a merchant as an example. We built what we call Eyowo for Retail, it is taking this revolutionary peer-to-peer payment system described to you and making it available to merchants.

We have realized that in the merchant space there are problems we can solve. If you walk up to any merchant, for example, and you want to pay, you will realize that they have a system that handles cash and another system that handles POS and at the end www.businessday.ng

of the day the merchants have to reconcile the systems manually which is very laborious.

So what we have done is to build a system called Eyowo for Retail which allows merchants accept cash, accept cards and accept Eyowo in a single interface and it does the reconciliation automatically for the business owners.

We have also added inventory on the system to help retailers keep track of their goods or inventory, so as they are selling their goods Eyowo keeps a tab and notifies them immediately they are low on stock.

Eyowo for Retail also has a change management system which is a big issue retailer have.

With Eyowo system, once it detects there is a change to be handed back to the customer, which the retailer may not have as cash, it allows the retailer to send that amount through the customer’s phone number.

So, we are solving and tackling the big issues when it comes to retail.

The next service we built is Eyowo for Business which addresses a lot of the financial problems that SMEs and businesses have.

A good example is payroll; an SME might have to engage the services of a tax consultant who understands the tax system to help with the payroll system.

Eyowo for Business already has the formula built into it that is in line with the Nigerian tax code.

So all you have to do as a business is log into Eyowo for Business put in the gross annual salary of all your employees and Eyowo for Business does the rest, it calculates monthly pensions and taxes and all other deductibles. https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

How accessible is the Eyowo platform and are there charges for using it?

That question speaks to some of what differentiates Eyowo from other fintech platforms. Many fintech platforms have this concept of having an app on a smartphone but we see things completely differently.

When we started the experiment called Eyowo we grouped our users into two classes; what we like to call the smart user or those who have smartphones and those who don’t use smartphones i.e. feature phone users The USSD was meant to target those who did not have a smartphone. We went around the country to see how people were using the platform, and we discovered something shocking and interesting; many people had created this belief that USSD was a panacea for the non-smartphone users because it can work for any kind of phone. But we found out people had to be literate to use the USSD which is in English.

Trying to write USSD to be in another language is very difficult, so the user still has to read in English which doesn’t solve the problem of people who need financial services but are illiterate.

Another interesting thing we discovered is that illiterate people always need assistance in some way and that got us to build our telephony system.

We observed that regardless of literacy, people know how to place calls on their mobile phones, so we said if at a fundamental level everybody knows how to do that, why not build a service that allows people access financial services by placing calls.

We came up with an interactive voice response service so users can call and have a computer speak to them. The system asks users what language they would like to engage in, whether English, Pidgin, Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa, after which the customer can perform any kind of transaction they want.

However, we found out that the computer telephony system could not address queries exhaustively so we added what we call human telephone banking.

The system switches users to a human operator who takes up @Businessdayng

the call if the computer cannot understand a customers’ request.

We have a 75-person dedicated call center with people helping users who have issues and need help.

However, we also recognize that we cannot scale the human contact center beyond certain limits because employing many people would increase cost which could affect affordability.

So what we are doing now is that overtime, after our human banking center may have dealt with every kind of possible interaction a human being would want, we are feeding all those calls into our artificial intelligence system so we can train the computer to be able to understand any kind of scenario; learn from how the humans did it and then be able to respond. By doing this we can significantly bring down the cost of our assisted telephony system.

We are constantly looking at how our users are using the platform and delivering services in such a way that we can address how they want to use the platform.

We are not enforcing how technology should be used, we are instead ensuring technology aids how people are using the system.

So we are meeting people at their point of need and not trying to change their behaviour. We are just trying to fit into how they are using technology and I think that’s one of the ways we’re driving the narrative of financial inclusion.

How can users fund their Eyowo account to send money through the platform?

We have several ways and we are always adding more. Right now on the platform, you can add your debit card and then fund through that card. *737# is quite popular, it is another way to fund. Another way to fund is that you can walk into any bank and deposit into Eyowo.

You would have to fill a deposit form and fill in the name Eyowo as the recipient, put your phone number as recipient and pay the teller and then you get your account funded.

We are about to release our integration to NIBSS Instant Payment (NIP) which would allow anyone on any internet banking platform see Eyowo as one of the banks so anybody can pay from the internet banking platform of any bank and get their Eyowo account funded.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

19

property&lifestyle How stronger NHF scheme can bolster FMBN’s affordable housing delivery programme Stories by CHUKA UROKO

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n Nigeria, though owning a decent home is necessary, it is a very expensive venture to own one because it costs an average of N5 – N8 million to own a 2-bedroom apartment while a 3-bedroom bungalow may require upwards of N10 million to build.

For majority of Nigerian workers, raising such finance is tough. At least, not from salaries as the case of federal civil servants shows. The average salary for a level 4 staff of a federal ministry is slightly above N20, 000 less tax deductions while that of someone who is on level 14 is just around N100,000 monthly.

It was because of this poor wage structure of civil servants, the need to help Nigerian workers own their homes as well as the strategic importance of housing to overall national development that the the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme was established in 1992.

As laudable and good intentioned as the scheme is, it is yet to live up to home seekers expectations, hence the call for strengthening it . More than ever before, a stronger NHF is needed because of its potential to drive and bolster FMBN’s on-going Affordable Housing Delivery

Fashola

Ahmed

Dangiwa

Programme.

Mortgage sector analysts note, however, that 27 years after its establishment, NHF scheme has rec orded some strides, especially with making decent and affordable homeownership possible for tens of thousands of Nigerian workers in most states of the country.

Terungwa Isaac, an Abujabased housing policy analyst, says recent statistics from the FMBN, which manages the scheme, show interesting milestones, including the provision of housing loans to 48,454 beneficiaries totaling over N228 billion, financing construction of 27,721 housing units at cost of over N102.6 billion.

“It is noteworthy that the scheme could have achieved a lot more if it was financially

empowered,” Isaac said.

As a scheme that was designed to pool long-term funds for tackling the housing affordability challenge, the framers of the NHF law understood the importance of ensuring sustainable flow of funds and defined clear sources of finance to drive its operations on scale.

This included 2.5 percent monthly contributions from salaries of workers, investment of 10 percent of loans and advances portfolio of commercial and merchant banks, commitment of 40 percent and 20 percent of life and non-life funds of insurance companies.

Expectation is that these contributions in addition to the federal government’s periodic injections of funds

through direct interventions will strengthen the scheme for its statutory function.

Isaac lamented, however, that only the 2.5 percent contribution from workers’monthly salaries has been the mainstay of the scheme, pointing out that commercial and merchant banks as well as insurance companies have failed to comply with the provisions of the law. Injection of funds from the federal government has also been insignificant.

This widespread noncompliance has denied the scheme, and the FMBN of liquidity to scale its affordable housing delivery programs.

“Investments from the financial institutions would have added over N500 billion to the scheme and empow-

ered the FMBN to leverage trillions in long-term finance from the private sector, international development finance institutions and create far more mortgage loans for Nigerian workers,” Isaac said.

Despite these setbacks, the NHF has had profound impact on the Nigerian housing market. Long before the creation of the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), a secondary mortgage market, the NHF had been the leading provider of long-term, low-cost affordable housing finance for the country’s mortgage banks and developers.

The FMBN, has over the decades, deployed the funds from the NHF to boost liquidity in the mortgage industry and finance the construction of affordable housing stock.

Mortgage loans that it lends through primary mortgage banks (PMBs) attract best market interest rates as low as 6 percent with tenors of up to 30 years.

For these reasons and more, Isaac says, it is important for stakeholders to rally round and support efforts to revise the NHF bill that is under consideration at the National Assembly. This is because, without cheap funds, it will be impossible to give housing loans at single digits for long period of time.

Cobblestone redefines luxury as Sisi Paris opens, lights up Bourdillon skyline

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m i d cha l l e ng e s in the Nigerian economy and their crippling impact on development activities, developers occasionally bring uncommon excitement into the real estate market with the delivery of iconic buildings that offer ultimate luxury, comfort and convenience in exclusive locations.

When real estate professionals, high net-worth individuals, sundry investors and home buyers gathered in Ikoyi. Lagos last Thursday, it was to behold and welcome to the market one of such buildings known as Sisi Paris which came from the stable of Cobblestone Properties & Estates Limited.

A 10-storey residential apartment building nestled on 34 Bourdillon Road in Ikoyi, the highbrow neighbourhood of Lagos, Sisi Paris development was inspired by the charms of Nigeria’s commercial capital and that of Paris, the

capital of France.

“When we decided to restructure the building that was here, we focused on delivering the ideal luxury living experience,” explained Bella Disu, an executive director at Cobblestone Properties, who took guests on a tour of the complex.

She explained further that to meet the needs of the average family, each 3- and 4-bedroom apartment in the building was redesigned to have two living rooms, one of which could be re-purposed as a study, cinema, or playroom for children. Each apartment also has a fully fitted laundry and a pantry.

According to Disu, “true luxury extends beyond fittings and finishing; it is in every detail that contributes to superb daily living.

That is why Sisi Paris goes a step further by delivering first-rate service. Roundthe-clock concierge will provide scheduling and reservation services while

the on-site minimart is a one-stop-shop for daily needs.”

She revealed that, at Cobblestone Properties, they have developed and managed many commercial and residential properties across Nigeria, but Sisi Paris is a milestone for them. “It is our first, major luxury residential development. Her name, design, and colour arrest attention on the Lagos skyline; however, her real charm lies in being people-centred, ” she enthused.

BusinessDay learnt that the concept, design and execution of Sisi Paris were inspired by Mike Adenuga Jr, the chairman of the Mike Adenuga Group, who was the pillar of support for the project.

The building boasts a well-equipped gymnasium, a sauna and a massage room, to help residents keep fit without having to commute in Lagos infamous traffic just to get access to state-of-the-art

www.businessday.ng

beauty parlours and gym centres.

The luxury apartments building also has a swimming pool alongside a children’s paddle pool, with pool furniture including Chais e L ounges, Hammocks and Bistro Sets that turn the pool area into an oasis, and a haven for enjoying the serene Ikoyi environment if swimming is not an immediate desire.

In the evening, the

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poolside seems almost like something out of a fantasy movie as water cascading from a height into the pool reflect a wide range of colours from light sources around the facility.

Sisi Paris offers 24 hours concierge services. So, residents do not have to worry about porter services, enjoying dry cleaning services, making reservations at restaurants, cinemas, booking hotels, and so on. @Businessdayng

Investors, home buyers in focus as developers break ground to build The Plush

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ome buyers and investors are the target of a new development coming up in Magodo GRA Phase One, Isheri, Lagos known as The Plush, the developers and promoters of the project have said.

The developers, WAVL Properties Limited and Adloyalty Business Network, who are in partnership, signaled the beginning of construction work on the project with a ground-breaking event recently.

“Today, we are breaking ground for the launch of our newest project. The Plush Magodo GRA promises to be the true definition of quality living with the very best of all modern amenities,” said Olawale Bello, managing director of WAVL Properties.

“At WAVL Properties, we specialize in developing affordable residential homes that provide a serene environment for its occupants,’’ Bello stated further.

The development partners have come together to deliver a modern housing estate that will raise the bar and become a reference point for other real estate developments in Nigeria. The Plush will accommodate units comprising different house-types such as bungalows, blocks of flats and detached duplexes.

A major highpoint of The Plush is nearness and easy access to such important places as Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Murtala Mohammed International Airport, the 3rd Mainland Bridge and Ikeja Central Business District. Expectation is that investments in The Plush will appreciate considerably within a short time.

Magodo GRA is an affluent neighborhood with stealth security, steady electricity, good schools, specialist health facilities, high-quality schools and social amenities.

Average land price in Magodo is N45 – 50 million per plot. But The Plush is presently offered at N50, 000 per square metre which makes it easy for smart investors to own prime real estate without breaking the bank. “Subscriptions for 300, 450 and 600 square metres serviced plots of land are now available for immediate purchase,” Bello said.

The project boasts amenities like perimeter fencing, gate house, interlocked roads, green areas, CCTV surveillance, electricity, street light, water supply and covered drainage system.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

property&lifestyle

An assessment of Airbnb in Nigeria William & Partners Introduction irbnb, originally called AirBed & Breakfast, is an online marketplace that offers lodging and connects travelers with local hosts. The founders of the company started by hosting guests on air mattresses in their living room, effectively turning their apartment into a bed and breakfast.

They did this when all the hotels around them were fully booked before a popular conference. They sold four spots in their apartment, provided their guests with breakfast and showed them around the local neighborhood.

The company’s founders are Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk. Airbnb was founded on August 1, 2008 with its headquarters in San Francisco, California, USA. Having received massive funding of $4.4 billion till December 2017, it is a part of the billion-dollar club with a valuation of $31 billion.

Their goal at first was to “make a few bucks” as they could not afford the rent for their loft apartment, but the vision grew after they launched the company.

They then decided to focus on creating value around experiences as seen through a local’s perspec-

A

tive. This became the main focus of the business. They put together a website which offered short-term living quarters, breakfast, and a unique business networking opportunity for those who were unable to book a hotel in the saturated market.

Airbnb is currently present in over 34,000 cities and over 190 countries across the world. Over 140,000 people stay at an Airbnb listed location every day.

HOW Airbnb operates Airbnb operates as an online marketplace, connecting travelers with local hosts. The platform enables people to list their available space and earn extra rental income. It enables travelers to lease or rent short-term lodging including vacation rentals, apartment rentals, homestays, hotel beds or hotel rooms.

Using Airbnb, they can save money and have a chance to interact with locals. It provides insurance to listed properties, gives cheap options to travelers to stay with local hosts, facilitates the process of booking living space for travelers, and provides a rating and reviewing system for hosts and guests. It has a user-friendly app and web platform.

Hosts Hosts are the people who own property and want to make some money by renting out their available space.

They create a listing for their

property on Airbnb, add property details and set their rent, check-in and check-out times, etc. Hosts can accept or reject a booking after reading the reviews of the guest or after going through the guest’s social profiles. To help set expectations, a host can add “house rules” that guests must agree to before booking.

If a guest breaks a rule after they book, the reservation can be cancelled without penalty. The host gets to choose nightly prices and Airbnb’s pricing tools help with that. The hosts that stand out are the ones that go the extra mile to provide their guests with a great experience. To be a successful Airbnb host, one has to be a reasonably good marketer, excellent at customer service, passionate about one’s home town and willing to share it with others.

Guests Guests are the people who book the listed spaces from local hosts. Guests have the option to search for a property by filtering according to rent, amenities provided, location, and so on. They can book a space by paying through the portal.

How Airbnb Works Consequently, hosts list out their property details on Airbnb along with other details like pricing, amenities provided, etc. Airbnb sends a professional photographer to the property location to

take high-quality photographs.

The guest searc hes for a property in the city where he wishes to stay and browses through available options according to different features. Bookings are made through Airbnb where the guest pays the amount mentioned by the host and an additional fee for transaction charges.

The host approves the booking, the guest stays at the residence and finally, Airbnb pays the amount to the host after deducting their commission. However, the host and the guest can rate each other and can write reviews based on the experience.

Airbnb offers free listings to property owners and lets guests browse the listed spaces and select whichever best suits their needs on the platform. The business model of Airbnb is such that the booking and monetary transactions are done on the platform. This is where the company earns its share of the revenue from two different sources which are – a flat 10% commission from hosts upon every booking done through the platform and a latter charge of 3% of the booking amount as transaction charges from guests upon every confirmed booking.

Airbnbs first customers came through a simple website built by the owners.

Since then, it has grown to host 1.2 million listings on its platform. The major sources of customers for hosts and residences for guests are through social media, word of mouth marketing, digital marketing including internet ads, promotional offers, affiliate models as well as refer and earn offers.

Airbnb in Nigeria Airbnb continues to enjoy rapid growth in Africa, recording the fastest growth in Nigeria. Annual guest numbers more than doubled over the past year from 572,000 to 1.2 million; the Californian company announced in a new report, with active listings up from 62,000 to 100,000. The figures show a 5th straight year of strong growth from a base of just 6,000 listings and 22,700 guests in 2012-2013. South Africa remains the cornerstone of

Airbnb’s business in Africa, accounting for 43,400 listings and income worth $86 million.

A tourist hub, Cape Town is the most popular city with 17,600 active listings, generating $55 million for local hosts. Morocco is the 2nd largest market in Africa, with 21,000 active listings earning $22 million. Kenya ranks 3rd with 5,900 listings, earning $3.9 million.

To be continued William & Partners is a wholly owned indigenous firm of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, established in 1974 and registered by the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON). The firm is also a member of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV).

Real reasons home seekers can’t access mortgage loans amid liquidity in market Bad roads: Oyo mulls taking federal CHUKA UROKO

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worr ying situation in the Nigerian mortgage market at the moment is that despite the liquidity in the market, home seekers cannot get loans to buy, build or renovate existing houses.

This means that home seekers’ inability to get loans from mortgage lending institutions is not necessarily because there is no liquidity in the system or because they

are not in paid employment which is a major principle of mortgage lending and borrowing.

The pr imar y mor tgage banks (PMBs), for instance, are not giving out loans despite all the funds at their disposal from the refinancing of their loans by the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC). Borrowers are not getting loans from these banks because they have chosen to operate in a narrow, limited market.

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“I don’t think the problem of the PMBs is capital.

Most of them would tell you they won’t lend to borrowers outside Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt where you have more credible customers and understandable landlords.

So, you see their market is very limited and narrow,” explained Kola AshiruBalogun, managing director, Mixta Nigeria.

He noted that, even in those markets, not many companies are there that

their employees can comfortably take up mortgage at 21 percent per annum and be able to pay back.

The companies that can do that, according to him, are very few. “If you take out the oil and gas, and telecoms, nothing is left. Even banks employees cannot afford such loans because the banks are not doing well at the moment. They really need to do something like consolidation in that industry,” he said.

A good number of the PMBs had their loans totaling 1,045 refinanced by NMRC which said it refinanced these banks to the tune of N18 billion as at December 2018. “NMRC has refinanced 1,045 loans so far with the N18 billion they raised between 2015 and 2018,” a board member told BusinessDay. Ke h i n d e O gu n d i mu , the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NMRC confirmed this in a statement that “NMRC has refinanced mortgage loans totalling N18 billion as at December 2018.”

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roads case to FG, House of Reps REMI FEYISIPO, Ibadan

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yo State government is considering taking the case of rehabilitating bad federal roads in the state to the federal government and also to the House of Representatives.

The state government says it will open discussions with the federal government on the possibility of fixing the federal roads within the state with a view to getting reimbursed afterwards.

The challenge, however, is that the federal government has, for some time now, stopped reimbursing states for fixing her roads across the country.

It is worrisome that, all over the country, federal roads are in deplorable condition. Available record shows that only 35 percent of well over 200,000 kilometers of roads that belong to the federal government, nationwide, is motorable.

“This is part of Buhari’s @Businessdayng

next level agenda and there is no joke about that,” said Emmanuel Okechukwu, a businessman who shuttles regularly between Nigeria and Ghana on business trips.

Rapahel Afonja, Oyo State commissioner for public works and transport, told journalists, during an inspection of the O y o - Is e y i n R o a d , t h a t there were rising complaints from the public over the poor condition of federal roads in the state, saying that it was impossible for the state to fix the road because of paucity of funds.

“We are currently working on the Moniya-Iseyin road which als o ne e ds prompt attention. On Iseyin-Oyo road, we have been monitoring public outcry on this road and the state does not have much financial muscle to embark on reconstruction of Oyo-Iseyin road now.

Our concern is on MoniyaIseyin road.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

21

5 reasons firms mistreat customers and staff

Treat your employees well and the business will thrive

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The shareholders demand quarterly or half-yearly earnings increases, which encourages the business leaders, with an eye on those options, to look to ways of boosting the share price rather than investing for the long term

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n the 1980s, a colleague I shared an office with got a call from his daughter.

He had bought her a cheap compact disc player from audio retailer Richer Sounds in London to take to university and she had found that it didn’t work.

He suggested she take it into a Richer Sounds shop in Manchester, where she was studying. The staff there tested it and it worked.

But she seemed uncertain, so they gave her a more expensive CD player instead.

“This is not complicated,” Julian Richer, the UK company’s founder, told the Financial Times last week, as he outlined his business philosophy.

Treat your customers and employees well and the business will thrive. Staff turnover and employee theft at Richer Sounds’ 53 audio equipment stores are far lower than the retail average.

In May, Mr Richer sold a 60 per cent stake in the 41-year-old business to an employee trust for £9.2m (of which he is giving £3.5m back to the staff ).

He has done well enough over the years to buy several Rolls-Royces. He makes business sound easy.

If you treat your staff decently, they provide excellent service to your customers, who not only www.businessday.ng

keep coming back but tell other people how good you are.

You make more money and are able to treat your staff even better so that they do even more to satisfy your customers.

Why don’t all chief executives run their companies the way Mr Richer does? I can see five reasons why they don’t. Size.

As companies grow, they need to put formal procedures in place. They feel they have to create a corporate bureaucracy, with marketing and human resources departments.

The people at the top become increasingly distant from employees.

They stop bothering with staff at the sharp end and the staff stop bothering with the customers. Politics. Mr Richer is unusual both in managing to retain control and maintain his focus.

In companies where there are several founders their aspirations, both corporate and personal, can begin to diverge.

Some want to concentrate on the existing business, others to diversify. Some want to sell out to a large acquirer, others to keep control.

When non-founder managers come in, they have their own ambitions, both personal and corporate.

They argue, scheme and plot.

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The central business of creating products and providing services gets forgotten, along with employees and customers.

Distraction.

Even if they are united, the company’s leaders often want to move the business on. They enter new markets. They make acquisitions which, because of differences in culture and IT systems, seldom work.

Having succeeded with one product or service, they try a related one.

Having attempted this and found it too difficult, they need to retrench, refocus, close subsidiaries and lay off staff.

Those employees who remain are overworked and demoralised, which the customers soon notice. Greed. Perhaps the biggest reason of all.

The company’s leaders regard making money as the principal aim of the business rather than a by product of running it well.

They see an opportunity to make money for themselves by selling the company to a bigger rival (which often ruins both businesses — see above), to a private equity group or to list it on a stock exchange.

They persuade their boards that to attract leaders like themselves they need to be better paid. @Businessdayng

They also argue that they require share options to align their behaviour more closely with their shareholders’ interests.

The shareholders demand quarterly or half-yearly earnings increases, which encourages the business leaders, with an eye on those options, to look to ways of boosting the share price rather than investing for the long term.

They continue to talk about employees being their biggest asset and the customer coming first, but their eyes are elsewhere. Competition.

This can derail even the bestintentioned business leaders.

Although Mr Richer says it isn’t complicated, staying in business is hard.

Other companies undercut your prices, and technologies and distribution methods change. Richer Sounds has done well to retain its shops in the face of online competition.

The company says it has done it by recruiting on “natural friendliness, rather than highpressure sales skills” and finding staff who are enthusiastic and knowledgeable enough about the products to explain them to customers.

Other businesses have found that isn’t enough to survive. Or perhaps not enough of them have tried.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Business schools seek diverse talent to broaden leadership In a rapidly changing sector, it is hard for institutions to recruit new deans

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h e n Id a l e n e Kesner became the permanent dean of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business in 2013, she found a note that her predecessor, Dan Smith, left in his former desk.

It cited a popular version of a quote that originated with Hunter S Thompson: “Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting ‘holy shit, what a ride’.”

The note reminded Prof Kesner to enjoy the increasingly tough job of running a business school.

The difficulty has created problems that can sometimes amount to a leadership vacuum.

Statistics from a leading professional organisation in the sector, the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), show that in 2018 there were 85 openings for business deans advertised through its job board, up on the 70 vacancies posted the previous year.

Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and London’s Cass Business School are two examples of schools that are searching for replacements for interim or outgoing leaders. Prof Kesner blames the high turnover of deans on financial pressures to fill the gaps in financing with philanthropic gifts from big donors.

This is especially true at public institutions in the US, where states slashed higher education funding after the financial crisis, and it has not recovered.

Many business schools of all types have received substantial donations from wealthy benefactors in recent years, such as the $150m gift in 2017 to Cornell University’s College of Business by H Fisk Johnson.

The school was then renamed the SC Johnson College of Business after the family-owned household goods business.

Business schools’ financial contribution to their affiliated university has soared, according to Prof Kesner.

“Business schools are cash cows,” she says. Matthew My-

ers, dean of the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, says: “[Fundraising] is a more important portion of the role than ever before, because financial models are so stressed.”

This increased managerial responsibility deters professors from becoming deans, as the job leaves little time for research, says Marion Debruyne, dean of Vlerick Business School in Belgium: “Research-driven faculty are genuinely passionate about what they do.”

Many deans do stay on as professors after stepping down, in order to focus on research and teaching. Edward Snyder is a professor of economics and management at Yale School of Management.

Alongside that job, he served as dean of the school from 2011 to July 2019. Prof Snyder is developing a course on the technology industry, which he describes as “a really cool job”.

Being a dean, on the other hand, was “a three-ring circus”, he says.

“Who wants to do it?” Prof Snyder says that schools need strong and stable leadership to steer them through the current age of upheaval, launching niche degrees and online programmes to counter a drop www.businessday.ng

in demand for full-time MBA courses.

“Full-time MBAs are marching towards the edge of a cliff,” he says.

In May, the University of Illinois’ Gies College of Business said it would shut its full-time MBA, after University of Iowa’s Tippie College of Business dropped its course.

Business schools are holding out for deans with academic pedigree and prowess in fundraising, says Kenneth Kring, co-managing director of search firm Korn Ferry’s global education practice.

But such candidates are scarce and “we can’t bioengineer the perfect dean”.

One solution has been to cast the recruitment net more widely, beyond academia to the corporate world. Scott Beardsley, dean since 2015 at Virginia’s Darden School of Business, joined after a 26year career at McKinsey, the consultancy.

Thomas Robinson, president and chief executive of AACSB, says that deans who are former executives can make the syllabus more relevant to business needs.

They often have a large network of potential donors.

But Prof Kesner at the Kelley

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School says executives without research experience may struggle to effectively lead a business school’s research agenda, which contributes to schools’ positions in rankings and its overall reputation.

Geoffrey Garrett, outgoing dean of the Wharton school, who will join the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California in 2020, says succession planning in business schools has often been lacking and the main career development option for aspiring deans is to attend conferences: AACSB, for example, runs a seminar offering advice from experienced deans on how to get a job and make a successful start.

“There’s a big jump from being a senior professor to being a dean,” Prof Garrett says.

“You’re running, often, a nine-digit budget and managing a variety of stakeholders.”

There is at least one upside to the dearth of deans: it is an opportunity to bring more diversity to business schools.

Just a quarter of the deans at 475 schools between September and December 2018 were women.

This is a problem because female leadership is important in attracting talented women as @Businessdayng

students, says Ann Harrison, only the second woman to lead the Haas school in 121 years.

Prof Harrison says that the lack of female deans reflects the small proportion of female faculty in administrative jobs that can prepare them for deanship; a lack of women deans to aspire to emulate, and the difficulty of finding flexible work schedules and affordable childcare in the US. She says she “could not have considered” applying for the dean job when her children, now at university, were younger. But the future is looking brighter.

Several newly appointed deans are women, including Lisa Ordóñez at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management, who took up her position in September, and Francesca Cornelli at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, who in turn took over from Sally Blount, dean from 2010-2018.

Mr Kring says Korn Ferry’s shortlists for deanships are now more diverse in every way.

And business schools know that diverse leadership is associated with improved financial performance and innovation — a subject they have often taught in their classrooms.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDUCATION

Weekly insight on current and future trends in education

Primary/Secondary

Higher

23

Human Capital

Here are steps Nigeria education sector needs to fast track growth KELECHI EWUZIE

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eter Okebukola, chairman of Council, National Open University o f Ni g e r i a ha s opined that the identified lapses in Nigerian education system should squarely be placed on Nigerians.

Okebukola stated that as architects of our misfortunes, Nigerians can collectively turnaround these challenges to be architects of our fortune.

O kebu ko la ma d e t hi s known recently in a keynote address presented at the International colloquium to mark the 80th birthday of Professor Olu Aina, noting that all stakeholders in education have roles to play in redeeming the poor image of the sector.

According to him, “Government, teachers, parents, learners, the media, religious organisations, private sector, non-governmental organisations and local communities, and others, should play roles.

Okebukola while delivering a paper titled: The

Place and State of Education in Nigeria’s Development: Imperative and Urgency of Reform. Can the Dry Bones of Quality Education Rise Again? opines that it is the responsibility of government to lay down policies for the smooth running of the educational system.

“Beyond policy formulation, standards setting and

policy implementation are other roles. Within this global picture, government (federal, state and local) should carry the funding burden of between 70 - 80 percent of the educational sector of a country at our stage of development”, Okebukola said.

On policy formulation, he observes that cross-national comparisons confirm that

Feyisara Osinupebi, (Middle in white), Principal, Redeemers International School, Lagos; Omilola Oshikoya, (Left), Founder RicherKids Club, Oduolayinka Osunloye, (Right), Director Marketing and Innovation, Junior Achievement Nigeria (JAN) being flanked by School Prefects of Redeemers and other JAN staff.

JAN, Omilola partner to promote financial literacy among pupils … Launches RicherKids Club in school KELECHI EWUZIE

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unior Achievement Nigeria (JAN) as part of events to celebrate the 2019 World Savings Day has partnered with Omilola Oshikoya International to setup the RicherKids Club in Redeemers International School, Lagos.

RicherKids Club is an online wealth club for kids and teens aged 6 -15 with the objective of educating and inspiring the next generation to live the richer life using methodology which focuses on 5 areas: what true wealth is, how to create wealth, how to manage wealth, how to grow wealth and how to use wealth.

World Savings Day, a day marked every October 3lst, is an event created to increase pupils’ awareness of the importance of savings both for modern economies and for individual’s sake. It focuses on the relevance of savings in the global economy and how every deposit contributes to its development.

Oduolayinka Osunloye, director of Marketing and innovation, Junior Achievement Nigeria, speaking on the significance of the day, said World Savings Day is a financial literacy initiative aimed at celebrating the benefits of

the Nigerian National Policy on Education and policies enacted at the State and local government levels are among the best in the world.

When viewed in the light that the system for which these good policies are enacted is among the weakest in the world, we cannot look too far to isolate deficiency in policy implementation as

being thrifty.

Osunloye says ‘Saving’ aligns with JAN core pillars, especially the “financial literacy’ pillar. Adding that a day like this allows Junior Achievement Nigeria to further raise public awareness and reiterate the strategic importance of saving particularly for young minds and how cultivating the right saving habit affects their financial well-being.

In line with our commitment to delivering on our vision, we will be kicking off the #SaveWithJAN school tour by visiting schools around Lagos with some of our partners and contributors such as Omilola Oshikoya, members of the Lagos chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority incorporated amongst others who will be speaking to over 500 secondary school students about the importance of Financial Literacy and responsibility as well as launch the RicherKids Club. ‘ It is an opportunity for JAN as an organisation to further deliver on our Financial Literacy Pillar. Through our #SaveWithJAN initiative, we are partnering with various organisations and individuals to inform primary school students and youths about financial responsibility, the idea of saving their money in a bank and other financial tools www.businessday.ng

to ensure they become leaders of their own Lives’.

According to her, “JAN, over the last 20 years, has implemented economic education programmes hat develop attitudes and skills necessary for personal success and social responsibility and delivers practical, experiential handson programmes under the three pillars of financial literacy, work readiness and entrepreneurship”.

She, however, reiterated that JAN’s commitment to teaching financial literacy and other economic education programmes to young people as the organisation continue in a race to reaching 1,000,000 young people by the end of 2019.

Omilola Oshikoya, Founder of Omilola Oshikoya International, a wealth and financial advisory, training and coaching company while speaking on the partnership said “One of our long term goals for the richer kids clubs was to impact children in public schools with our curriculum.

Fortunately, the partnership with Junior Achievement Nigeria has enabled us to achieve this in the short term due to the extensive and highly impressive work they have done with public schools over the years.

the culprit.

“On most policy prescriptions including quality and quantity of infrastructure, quality and quantity of teachers, quality of the instructional delivery process, the system has faltered. The question that immediately arises is why is the system failing?”

“We can assert that the system has under-performed for three major reasons. First, and not in any order, is the inability of government to provide basic infrastructure and teaching/learning facilities for quality education at all levels of the system. If you go with me on a journey to a country where the leadership is serious about education, you will find huge disparities with what exists in Nigeria”, Okebukola said.

He observes that typical Nigerian public secondary school lacks basic infrastructure of electricity and water, exceedingly poor classroom environment with severe inadequacies in librar y and laboratory facilities.

The same contrast that we have seen for the secondary school is replicated at the

basic and higher educational levels.

In suggesting the way out of this current challenges the distinguished professor of science and technology education, Lagos State University LASU called on governments at all level to build and resource our schools to meet international standards and be learner friendly.

He maintains that there is need to train a new breed of 21st century teachers who are steeped in the use of modern methods of instruction and are at the cutting edge of knowledge in their subject matter.

In his words, government needs to provide a curriculum running from basic through higher education that will lead students to develop 21st century skills and make them acquire values of good citizenship.

“Improve funding to education and enforce transparency and accountability in the financing of education; Set up a national network of quality assurance system for basic education with state inspectorates of education as nodes”, he said.

Interswitch, Slum2School partner to advance STEM education KELECHI EWUZIE

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etermined to support the interest of Scie n c e , Te c h nology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education among young children, Pan-African digital payment company, Interswitch recently concluded the Interswitch/ Slum2School coding week activities at Adekunle Primary school, Makoko.

Th e w e e k- l o ng p ro gramme which is part of the company’s corporate social responsibility initiative took place at the renovated Interswitch lab centre; as well as the coming of volunteers from Interswitch, software developers to engage pupils on the rudiments of coding with special interest on how to create websites.

Enyioma Anaba, Group Head, Corporate Marketing, Interswitch, said the programme presented a CSR opportunity to inspire young people to better engage with, study STEM subjects and to also explore STEM careers.

Anaba, in the course of the Coding Week, said

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students were encouraged to adopt STEM education and its application, stating that its relevance in the real world cannot be overemphasized, as STEM has the power to transform lives and societies.

According to Anaba, “We took this initiative as a step to bring our developers to teach the pupils about coding and technology, because we realized that in the next 5 to 10 years, technology will be the new oil and frontier.

So what we are doing is to start building that in the minds of these ones that as they grow up”.

She further said the company is running InterswitchSPAK 2.0 which basically is a programme to promote STEM among secondary school pupils.

But we have also decided to bring into Makoko because we believe that this area is often neglected.

Tiro Ovakporie, Head, Media and Communication, Slum2School Africa lauded Interswitch for renovating the STEM Lab, adding that the week-long event witnessed the coming together of volunteer from Interswitch, software @Businessdayng

developers to teach the pupils how to code specifically how to create websites.

Ovakporie stated that the 30 pupils who took part in the training were secondary school pupils from selected schools around Makoko, Yaba Lagos as they were the best 30 pupils that took part in a coding competition earlier in the year.

She observed that the one week training opened the eyes of the pupils to technology and its benefits saying that we are living on a technologically driven society.

“The world has gone digital, pupils need to understand that in another decade or less, a lot of work will go extinct without technology infusion. The one week coding training just opened the minds of the pupils that we are living in a technology driven world and these are how things are done”, Ovakporie said.

She commended all Interswitch volunteers who took part in the exercise, adding that the Interswitch/Slum2School partnership will advance and support quality STEM education in Nigeria.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

EDUCATION UNIOSUN raised the ladder of its student empowerment programme … Introduce a startup fund for Alumni of the university KELECHI EWUZIE

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n keeping to its commitment of providing high quality teaching and learning which will engender the production of entrepreneurial graduates capable of impacting on their environment, the management of Osun State University under the leadership of Professor Labode Popoola has recently reinforced its promise not to relent in the empowerment and impactful schemes for both the students and Alumni of the university.

The university has made it known to the general public about its readiness to assist any Alumnus of the university that has a bankable proposal with a startup fund to achieve his or her dream and thereby reducing unemployment in the society.

It will be recalled that the university has a student empowerment scheme which gives room for any interested and bonafide students of the institution an avenue to study and work in the university while receiving a monthly stipend. The scheme has so

far helped a lot of UNIOSUN students going through difficult times financially, thereby fulfilling one of the key objectives of the programme.

Speaking with one of the students on the scheme, Winjobi Olajide, a 300 level student of the Information and Communication Technology who is currently working as a graphic design officer, commended the management of UNIOSUN for introducing the scheme as he has been given series of opportunity to showcase his talent by designing a lot of wonderful things for the university.

“Ever since I started working with the university on this scheme, lots of companies and businesses have been calling me to come and do graphics for them too and this made me believe that whenever I finish in the university, it will not be a problem for me to get a good job or start on my own,” Winjobi added.

Another student on the scheme, Ola Rebecca Adura who is currently working in the Library unit of the university says she chose to work in the library under the scheme to be able to have free access

to books and have no opportunity than to read and come out in flying colours.

Ola said, “My vision is to graduate with good grades and I know that the little resources I have might not be able to give me access to enough books and even funds to support myself, so I decided to register for the scheme.”

Commenting on the benefits of the scheme, the vicechancellor of UNIOSUN, Professor Labode Popoola, said the university is still working hard to expand the student empowerment programme to be able to assist more financially challenged students so that they don’t become disadvantaged academically while going through their temporary challenges.

“The Student empowerment programme has indeed been of immense help to UNIOSUN undergraduates either by way of providing the much needed extra income, discovering hidden abilities and potentials, or gaining work experience and that is why the University Management is raising the ladder by creating a startup fund for the Alumni “, Popoola said.

Oyo flags off implementation of BESDA …Calls for Participatory Education Development REMI FEYISIPO, Ibadan

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o eradicate illiteracy and enhance access to quality education, Oyo State Government has commenced the implementation of Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) in the State.

The State governor, Seyi Makinde stated this, during a policy dialogue workshop on implementation of BESDA held at Emeritus Professor Theophilus Ogunlesi Hall in Ibadan.

Speaking on his behalf, the Commissioner Women Affairs and Social Inclusion, Faosat Sanni disclosed that the initiative would increase access to better education in the State, adding that about Two hundred and seventy-two thousand, eight hundred and forty-seven out-of-school children would be beneficiaries.

While calling on an allinclusive participatory implementation of the programme, he added that the objective of the programme was to increase access to education for the outof-school children, improve literacy rate and retain them in schools at the basic education level.

Sanni revealed that the ini-

tiative intended to include every child in the free education policy of the State, “leaving no child behind and consequently making every child count”, she said.

She commended the free education policy of the Seyi Makinde led administration, which according to her, has yielded an increase in the return of children to public schools across the State.

“Recently, the State Government has announced free and compulsory qualitative education at Basic and Secondary Education levels in the State. The resultant effects of which are an increase in enrolment in our public schools throughout the State,” she buttressed.

The Commissioner ascertained that the State government had adopted proactive measures to enhance collaboration with relevant stakeholders in the education sector, to address the effects of out-ofschool-children in the State.

While appreciating World Bank and Universal Basic Education Commission for their financial and technical supports, Sanni added that “Oyo State, as one of the beneficiaries would ensure judicial use of funds to improve literacy www.businessday.ng

and strengthen accountability for result.”

In his speech, the executive chairman, Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board, Nureni Adeniran affirmed that the main objective of the programme was to eradicate child abuse and other vices in the society.

“BESDA programme will help in eliminating child abuse and child labour, improve health and hygiene, promote self-reliance, increase economic growth and enhance social strength of the nation while eliminating the incidence of out-of-school-children”, he opined.

He urged parents and guardians to ensure the literacy of their wards and tasked teachers to be dedicated to their duties to revive the education sector.

Facilitators at the Workshop, Professor Rashid Adewumi Aderinoye and a former Chairman of the Board, Suleiman Adediran called on all stakeholders, including Government and its various agencies, School Based Management Committees, School Governing Boards to monitor and evaluate Basic education system for better students’ performance in the State.

World Savings Day: Sun Trust Bank sensitises students on savings culture Felix Omohomhion, Abuja

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eputy Manager, SunTrust Bank, Adedotun Adeniran, has advised pupils of Government Secondary School, Kuje, Abuja, to cultivate the habit of savings, even as students.

Adeniran, who spoke on the theme: Savings Give Life a Lift, urged the students to imbibe savings culture for guaranteed future endeavours.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had instructed banks in the country to sensitise pupils of different schools on the gains of savings to mark this year World

Savings Day. Towards this end, SunTrust Bank visited some schools, including Government Secondary School in Abuja, to enlighten students on the need to put away some money, no matter how small, for the rainy day.

Adeniran said savings has to do with a portion of income not spent, or money put aside for future use.

He noted that one does not necessarily have to be a worker to have savings, adding as students they could save part of their pocket money.

E x p l a i n i n g w hy t h e y should cultivate the habit of savings, using the CBN hand-out, Adeniran said

savings enhances “financial independence”, takes care of emergencies, accommodation, education, self-development, among other benefits.

He further stressed that saving money should be intentional. He reminded them that savings is not the absent of spending but at least keeping 10 % for a specific purpose.

He added that saving is better done with financial institutions, which in turn can help them access loan in the future.

He encouraged them to open account with any bank of their choice and develop the spirit of entrepreneurship.

Experts proffer solutions to dwindling standard of education in Nigeria

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everal industry experts who spoke at the Founder’s Day Lecture of Kings College organised by the Kings College Old Boys’ Association (KCOBA) at the school premises in Lagos have suggested several means to address the dwindling standard of education in Nigeria.

In attendance at the lecture were prominent Nigerians and old boys of the school, including Mohammadu Sanusi II, the Emir of Kano; Olorogun Sonny Kuku and Kayode Fayemi, Governor of Ekiti State, among others.

Ladi Lawanson, the Chairman 2019 King’s Week Planning Committee, said it was glaring that the standard of education is falling and the quality of preparation for the leaders of tomorrow is less than what is desired.

“If you look at Nigeria today, I think all of us can agree that the standard of education; the standard of instructions and the quality of preparation for the leaders of tomorrow is less than we all desire.

“That’s why we thought that as an association - stakeholders in the education sector and beneficiaries of

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an educational system that once worked, we have a duty to effect positive changes by speaking on such issues and invite people that have understanding on such and are able to influence the outcome and bring about solutions”, he said “This year makes Kings College 110 years old. As institutions grow all over the world, most institutions die off as soon as they take off; they loss relevance and stop performing the roles for which they were created but the good news about Kings College is that it has kept true to its mandate for the last 110 years of it existence”.

Lawanson explained further that the objective of setting up Kings College up was to mould young minds into becoming nation builders, adding that from the array of its old students, the school has indeed kept that promise.

In his opening speech, President, KCOBA, Kashim Ibrahim-Imam described the college as an institution which has been around for a 110 years, moulding leaders for the nation across generations.

“The reason for Kings College being created was stated clearly in the protocols that proceeded the founding of the college. The objective was @Businessdayng

to raise leaders that would administer Nigeria. From its founding on 1909 till date, Kings College has continued to deliver on this mandate”, Ibrahim-Imam said.

Emphasising that the school has maintained its standard over the years, Mohammadu Sanusi, Emir of Kano, another old boy, said, “All of us who passed through Kings College know that no matter how you came into the school, you have to meet up with the standard of Kings College. If you sat for exam and failed, you would repeat and if you fail again, you would be expelled. At Kings College, no matter who you are, you are not above the law.”

Stressing further, the Emir said Kings College has maintained the standard it started off with, adding, “even if people came into Kings College based on the sense of entitlement, by the time they leave the college, they should be able to stand up on their own and be ready to compete on merit with anyone.

“So, when you come out of Kings College, from the university to your place of work to politics, please remember that you are special”, the royal father noted further.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

BDTECH

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In association with

E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

Stakeholders identify collaboration, innovation as vital in improving internet availability and affordability Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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he internet which had over 4.1 billion users around the world in December 2018, has become a vital resource tool for people, and has incredibly changed the way people live, work and interact, even as it is primarily responsible for turning the world into a global village.

According to the Internet Business Solutions Group, the world population is expected to grow to 7.6 billion by 2020 with growth in internet-connected devices estimated to reach 50 billion resulting in more internetconnected devices than people.

As more and more people in the world access the internet, the issues around quality internet service and affordability, especially for those in the rural and underserved areas have become even more apparent as a serious issue in Nigeria today.

Industry stakeholders at the twoday annual conference of The Nigerian Network Operators Group (ngNOG) which took place in Lagos from October 28th – 29th 2019, under the theme, ‘’The internet: for everyone?’’ openly discussed the need to make the internet more accessible to everyone.

Stakeholders at the event called for more collaborations in the area of infrastructure sharing, colocation and alternative power supply, cou-

L-R: Dewole Ajao, MD, Bandwidth Consortium; Ayotunde Coker, MD/CEO, Rack Centre; Rashida Umar, director, programs, Nigeria ICT Forum; Wale Adedokun, national coordinator, ngNOG, and Mohammed Rudman, CEO, iXPN, at the ngNOG 2019 conference held at Muson Centre, Lagos, recently.

pled with a friendlier business setting, all to ensure high quality and affordable internet services while investors are sure of recouping returns on their investments.

Speaking at the conference, Dewole Ajao, MD, Bandwidth Consortium, made key references to the headways being made in the quest to ensure internet for everyone is being realised, despite looming challenges in the economy.

“There are quite a number of issues hindering internet penetration.

One primarily is that we don’t have

enough appreciation of what the internet can do hence, very little encouragement for ICT adoption in relevant areas,” Ajao said.

Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, the director-general/CEO, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), said that the Federal Government of Nigeria recognizes the immense socio-economic importance of broadband services to national development and therefore seeks to ensure that the infrastructure necessary to provide ubiquitous broadband services is available and

accessible to all citizens.

The DG who was represented by Chioma Okee-Aguguo, the head of South West zonal office, said that the internet, as the world’s biggest library and the largest repository of information and knowledge requires highspeed access to fully harness the benefits of the internet.

“NITDA has over the years developed many programs and initiatives to facilitate internet access for all citizens such as Public Access Venues (PAVs) and the Knowledge Access Venues (KAVs) designed and

fully deployed to meet the challenge of the digital divide that has hitherto become a great obstacle to socioeconomic growth of the rural communities and educational institutions respectively,” he said.

In his keynote address, Muhammad Rudman, the chief executive officer of Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), listed challenges faced by service providers including multiple taxation caused by uncoordinated activities among regulatory agencies, excessive Right of Way (RoW) charges, amongst others.

He said Internet services in Nigeria will improve greatly if the service providers collaborate more by setting concrete targets and providing annual performance reviews to show the government the impact of implemented policies.

“We need to have a paradigm shift to understand that collaboration is the way to go in order to provide the people with quality internet. The situation whereby everyone is digging up grounds to lay fibre will be counterproductive because each would pay the necessary fees attached to it. But in a case where we share the burden, it becomes less-heavy on us,” Rudman said.

Adewale Adedokun, the national coordinator of the Nigerian Network Operators Group (ngNOG), said that the internet has wrought fundamental change throughout the society, driving it forward from the industrial age to the networked era.

Apple’s iPhone 11, 11 pro and 11 pro max officially launches in Nigeria …Distributor offers extended warranty, liquid damage protection, other benefits Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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lthough Apple enthusiasts around the world have had the pleasure of enjoying the latest iPhone 11, iPhone 11 pro and iPhone 11 pro max, since the launch of these devices on September 20, 2019, there is an added advantage for Apple users in Nigeria who don’t have bother about the authenticity of the phones they’re getting through unauthorised retailers anymore, as Redington, the official Apple representative and value added distributor in Nigeria has officially launched these new model devices into the Ni-

gerian market.

Speaking at the launch event in Lagos on November 1, 2019, Vickram Gopaal, category head, Apple Africa for Redington explained that the new devices offer upgrades to essential features and are more powerful with more value for the new smartphone generation.

“As a global technology leader, we are committed to providing meaningful innovations to our consumers.

Apple’s iPhone 11, iPhone 11 pro and iPhone 11 pro max have been developed for individuals who are looking for the very best in user experience from amazing display, superior camera technology and long-lasting

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battery life. The devices come with amazing new features such as the Dual-Camera system in the iPhone 11, triple-lens camera system in the iPhone 11 pro and iPhone 11 pro max, super retina XDR displays, 4DX spatial audio, slo-mo selfies and A13 bionic chip technology. It’s a complete package of great looks, value and top performance,” Vickram said.

By getting the phones through the authorized retailers, Nigerian customers will have the benefit of one year extended warranty, cover against liquid damage, free service by Apple certified engineers in 41 collecting points across Nigeria and many more.

The transformative Triple-Lens

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Camera system; Ultra Wide, Wide, and Telephoto, add tons of capability without complexity. The new iPhones; iPhone 11 Pro lasts up to 4 hours longer than iPhone XS while iPhone 11 Pro Max lasts up to 5 hours longer than iPhone XS Max, this allows uninterrupted streaming, gaming and improved user experience. The improved battery life offers users more screen time for things like navigation and video playback.

“You can read emails, surf the web, and open documents on a stunning super retina XDR display with the unprecedented leap in battery life.

You can be sure of your productivity, anytime, any day, anywhere. To all

@Businessdayng

lovers of selfies, these devices are for them because the devices are perfect for photos, videos, and video conferences. Ultimately, the new iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max models are designed for the way that people are connecting today – sharing, capturing and consuming live content on-the-go”, Sujeendra Prasad, sales head - Apple Nigeria for Redington said.

The iPhone 11 comes in six stunning finishes; purple, green, yellow, white, black and (product) red while the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are available in four stunning finishes; midnight green, space gray, gold and silver.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

BDTECH

E-mail: jumoke.akiyode@businessdayonline.com

Layer3 charts course for data localization and cloud adoption in Nigeria Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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echnology industry experts and stakeholders in Nigeria say that the need to take charge of gathered data in Nigeria by locally warehousing it, and the need to drive the adoption of cloud technologies by government, security agencies and indigenous businesses, has become more important now, to economic development than ever before.

Leading IT professionals from across Nigeria who converged at an event organised by Layer3, a leading IT services provider, in conjunction with VMware, a global leader in cloud computing and virtualization, discussed the benefits of data sovereignty and harnessing the power of cloud to move the country forward.

Speaking at the event, Oyaje Idoko, CEO of Layer3, explained that countries across the world were increasingly holding data generated by their citizens in data centers located within their borders. According to him, organizations in Nigeria’s public and private sectors could benefit from making a similar move.

“The whole notion about where your data resides is something we need to take very seri-

L-r) Shatse Kakwagh; executive director, Layer3, Mohammed Rudman; chief executive officer, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria, Oyaje Idoko; chief executive officer, Layer3, Dave Funnel; cloud provider manager, Vmware and Alexander Ajiduku; IT manager, National Social Investment Office, during Layer3 Data Localization and Cloud Adoption in Nigeria conference, held in Abuja recently.

ously,” he said. “There’s been a lot of talk about data being the new oil. If we say that data is the new oil, why would we want someone else to be in custody of our ‘oil’?” he said.

Idoko noted that the country was disadvantaged in many ways because of its failure to locate vital IT infrastructure locally. He expressed the belief that the local economy could make significant gains by leveraging home-grown

IT facilities instead of relying on foreign cloud service providers.

“We see the impact of this in the amount of foreign exchange leaving the country as payment for these services. But we have the infrastructure to provide these services locally. We think it’s important to take charge of what is our own.”

In addition, he said; “We are a local company and we understand the complexities of the tech-

CR2 software enables fast digital banking integration for Access Bank …As bank completes migration of core banking systems, ATMs in 3 months’ record time Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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R2, an omni-channel banking software and solutions company has announced the success of Access Bank to have completed the merging of its digital banking platforms to one of the best banking platforms in the world, using CR2’s technology system.

Asif Sheikh, the vice president, digital banking, CR2, made this disclosure while speaking at a roundtable conference tagged; “Ireland: Leading the fintech revolution,” held in Lagos on November 1, 2019.

The event brought top Irish fintech companies and players in the Nigerian fintech space together to discuss the impact and future of financial technology solutions in the country.

Speaking on the complete merger of all Diamond Bank and Access Bank digital banking platforms, Asif reiterated that the CR2 software has enabled Access bank, which is now the largest retail bank in Africa with over 29 million customers, to seamlessly upgrade its digital and tech-

nology platforms to one of the best platforms in the world.

“CR2 is very happy to have played a large part in this. This achievement represents one of the fastest integrations of two significant banks in Africa” Sheikh said.

While explaining the merger process, Asif said that the complex project included the integration of CR2’s digital banking platform to core banking systems, multiple channel banking services and with over 3,000 ATM’s.

He added that the company’s scalable, secure and robust platform is helping Access bank deliver a faster, more reliable service than ever before.

Daniel Akumabor, country manager in Nigeria for CR2, disclosed that the migration process took three months for completion.

“It was done within three months to bring into one system over 3,000 ATMs. We have the largest ATM in the country and our system is so robust, also very user-friendly. This one was done by our access bank staff working in the background and bringing all the digital customers www.businessday.ng

over to our solution,” he said.

Also speaking, Afolabi Oke, managing director, Global Infoswitch, described the integration process as the fastest in Nigeria, calling on other banks to adopt Omni-one solutions for speedy delivery of services.

“What makes it more interesting, if you remember the first round of consolidation of banks, it took them over a year to integrate. For us, this is the fastest integration ever in Nigeria, thanks to CR2 channel and omni-one which has made it very seamless and beneficial to customers.”

“This is a call to other banks.

Technology does not have to be very difficult. Technology is what is driving the world so it is important that banks adopt omni-one solutions.

“All your banking operation can be checked, varying from your ATM, to mobile banking, and the likes.

Gone are the days when banks are counting the number of branches that they have, fundamentally it is to get involved in technology to help meet the needs of your customer,” Oke said.

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nology, cost, operations, support, experience and so on involved in deciding on a cloud strategy. We are available to help our clients through the decision making process so they can get more out of their CAPEX spend. What is more, we offer the flexibility to our clients to manage their workloads across multiple infrastructure with ease.”

Also, at the event, Muhammad Rudman, CEO, Internet Exchange

Point of Nigeria, emphasized the savings that could be made by Nigeria if it utilized local data centers.

He linked the high cost of internet service provisioning and user experience in Nigeria to the limited number of such supporting infrastructure within the country.

“We pay so much for internet because the cloud that supports it is not within Nigeria, but in some other country. The farther away we are from the cloud, the more it costs to access the services it supports. We can avoid these costs by hosting data locally,” he said.

Niyi Osibeluwo, head, cloud solutions at Layer3, said that the company is tackling the issues raised at the event. He revealed that Layer3Cloud, Layer3’s innovative cloud services, which runs out of multiple data centers within the country, was designed and built to help private and public sector organizations benefit from cloud services.

“Our infrastructure was designed using best-in-class technology from Vmware” he explained. “Our cloud services allow organizations to manage their virtual estates at the touch of a button. Configuration, real-time changes, capacity and pooling of resources can all be done on-demand via our secure self-management portal,” Osibeluwo said.

Stanbic IBTC launches e-wallet service to deepen financial inclusion, drive digitization Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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tanbic IBTC Holdings PLC, a member of Standard Bank Group, has launched the Stanbic IBTC @ease wallet, in line with its commitment to deepen financial inclusion and drive its digitization agenda.

The recently launched Stanbic IBTC @ease wallet is an electronic wallet designed to meet lifestyle needs of Nigerians, especially the unbanked and underbanked, using a unique combination of technology and agent network.

Speaking during the launch of the new platform in Lagos recently, Wole Adeniyi, executive director, personal and business banking at Stanbic IBTC Bank, said that the product is set to provide a unique range of financial services to the informally served, the under banked and the unbanked on various structured platforms with the last 10 digits of a phone number.

According to him:”Stanbic IBTC @ease wallet affords customers the opportunity to access banking services such as interbank transfers, debit card issuance and cardless withdrawals from Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) or agent networks, amongst others.

Leveraging the over 170 million active mobile network lines in Nigeria, the wallet uses the custom@Businessdayng

er’s mobile number (without the first 0) as the wallet number, and is protected by a four-digit secret PIN which is needed to log-in and authenticate all transactions, and the customer’s profile is bound to the mobile device used during sign-up.

This, the bank says, reinforces its drive to support the federal government to deepen financial inclusion and thereby drive economic growth.

Adeniyi said that customers can open a Stanbic IBTC @ease wallet through Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) application *909#; Stanbic IBTC @ease app and agent locations nationwide.

“The Stanbic IBTC @ease wallet is a financial freedom vehicle for all Nigerians to access seamless financial services. This service is available to every Nigerian that can legally own a bank account.

Following the product launch, there will be a series of market and campus activations starting from The Lagos International Trade Fair, where we will introduce an array of products to visitors and exhibitors at the fair,” Adeniyi said.

“We recognize the daily complexities of living in a fast-paced digital society. Stanbic IBTC @ease wallet covers a unique range of mobile financial transactions, it is intuitive and designed around the needs of the average Nigerian,” he said.

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INTERVIEW ‘Our goal is to provide borderless trading, investment opportunities’

Tosin Osibodu is the chief executive officer of Chaka, a technology-enabled global trading platform launched in Lagos recently offering customers access to Nigerian and global financial assets. In this interview with IFEOMA OKEKE, he speaks on how the trading platform will provide borderless trading and investment opportunities for Nigerians.

Could you tell us about your professional background? am a systems engineer by training with experience working in data engineering and analytics across internet, payments and ecommerce companies locally and globally. I’ve worked with GTBank, Interswitch, AppNexus (now an AT&T company), and Wayfair. com. Five years ago, I started an international e-commerce business which was later acquired by an American distribution company, and after that, I worked as a data consultant, while pursuing qualification from the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers.

investors; and with our platform, investment has never been easier.

Users can place their first trade in just three steps. All they need to do is register with their email address, complete the regulator’s verification process and fund their accounts, and they will be ready to buy and sell stocks using Chaka.

Chaka also facilitates global citizens’ access to invest in our capital market, thereby providing a gateway for foreigners to invest in Nigerian assets while also allowing Nigerians invest in foreign assets.

I

What are your thoughts on the current state of investments and stock trading in Nigeria?

I’m very bullish on the future of investing and trading in Nigeria. The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) are innovating fast in modernising and automating the Nigerian capital market infrastructure. Markets may rise and fall due to the economy and a host of other factors but the underlying infrastructure and ease of access can always be improved. Ultimately, the easier it is for new investors to enter the market and the easier

Tosin Osibodu

it is for credible companies (large and small) to list, the better it will be for the Nigerian stock market.

Your current venture, Chaka, gives access to trading and investment opportunities both locally and internationally; what influenced the creation of this platform?

US/UK stock markets have historically been inaccessible to majority of Africans due to the compliance burden faced. I also discovered through conversations with friends abroad that global citizens find it difficult to access investment opportunities in the Nigerian market.

Chaka was created to eliminate these barriers. We have solved the compliance and funding problems for Nigerians by integrating foreign compliance protocols with the Nigerian Interbank Settlement System, the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Central Securities Clearing System unlocking biocredentials for 40 million people verified across these financial systems.

Please tell us more about Chaka?

How does it work?

Chaka is your investment passport to trade local and global stocks such as Apple, Alibaba, Google, Manchester United, the S&P 500 www.businessday.ng

index and many more. With the platform, customers can access assets listed on NASDAQ, the New York Stock Exchange and the Nigerian Stock Exchange offering users over 4,000 assets and indexes from companies over 40 countries around the world.

Primarily, our goal is to provide premium borderless trading and investment opportunities for Nigerian professionals and

‘

We believe that by lowering the barriers for Nigerian individuals and businesses to access foreign markets, we make it easier for them to make a return anywhere in the world and we also make it easier for the world to invest in Nigeria

‘

Having successfully launched a company before, what fuelled your interest in the digital investments space?

I developed a passion for trading and investing over a decade ago of which I have leveraged my engineering experience to build automated trading systems for a while now. My interest in the digital investment space was fueled by my frustration with the barriers that prevented Nigerians from being able to trade and invest in the global economy.

In the last four years, local market and currency performance declined while US markets outperformed. A naira investor in Netflix five years ago would have made over 10 times their investment.

Netflix makes money from Nigerians as consumers so Nigerians should be able to make money from them as investors.

Reducing the barriers that prevent such investments for Nigerians and the desire to proactively make investment processes easier are what fuel my interest in this space.

Are there any criteria to be met for a customer to buy/trade or invest stocks on Chaka?

No. The Chaka offering is overseen by both Nigerian and US financial regulators, so for investor protection and regulator’s compliance, after users sign up, there is a quick verification process before they begin trading.

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How do you intend to bridge the gap for the non-tech savvy people? Are there other ways to trade through Chaka?

We built Chaka to be very easy to use for non tech savvy people but still robust for more technical people. While our platform is very simple to use on your desktop, mobile or tablet, customers can also call or email us to provide instructions. We are here to reduce all barriers to more investors being able to access the markets and we are setup to do that for self-directed customers online or customers who want to talk to someone as they invest.

Are there any services available for corporate and institutional clients?

Yes, we provide execution services, white-label services and market automation technologies for corporate and institutional clients.

We work with brokers, investment managers and financial institutions to integrate Chaka into their day-to-day operations, serve their customers with a more compelling offer and automate KYC verification, user on boarding and trading execution.

Does Chaka operate independently?

Chaka is partnered with a local broker; Citi Investment Capital Ltd and a global broker based in the US. Through them our offer @Businessdayng

is regulated and overseen by the SEC, NSE, CSCS in Nigeria and SEC, FINRA, SIPC, IRS in the US. What are some of Chaka’s unique features that set it apart in both risk and pricing?

We are easy to access and super affordable. Working with local and global brokers, we’ve removed account opening fees, monthly maintenance fees and international wire costs so that it’s more affordable for Nigerians to invest.

We also have a host of unique features such as: stock gifting, naira or dollar conversion on a per asset basis so that you can see how a naira investment would perform in dollar assets or vice-versa; and a host of other special features.

What do you think is the future for the digital investment sector in Nigeria? And what role do you think Chaka will play?

We live in a globalised world now where we are all aware of and use global services like Uber, Netflix, Spotify, etc. We are also increasingly plugged into global news about the markets where we learn more about region, industry and company-specific performance.

Due to these, we believe that for people in Nigeria and across Africa, the appetite for investing will only go up.

With our habits becoming more digital, and the work Chaka is doing to reduce investment barriers, we believe that the growth of adoption will continue in the long term. Our platform will better position people to take advantage of the best investment opportunities worldwide.

What impact, specifically, do you think this initiative will have on the nation’s economy, especially at a time like this when the border is closed and a lot of investors are lamenting over their investments and businesses?

We believe that by lowering the barriers for Nigerian individuals and businesses to access foreign markets, we make it easier for them to make a return anywhere in the world and we also make it easier for the world to invest in Nigeria. Our expectation is for the initiative to specifically improve the investment income of Nigerians, increase the number of retail traders at the Nigerian stock exchange and increase foreign direct investment.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

FEATURE

Bold step at achieving United Nations’ SDGs 4 target Seplat and its Joint Venture (JV) partner have been at the forefront of pushing for the attainment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 which focuses on education. IDRIS UMAR MOMOH examines what has been done in the past 8 years.

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hen the name Seplat Petroleum Development Corporation (Seplat) is mentioned to a secondary school student in Edo or Delta state, what comes to mind is the PEARLs quiz competition. Over the past eight years, the quiz competition, which is put together by Seplat, has promoted excellence, sportsmanship, culture and infrastructural development among schools in both states.

Launched in 2012, the Pearl Quiz programme is part of Seplat’s contribution to achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4 of the United Nations, which is to promote quality education by ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education by helping to promote life-long learning opportunities for the teeming youth population.

The need for intervention is important given the state of educational indices in Nigeria.

About 10.5 million of the country’s children aged 5-14 years are not in school. Only 61 percent of 6-11 year-olds regularly attend primary school and only 35.6 percent of children aged 36-59 months receive early childhood education, according to data made available by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Since inception, winners of the competition have received prizes that are supposed to help their school move closer to achieving sustainable development goal 4. Projects that have been delivered to schools through the initiative over the years include a language laboratory, 3 roofing projects, decked block-of-classrooms, interlocking stones for an entire school premises designed to stave off erosion, 5 computer laboratories in different schools and 4 brand new school buses.

This year, the overall wining school received N7million.

The first runner-up received N3million, while the secondrunner received N1million.

Students and teachers were also rewarded with laptops, cash prizes, and learning materials, including stationary.

Speaking at the 8th edition of the quiz competition organized by the establishment in partnership with its JV partner,

the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) held recently at Imaguero College, Benin City, the Chief Executive Officer of the oil giant, Austin Avuru, noted that the initiative is aimed at promoting academic excellence, rewarding diligence and raising the quality of education in its operational areas.

Avuru, represented by Chima Njoku, General Manager (Western Assets, SEPLAT) opined that the annual quiz competition is designed to rekindle the spirit of academic excellence and healthy competition in youths in the states by motivating, encouraging and rewarding the scholarship spirit in their young minds as well as inculcating the principles of team work on them.

Over 608 schools have participated in the programme while winning students and schools have received cash prizes and projects. Avuru, assured that the company remains committed in partnering with the governments of Edo and Delta to building the confidence and capacities of students to excel in their examinations.

He however, commended the Edo state government for hosting the event in a conducive environment and the Delta state government for hosting the competition in the past.

Earlier, Chioma Nwachuku, general manager, External Affairs and Communications, said eight schools from Delta State and nine in Edo state qualified for the knockout stage.

Nwachuku listed the schools that participated at the knockout stage in Delta state to inwww.businessday.ng

clude Federal Government College, Warri, Deeper Life High School, Opete, Udu local government area, Peniel Academy, Agbor, Divine Academy High School, Sapele and Delta Steel Company (DSC) Technical High School, Aladja.

She also listed Don Bosco Science Academy, Ukhun, Ekpoma, University of Benin Demonstration Secondary School, Benin and Pioneer Education Centre, Benin among the nine Edo State based schools that participated at the knockout stage.

She said after a rigorous and challenging competition, Don Bosco Science Academy, Ikhun, Ekpoma, Edo State, Brano High School, Benin, Peniel Academy, Agbor and Deeper Life High School Opete, Udu, Delta State qualified for the final stage respectively.

Nwachuku who explained that the Seplat Pearls Quiz is implemented in two stages, added that in the first stage, all participating public and private secondary schools take part in qualifying test while in the second stage all qualified schools from the test partook in the elimination stage until a champion emerge in the final competition.

In his address, Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, commended the management and staff of Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, for the consistency in organizing the quiz competition for an uninterrupted eight years.

Obaseki, who was represented by Jimoh Ijegbai), commissioner for education noted that there is no nation in the world where education is solely funded by the government.

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He however, expressed his administration’s willingness to collaborate with professionals, non-governmental organizations, research institutions, entrepreneurs among others to improve the life chances of children through the application of science, technology and innovation.

Also in his remarks, Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa represented by Emmanuel Amgbaduba, Commissioner for Oil and Gas expressed gratitude to the management of Seplat Petroleum Development Company for putting together an event that promotes the Sustainable Development Goals and promotes healthy competition among students.

At the end of the final competition, Don Bosco Science Academy, Ekpoma beat Peniel Academy, Agbor with 74 points against 58 points to emerge winner while Deeper Life High School, Udu, Delta state defeated Brano High School, Benin with 68 points against 64 points to third place position.

By the result, Don Bosco Science Academy clinched the star prize of N7million, N150,000 scholarship grant to the three winning students, trophy and other sundry prizes.

In an interview with BusinessDay, the principal of Don Bosco Science Academy, who simply identified herself as Mrs Joseph commended Seplat for the competition.

Joseph who said Don Bosco Science Academy is not new to winning in quiz competitions noted that the school came third in the 2018 Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) national science quiz competition and first in @Businessdayng

Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO) quiz competition respectively.

She also added that one of the students Alikah Joseph Ehiagwina who is now a beneficiary of Seplat scholarship emerged one of the highest scorers in last year Joint Admission and Matriculation Board Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations in the country.

She noted that the students were taught not essentially for competition but to excel in all their academic pursuits.

According to her, we are very happy for winning the Seplat Pearls quiz competition. This is the first time the school is participating in the competition.

“The school is just four years old, and within that short period we are happy to say that we have been making good record. At this competition we only want our students to participate and compete with other students. But we are happy that the efforts have paid off,” she said.

The Indian- nationalized Nigerian however commended the oil giant for imbibing academic excellence on students in the country through quiz competition as well as contributing to the infrastructural development of schools in Edo and Delta states.

“In Don Bosco Science Academy we teach students preventive system of education. We don’t punish them. No violent, no beating and we prevent them from committing frauds.

On her part, Anita Alika, one of the school’s science teachers dedicated the victory to the team of teachers, who she said work hard to deliver results.

“We really give thanks to God and all the hand work of our dedicated team of teachers have paid off. “Seplat has really made a wonderful difference in the life of these children and in our school.

“This star prize of N7 million project -based cash won by the school today will go along way in developing the school. We are a very new school. We are just four years old, and we are still in the process of building the school.

“So this N7 million is going towards building our school hall, and we thank the management of Seplat for this wonderful grant that they have given to us,” she added.

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news

CRASoN recognises cooperatives for promoting socio-economic development Jumoke Akiyode-Lawanson

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ooperative Rating and Award Society of Nigeria (CRASoN) is set to recognise and reward cooperative societies and its outstanding members for their contributions to the economy, social impact and diligence in cooperative social responsibility at the upcoming National Cooperative award ceremony.

The event, which has been endorsed by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) and supervised by the Federal Department of Cooperatives in Nigeria, is aimed at spurring healthy competition and transparency among cooperatives.

Speaking with journalists in Lagos, Victor Oyegoke, president of CRASoN, said the event, with the theme, “Strengthening cooperatives to serve as the catalyst for Nigeria’s socio-economic development,” would also use the medium to call on government to supports cooperatives, which is a vital tool in alleviating poverty at grass root level with its reliability in providing loans to its members at a very cheap and subsidised rate.

G i v i n g m o re d e t a i l s, according to Muhammed Suleiman Bello, chairman of the College of Juro, the awards is divided into three - the project Coopcount, Coopcare, and Coopawards, purposely aimed to galvanise the cooperative sub-sector of

the Nigerian economy.

Cooperative is a model to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor in Nigeria, he said.

“There are over 300,000 cooperatives, with over 30,000,000 members, and over 950,000,000,000 given as loans to members. Job creation and employment of over 600,000 has emerged through cooperatives.

“With this analysis, it is clear that cooperatives have contributed immensely to the growth and development of this country and it is high time government starts to delve into it,” Suleiman said.

Agreeing to this fact, Oyegoke said during an interview that “cooperatives have a trillion Naira in asset base. We have given over N950 billion as loan to members. This has a great impact on the economy, so it is high time government takes cooperative seriously and give enough support to this sub-sector of the economy.”

This award ceremony will be held in Abuja will on the 15th and 16th of November 2019. According to the organizers, Yemi Osinbajo, vice president o f Nig e r i a, Mu ha m m e d Sabo Nanono, minister for Agriculture and Rural Development, and Abdullahi Adamu, senator of the federal republic and Wale Raji, member of the House of Representatives and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, governor of Kano State, will be present at the event.

Tizeti partners MainOne to expand affordable highspeed WiFi in Africa SEGUN ADAMS

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everaging on the partnership between the companies in Nigeria, Tizeti has extended its partnership with MainOne as the company launches in Ghana as GhanaWifi.com. This will be Tizeti’s first expansion outside Nigeria, in the continuance of the existing partnership that has seen increased broadband accessibility across Lagos since 2017.

Tizeti will operate solar-powered WiFi Towers across Ghana, utilising the same technology as they used in Nigeria, where Tizeti in partnership with MainOne and Facebook, continue to serve thousands of users with unlimited high-speed broadband internet access, covering over 90% of Lagos. Since its inception, the company has installed over 17,000 public WiFi hotspots within Nigeria with over 1 million unique users, rolling out hundreds of internet hotspots across Lagos, Ogun and Port Harcourt.

Speaking on their expansion, Kendall Ananyi, CEO, Tizeti, explained, “We are proud to have built a world-class network that delivers connectivity to users at a fraction of the current cost, not just in Nigeria but also across the region. We understand the importance of world-class, quality broadband connectivity to the growth of a global digital econ-

omy and will continue to push the development of a replicable cost-effective solution to reach millions of Africans, starting one country at a time with Nigeria and Ghana.”

Using solar-powered base stations, Tizeti will be able to reduce operating costs, which will provide competitive subscription packages for Ghanaian costumers and businesses. The company’s operation in Ghana will start with next-generation 802.11AC WiFi equipment for better service quality, which is much faster and more reliable than previous generations.

Funke Opeke, CEO, MainOne, commended the commitment of Tizeti to improve the accessibility of quality broadband services across the region, saying, “We remain committed towards the digital transformation of the region and we are happy to extend our partnership with Tizeti beyond the borders of Nigeria. Leveraging our cable capacity to ultimately improve the digital services in West Africa and enabling capacity development, wealth creation and economic growth through affordable and ubiquitous connectivity is something we are excited about. With our existing connectivity and data centre in Ghana, we envision a seamless WiFi penetration entry for Tizeti and we are excited to be a part of their journey.” www.businessday.ng

L-R: Mobolanle Adesanya, MD/CEO, First Central Credit Bureau Limited; Tunde Popoola, MD/CEO, CRC Credit Bureau, and Jameelah Sharrieff-Ayedun, MD/CEO, Credit Registry/chairman, Credit Bureau Association of Nigeria, at the 6th National Credit Reporting Conference and Concert in Lagos.

PFAs fear drop in yield over ban on participation in OMO Modestus Anaesoronye

… challenged by reinvestment risks

ension Fund Administrators (PFAs) have expressed concern over the impact of the new Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) policy restricting individuals and local corporates from participating in Open Market Operation (OMO) auctions.

Angela Sere-Ejembi, director, Financial Markets Department at the CBN, had said the restriction applied to domestic corporates (inclusive of non-bank financial institutions) both at primary and secondary market activities.

According to Sere-Ejembi, the CBN has directed deposit money banks to exclude individuals and domestic corporates from participating in its OMO. OMO is a financial instrument used by the Central Bank to sell treasuries bills and other instruments.

The PFAs say OMO has been their major investment instru-

ment contributing significantly to their yields and returns on investment, but notes that its restriction will mean so much on their investment returns.

But the PFAs, who spoke through their umbrella body, the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOP), say however it understands that it could have been a decision by the apex bank, the CBN to maintain stability or control liquidity in the economy, which is one of its core responsibilities.

Wale Odutola, head of brand committee of PenOp, responding to questions during the 2019 Media Retreat organised by the association, confirmed the impact on investment of PFAs, saying, “Yes, it is a concern because we get better yields from there than other instruments.”

Odutola, who is also the managing director/CEO of ARM Pensions Limited, says the major challenge again is that it puts

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the PFAs in reinvestment risks, because it puts us in a position whereby we will have to look for alternative investment instruments to sustain our returns’ target.

He however notes that closing of that window means other windows could open, like the Debt Management Office (DMO) that can also issues treasury bills.

Ronke Adedeji, president of PenOp, who also confirms the development, says no doubt, as PFAs we are heavily involved, saying, “This OMO was not there initially, but for the time it has been in operation we have benefited significantly as PFAs, and we hope that other instruments will open with this closure.”

Adedeji, who is also the managing director/CEO of Leadway Pensure, says PFAs are professionals in investment, and this will be a test of their professionalisms because they must continue

to increase yields for their pension contributors.

The total value of pension fund assets based on unaudited valuation reports grew from N9.03 trillion as at the end of March 2019, to N9.33 trillion as at June 2019, representing a growth of 3.27 percent (N294.91bn). And this figure is about N10 trillion today, according to PenOp. The growth indicates a decrease in the quarterly growth rate compared with the 4.55 percent for the previous quarter; this was mainly due to market valuation of quoted equities.

A breakdown of the pension industry portfolio indicates that the pension fund assets were mainly invested in Federal Government Securities, with an allocation of about 70 percent of the total pension assets (FGN Bonds: 48%, Treasury Bills: 21%, Sukuk Bonds: 1%, while Agency Bonds and Green Bonds: less than 1%).

Nigeria to host summit on leveraging Border closure: Business prosperity, digital economy for trade, investment citizens’ welfare at risk - NECA

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n line with President Muhammadu Buhari administration’s drive to diversify the economy and lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty over the next 10 years, taking advantage of the opportunities in the Digital Economy, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment will be hosting its first-ever Digital Economy Summit with the theme, ‘Leveraging Digital Economy for Trade and Investment.’

The maiden edition, which will hold at the Statehouse Banquet Hall, Abuja, on Thursday and Friday, November 14 - 15, 2019, will feature in-depth discussion with our special guest speaker, Jack Ma – co-founder and former executive chairman of the globally renowned Alibaba Group.

Designed to focus on how best to support the growth of a new burgeoning industry as part of the readiness for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Digital Economy Summit is collaboration between the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, who is the chief host, and the

Ministers of Communications and Digital Economy, and Science and Technology.

The Digital Economy will be knowledge driven, with innovation and creativity being pivotal to its success. It is one that will thrive on the innovation, creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of a youthful populace. In view of the fact that a core asset of the nation is its youthful population – with an average age of 18, from an estimated 200 million people of which 91% are below 51 years, the Summit is a welcome development.

This Summit, a Public-Private Partnership event, which will bring together leading international and local investors, experts and policy makers from across the globe, aims to develop a framework that will help in deepening governance and collaboration between public and private sectors. This would, in turn, attract more investment for the development of Nigeria’s Digital Economy. In addition, it will kick start the development of Nigeria’s Digital Transformation Roadmap.

https://www.facebook.com/businessdayng

JOSHUA BASSEY

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igeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) says by further extending the border closure till 2020, the Federal Government was toying with citizens’ welfare and prosperity of businesses.

The authorities of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), weekend, announced extension of the ongoing closure of the country’s land borders till January 31, 2020.

The border closure came into force on August 20, 2019.

Speaking on this development in Lagos, on Monday, Timothy Olawale, director-general of NECA, argued that notwithstanding trade imbalance between Nigeria and its neighbouring countries, the citizen s’ wellbeing should be prioritised.

He said: “While we acknowledge the trade imbalance between Nigeria and its neighbours and the security challenges facing the country currently, the citizen’s welfare and business prosperity should not be sacrificed for the inefficiency of our border policing.”

According to Olawale, the @Businessdayng

coordination and management of fiscal policies should be geared towards enterprise competitiveness, job creation and alleviating poverty as against impoverishing the people by such policies of government.

He further noted that “despite the many merits that come with the border-closure, we are concerned that the policy comes without any palliative for legitimate local businesses, which negate the attempts at alleviating poverty and reduce unemployment. The continuous closure also possesses the capacity to render many Nigerians jobless and hungry.”

The NECA boss averred that the policy was more consistent with income generation and not in agreement with the harsh effect it has on households, businesses and investors’ confidence in general.

“Since the advent of this policy, prices of goods, especially food items had increased tremendously, further making the average Nigerian vulnerable as 70 percent of poor households budget is spent on food.”

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Off-grid energy company PowerGen signs funding agreement with Shell, others ISAAC ANYAOGU

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owerGen Renewable Energy, a micro-utilities provider in Africa, has signed an equity-based financing investment with funding from Shell’s New Energies business, as well as Omidyar Network, Acumen, Renewable Energy Performance Platform (REPP), EDFI ElectriFI, Sumitomo Corporation, DOB Equity, and Microgrid Catalytic Capital Partners (MCCP).

According to a release by the company, this round of funding follows a seed financing it closed in December 2016, led by DOB Equity and supported by AHI Venture Partners.

“We are excited to work with them to build the energy system of the future in Africa, helping to bring electricity to the millions of people without,” says Aaron Cheng, president of PowerGen. Brian Davis, Shell VP Energy Solutions, comments: “I am happy that Shell will be supporting the next chapter in PowerGen’s exciting journey towards meeting the electricity needs of more Af-

rican customers. We see that Powergen’s local experience, capabilities and growth to date make it well positioned to serve the expanding African decentralised power market. The firm is a key part of our growing energy access business as we move towards Shell’s ambition to provide a reliable electricity supply by 2030 to 100 million people in the developing world.”

Africa’s energy poverty sees over 600 million without access to electricity, according to the International Energy Agency figures, and approximately 80 percent live in rural areas. The recent uptick in offgrid investments is helping to improve access.

“The funding will strengthen PowerGen’s position in its core African markets Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, and help it expand into new ones, as the demand for reliable, clean and affordable electricity in Africa continues to grow,” says PowerGen. The company also says it aims to connect one million more people to reliable electricity over the next five years, before accelerating its reach in future.

TCN plans massive upscale in power transmission HARRISON EDEH, Abuja

… as it attracts $1.66bn

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ransmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) will make upgrading the power transmission infrastructure in the country its priority, as it has attracted $1.66 billion, Usman Gur Mohammed, its managing director, says.

Mohammed said the efforts would raise bulk power wheeling capacity from the current 8,100 megawatts (mw), while addressing Nigeria’s teething power concerns.

Mohammed gave the information during an electricity awareness walk ahead of the 14th General Assembly of the West African Power Pool (WAPP) holding today in Abuja.

At the event hosted by the TCN and Mainstream Energy

Solutions Limited (MESL), Mohammed, who is also the chairman, Executive Board of WAPP said, “Despite all the problems that we think we have, this government has done a lot of good job for this country.”

He said transmission rose from 5,000 MW to 8,100mw in December 2018; distribution from 3,500mw in 2015 to 5,375mw in February 2019, and generation rose from 4,000 to 7,500mw.

Mohammed, who expressed strong determination that Nigeria’s power sector concerns could be overturned to achieve its prospects, said the TCN is committed to playing its part efficiently to ensure a more successful Nigeria’s power sector.

Luminous rewards top dealers with foreign holiday

GBEMI FAMINU

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imba Group, distributor of Luminous – a brand of inverters and batteries in Nigeria – has rewarded their top dealers with an all-expense-paid family holiday to Dubai. The company invited spouses of the dealers for the first time, on what isnowanannualinternationaltrip for its channel partners.

The trip included a five-star hotel stay, visit to top tourist attractions in Dubai and various activities to delight the company’s channel partners. Particularly appreciated by the dealers and their spouses, was a Desert Safari, visit to the Dubai Underwater Zoo and visit to the top of the Burj Khalifa – the tallest building in the world.

Karan Mehta, a Luminous representative who was on the trip said, “This annual holiday has become somewhat of a main-

stay of our partner development programme as is a unique opportunity for us reward our hard working channel partners for their efforts in building the Luminous brandtotheheightsithasachieved in Nigeria.”

For this trip, the company followed a stringent short-listing process in which all Luminous dealers were evaluated on several parameters – including overall business volume and commitment to the company’s values with respect to service provision.

According to Ravi Srivastava, a SimbaGrouprepresentative,“The process of shortlisting dealers is always very difficult, because we value each and every one of them. The great thing is that this has become an annual trip, and we hope that many more dealers can qualify for the next one!”

L-R: Alhassan Abdulkarim, representing Hassan Usman, MD/CEO, Jaiz Bank; Clement Osuji, member, governing council, CIBN; Adesuyi Olateru-Olagbegi, assessor of the disciplinary tribunal; Ken Opara, 2nd vice president/ chairman, disciplinary tribunal; Yemi Adeola, former MD/CEO, Sterling Bank/former chairman, Bankers’ Committee sub-committee on ethics and professionalism, and Tony Mogekwu, head legal services, Stanbic IBTC Bank, representing of Demola Sogunle, MD/CEO, Stanbic IBTC, at the CIBN Disciplinary Tribunal Proceedings held at Bankers House, Lagos.

FG gives conditions for reopening of land borders Innocent Odoh, Abuja

… says ECOWAS countries must respect rules of origin

he Federal Government of Nigeria has issued conditions for reopening of Nigerian land borders closed recently to importation of goods, even as the government maintained that neighbouring countries must respect the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) rules of origin if their good would be allowed into Nigeria.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, gave the conditions after a resolution reached at the end a Ministerial Committee meeting to review the temporary closure of Nigerian land borders in Abuja on Monday. He pointed out that the country would no longer tolerate repackaging of goods coming into the country. He added that any imported goods for Nigerian market must come in its original form and be escorted directly from the port of member states

directly to Nigeria border.

Onyeama said it was the requirement of the Nigerian government that any good imported from ECOWAS member states must have the 30% local input. These conditions, he said, would be presented to the neighbouring countries of Benin Republic and Niger at a tripartite meeting scheduled for next two weeks in Nigeria.

He explained that the measures have become incumbent on the Nigerian Government to ensure that the country does not end up as a dumping ground, adding that the conditions apply to both goods and human beings coming into the country and apply to all ECOWAS member states.

He said it was an absolute requirement of the government of Nigeria, that any import coming through Nigeria’s land borders, “when those import transit in goods, that is to say when they

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FG begins sale of two savings bonds for November OLUWASEGUN OLAKOYENIKAN

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ederal Government of Nigeria (FGN) has commenced the sale of its two savings bonds for November, the Debt Management Office (DMO) disclosed on Monday.

An FGN Savings Bond is a fixed-income instrument targeted at retail investors and guarantees both interest payment and a bullet repayment of the principal on the maturity date. The bond is issued monthly to diversify funding sources for the government.

The debt agency, which is offering the debt instruments on behalf of the FGN, said the debt instruments comprising a two-year and three-year savings bonds will be offered at interest rates of 10.296 percent and 11.296 percent per annum respectively. The interest rates came lower compared with 11.244 percent and 12.244 percent per annum offered correspondingly on the same instruments in the preceding month.

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The savings bonds will be issued at an auction which commenced on Monday, November 4 and expected to end on Friday, November 8, with a settlement date of November 13, 2019.

As such, the two-year tenor would be due on November 13, 2021, while the three-year savings bond would mature on November 13, 2022. The DMO noted that interest payment on the instrument will be paid on a quarterly basis on February 13, May 13, August 13, and November 13.

The bonds are offered at N1,000 per unit subject to a minimum subscription of N5,000 and in multiples of N1,000 thereafter. But that’s limited to a maximum subscription of N50 million.

The DMO assured that the bonds are backed by the full faith and credit of the Federal Government of Nigeria and charged upon the general assets of the country, implying there is no risk of default.

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are coming from outside the ECOWAS region and imported into an ECOWAS member state, that those goods should retain their original packaging, there should be no modification whatsoever to the packaging of those goods imported into an ECOWAS member state destined for Nigeria.

In addition to the packing requirement, Onyeama said the goods “must be escorted from the port directly to the designated entry point in Nigeria border and presented to Nigeria customs with the packaging intact and those goods escorted.

“This is an absolute condition that will not be compromised. So any transit in goods coming into this country from transiting ECOWAS member state must ensure that. For goods predominantly produced in ECOWAS member state, the rules of origin must be satisfied.

“So, any goods coming from

an ECOWAS country claimed to originate from an ECOWAS member state must be over 30% input of an ECOWAS member state to avoid situations where countries outside ECOWAS region would merely export their goods into ECOWAS members states, repackaged as those coming from ECOWAS member state, with little value addition and exported to Nigeria.

“So, we would absolutely insist on the respect of ECOWAS rules of origin in ensuring that they actually did come from ECOWAS member states,” the minister noted.

He also said that Nigeria will insist on absolute dismantling of all the warehouses along Nigeria’s common borders with countries with which it has borders within a certain distance from the borders. “No more warehouses and we will insist on them being dismantled,” he said.

Senate resumes today as Committees begin budget reports’ harmonisation Solomon Ayado, Abuja

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s the Senate resumes today, the budget defence by ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) has ended and various committees have commenced harmonisation of their reports before the Appropriation Committee.

Proactive measures to hasten the 2020 budget passage and revert to the JanuaryDecember budget cycle is top on agenda for discussion by the lawmakers. Senators are also expected to present motions of urgent national importance.

The Senate had, for the first time, adjourned for two weeks, and resumed October 28, to enable the committees receive the MDAs for their budget defence.

Senate president, Ahmad Lawan, had announced that budget defence by MDAs, which began on Wednesday, October 16, was to last only till October 30.

Lawan had stated that “any @Businessdayng

MDA that failed to defend its budget within the scheduled time should not come and therefore consider its budget not defended.”

But the MDAs and Senate committees had failed to meet the earlier deadline due to some hitches such as non-appearance of heads of government agencies, and the inability of the agencies to furnish the committees with adequate information.

The Senate again was compelled to adjourn for a week, to resume November 5, to enable the committees further and conclude work.

By budget processes, after budget defence by MDAs, the Senate internal committees would present their reports before the National Assembly Committee on Appropriation for crosschecking of facts and figures.

The harmonisation is done to ensure that the budget votes are not omitted, padded, inflated and or illegally deducted before final report is presented to the senators in plenary.

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news

NAMA sets up air navigation planning unit, empowers personnel IFEOMA OKEKE

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L-R: Korede Ologun, senior associate, Vaerdi Investor Relations; Enyioma Anaba, group head, corporate marketing, Interswitch; John Maguire, group chief financial officer, Interswitch; Cherry Eromosele, group chief marketing and communications officer, Interswitch; Mitchell Elegbe, founder/group CEO, Interswitch; Stephen Farry, group head, corporate finance, Interswitch; Gbenga Haastrup, group legal counsel and chief compliance officer, Interswitch, and Oluyemisi Lanre-Phillips, chief executive, Vaerdi Investor Relations, during the Interswitch’s N23bn bonds issue signing ceremony at Interswitch head office in Lagos.

FX transactions at I&E forex window hit $55bn - Emefiele HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

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oreign exchange transactions at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) window have reached over $55 billion since the inception in April 2017, Godwin Emefiele, governor, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said at the weekend in Benin City.

Speaking at the 1st Convocation Lecture of Edo State University Iyamho, Edo State, he said Nigeria’s external reserves had risen to $42 billion in September 2019 from $23 billion in October 2016.

The county’s current stock of external reserves is now able to finance over 9 months of

current import commitments.

With improved availability of foreign exchange, the exchange rate at the I&E FX window has remained stable over the past 24 months at an average of N360/US$, and the parallel market exchange rate has appreciated from N525/US$ in February 2017 to N360/US$ today.

“The introduction of the I&E window, along with improvement in domestic production of goods have helped shore up our external reserves,” Emefiele said.

On the anchor borrowers programme, the CBN governor said so far the programme had supported more than 1.5 mil-

lion farmers across all the 36 states of Nigeria, in cultivating 16 different commodities over 1.4 million hectares of farmland. It has also supported the creation of over 2.5 million jobs across the agricultural value chain.

He said activities in the industrial sector also witnessed significant improvement between August 2016 and September 2019, as the Primary Manufacturing Index rose for the 31st consecutive month. It rose from a low of 42 percent in August 2016 to 58.2 percent in September 2019.

“This development was attributed to sustained supply of FX and the dogged implemen-

tation of our FX restriction on certain items.

“The CBN has been able to reduce inflation, build our FX reserves, maintained FX market stability, and foster real growth.

Nonetheless, challenges still remain,” he said.

He is concerned that the pace of population growth at about 2.6 percent still outstrips real growth rate while inflation is outside the tolerance band.

Unemployment rate and incidence of poverty remain at unacceptable levels. “Our economy still faces headwinds from expected declines in global growth and its resulting impact on oil prices and capital flows to emerging market countries.

Benin Enterprise Park: Edo seals $200m investment for textile industry

Wakanow to focus on customer satisfaction, innovation, expansion, automation - new CEO

n furtherance to the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) efforts to revive Nigeria’s ailing Cotton, Textile and Garment (CTG) sub-sector, Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, has secured a $200 million investment for a cotton-weaving and spinning industry at the Benin Enterprise and Industrial Park, in Sapele Road axis of Benin City.

Governor Obaseki, who said this during the maiden convocation ceremony of the Edo University Iyamho, said the CBN had been instrumental to the economic growth being recorded in the state, especially in the areas of industrialisation and agriculture.

The governor said a $200 million deal had been struck with a reputable, world-renowned textile company to establish a cotton-weaving and spinning industry at the Benin Enterprise and Industrial Park, where construction was expected to begin next year.

The governor said the initiative was in line with the CBN’s plans to revamp the textile industry in the country with a view to reducing importation of textile.

Noting that the state government was promoting investment and real growth in the agricultural sector so as to get people out of poverty, he said the CBN’s N5bn Commercial

OBINNA EMELIKE

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Agriculture Credit scheme in the state has led to employment of about 5,000 people and cultivation of 5,000 hectares.

He, however, advised that the CBN’s monetary policies be followed up with robust fiscal policies, especially infrastructural development to ease the movement of locally produced goods and services.

He commended the CBN for having a specialised window to support the entertainment and tourism industry, adding that the state was solidly behind the apex bank’s policies.

The CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele said the apex bank’s unconventional monetary policies had yielded positive results, helping to stabilise the Nigerian economy.

According to Emefiele, “the favourable outcomes and strengthening outlook of the Nigerian economy is traceable to the timeous adoption of unconventional monetary policy tools. The CBN has been able to reduce inflation, build our forex reserves and maintain forex market stability and foster real growth.

“Nonetheless, challenges still remain. The pace of population growth at about 2.6 percent still outstrips real growth rate while inflation is outside our tolerance band. www.businessday.ng

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he newly appointed CEO of Wakanow.com Limited, Adebayo Adedeji, has promised to focus on customer satisfaction, innovation, expansion and automation.

Adedeji made the disclosure during his inaugural media interactive session, which took place at the corporate head office of the company in Lekki, Lagos.

“Our number one goal is to ensure that our customers not only get the best, value-adding travel products and services but also that their experience is the best it can be, from the moment of first contact, online or offline. This includes a smooth booking process, reliable turnaround time, and a quality that exceeds expectations. We may not meet that goal 100 percent of the time, but we will not stop improving until we do,” the CEO assured.

While reaffirming Wakanow’s position as Nigeria’s No 1 online travel agency, Adedeji stated that the company’s strength lies in innovative travel solutions, ranging from PaySmall-Small; an instalment

payment plan for travel products and value-adding ancillary products launched few months ago, which include automated flight reminders, airline liquidation insurance, lost baggage insurance, seat selection, airport protocol services, among others.

“At the heart of our market leadership is innovation and more than ever before, we are committed to being first to market with game-changing travel solutions”, he added.

On expansion and automation, the new CEO said: “We are committed to expanding our customer touch points both online and offline in order to bring travel closer to them. To this end, we are proud to announce partnerships with key strategic institutions with the requisite spread and network, both online and offline.

With these partnerships we are able to serve even more customers across the globe”.

It would be recalled that Wakanow launched a WhatsApp self-service channel recently. Through this firstof-its kind innovation in the travel industry, members of staff of the company are able to connect with customers on their phones.

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n a bid to facilitate the development and implementation of a National Air Navigation Plan, National Aviation System Block Upgrade (ASBU) Plan, National Air Traffic Management Plan as well as other International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) new concepts in Nigeria, the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) has created a National Air Navigation Planning unit vested with the mandate to oversee the domestication and replication of ICAO global and regional plans for the enhancement of air navigation in the country.

This is as the agency recently concluded a week training for 20 critical personnel to run the newly created unit.

The training, which held at the headquarters of the agency in Lagos, bordered on areas such as Global Air Navigation Plan and its priorities, Global Aviation Safety Plan, Global Aviation Security Plan, National Air Navigation Plan and the National Aviation System Block Upgrade Implementation Plan.

Specifically, the training focused on ASBU Block 18 Modules some of which include Airport Collaborative Decision Making; Performance Based Navigation with Vertical Guidance; Continuous Descent Operations and Continuous Climb Operations.

Others are Surface Movement Radar and Ground Control; Arrival and Departure

Management Systems; Digital Aeronautical Information Management (AIM), System Wide Information Management, Flight Information Collaborative Environment, as well as the strategic objectives of the different modules, their applicability and cost benefit analysis.

Rationalising the training for the new unit, Matthew Lawrence Pwajok, NAMA director of operations, who was a facilitator at the training said the job ahead of the team is “both strategic and critical as they would be researching to define future requirements of NAMA and airspace user requirements, in order to enhance airspace capacity, air traffic management capacity, efficiency and economy and safety of flight operations.

“If we must encourage traffic growth into our airspace, then we must develop strategic growth plans, be sensitive to airline equipage and their user requirements. We need not reinvent the wheel as ICAO has developed adequate strategies for the enhancement of capacity, safety, security, efficiency, etc. We must therefore domesticate these global plans into national plans for implementation in accordance with global, regional or national timelines and priorities,” Pwajok said.

He noted that the team will be required to work towards ensuring the effective implementation of the three major global plans of ICAO which are Global Air Navigation Plan, Global Aviation Safety Plan and Global Aviation Security Plan.

Men can also get breast cancer, advocacy group warns ANTHONIA OBOKOH

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reast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed sickness in women, but Nigerians should stop seeing the disease as “women’s thing,” an advocacy group has warned, saying men can also have it.

Emeka Nwagboso, acting executive director of Project PINK BLUE, said 31 women/men die every day from breast cancer in Nigeria, and warned that men also have breast cancer, saying that they have seen many men who are down with breast cancer.

“There is a need for everyone to get involved in breast cancer awareness. We need to save our men and women from breast cancer deaths. It’s not a woman’s thing,” Nwagboso said at the Pink October Walk in commemoration of International Breast Cancer Awareness Month in Lagos.

Cancer is now a critical public health problem in Nigeria with 115,950 new cases of the disease and 70,327 cancer deaths in 2018, and 102,079 new cases of cancer and 72,000 cancer deaths in 2012 comparatively cancer incidence and deaths are on the increase in Nigeria (World Health Organization (WHO)/International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in Nigeria, with an estimated 26,310 new cases and 11,564 deaths in 2018.

Nwagboso further said that @Businessdayng

women and men should examine their armpits for early detection of spreading cancer cells stating that it is on this premise, that we are appealing to the Lagos State government to make history again and save millions of Lagosians from late detection of breast cancer by introducing mandatory state-wide breast cancer screenings in all the local governments in Lagos State.

“Believe me, once Lagos introduces this, many states will follow and we can reduce late detection of breast cancer by 50 percent,” he said.

Project PINK BLUE- Health and Psychological Trust Centre is a leading cancer fighting nongovernmental organisation in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Khadijat BanwoFatai, 10-year breast cancer survivor and board supervisor, Project PINK BLUE, said that several years ago, the government established mandatory HIV/AIDS screenings in all facilities. Once someone visited the healthcare centre, he or she immediately undergwent HIV/AIDS screenings.

“If we apply same method to breast cancer, we can reduce breast cancer deaths. As at today, over 80 percent of breast cancer cases presented to doctors are at late stages 3 and 4 and at late stages of breast cancer, it is only palliative care that the patients can reduce. I had breast cancer 10 years ago and I am alive today, because it was discovered early,” she said.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

Government Enterprise & Empowerment Program

Brought to you by

Humanitarian minister visits GEEP Command Centre …reiterates Buhari’s commitment to expanding NSIPs

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ajiya Sadiya UmarFarouq, minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, last Tuesday, visited the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP) Command Centre at the Bank of Industry (BOI), Abuja.

The minister was received by Abdulrahman Dikko, chairman, governing board of BOI; Olukayode Pitan, managing director, BOI; Toyin Adeniji, executive director, micro enterprises, BOI; Maryam Uwais, special adviser to the president on Social Investment, and Ismaeel Ahmed, senior special assistant to the president on social investment.

In his opening remarks, Pitan said, “We have activated all our branches nationwide, and have a fully-equipped GEEP agent network of over 4,300 agents who enumerate candidates in all 774 LGAs in the nation. We have built two command centres in Abuja and Lagos, and a third one is in the pipeline. The programme also has plug-ins to all commercial banks nationwide and made available operational teams, staff and state structures across all states.

All of these has made it possible for us to reach 2.5 million people nationwide with three loan products.”

GEEP is part of the National Social Investment Programme of the President Buhari-led administration which provides interest-free and collateralfree loans to micro, small and medium enterprises across Nigeria. Implemented by BOI, GEEP has three loan products namely: FarmerMoni, MarketMoni, and TraderMoni.

Under FarmerMoni, farmers get access to loans of N350,000

Hajiya Sadiya Umar-Farouq, minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development tours GEEP Command Center in Abuja, Nigeria.

Uzoma Nwagba, chief operating officer of GEEP demonstrating how GEEP beneficiary data is tracked real-time across the country

L-R: Abdulrahman Dikko, chairman, governing board of BOI; Hajiya Sadiya Umar-Farouq, minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, and Olukayode Pitan, managing director, BOI

while MarketMoni and TraderMoni provide progressive loans starting from N50,000 and N10,000 respectively to traders and artisans. Accessing the loans is completely paperless done via an agent network, mobile phone technology and a nationwide operation. Beneficiaries have six months to repay the loan through bank deposit or special recharge cards. A higher value loan is immediately and automatically offered to those who

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successfully complete their repayment.

The humanitarian minister, in her tour, got a clearer view of how GEEP is leveraging technology to drive the Federal Government’s financial inclusion agenda. She saw realtime dashboards showing live details of active registrations, disbursement and beneficiary data across all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. She also observed the call centre agents both in Abuja and re-

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motely in Lagos via video conference working assiduously to respond to enquiries about the scheme. With a few taps and swipes across the computer screen, the minister viewed beneficiary count in specific states of interest with a detailed breakdown of their market cluster, the type of goods they sell and their GPS coordinates. Till date, the female beneficiaries at 54 percent slightly outnumber their male counterparts who are at 46 percent.

Toyin Adeniji, executive director, BOI, highlighted the successes as well as how they address inherent challenges associated with executing such a large scale national programme. She added that awareness creation was crucial in driving adoption and compliance among micro business owners.

Uzoma Nwagba, chief operating officer of GEEP, explained that the exponential growth experienced was as a result of the technological framework underpinning the initiative.

In his words: “Continuous im-

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provement in technology has enabled us to capture a larger number of people, verify the authenticity of captured data and eliminate fraudulent entries.”

He also recognised the unwavering commitment of BOI whose immense support ensures the programme’s objectives are consistently met.

While addressing the media after her tour, the minister, who was visibly pleased, reiterated the commitment of President Buhari to empowering people at the grassroots. She said, “With this programme, we are improving the lives of the people and lifting them out of poverty. I must say it is a success story.

We are proud of what Bank of Industry has done so far. This is a project that is very dear to the President. We have been able to reach 2.5 million people, and we plan to scale to reach 5 million people annually.”

Earlier this year, GEEP was recognised as Africa’s most impactful financial inclusion at the African Development Bank Awards held in Equatorial Guinea.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

news We are willing to offer discount for longstanding containers - APM Terminals AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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ollowing the reported danger of looming congestion in the nation’s port business due to the presence of overtime and abandoned containers, the management of APM Terminals Apapa has assured of its willingness to offer discount for longstanding containers in its ports.

According to a press statement titled, ‘A Call to Action as Container Volumes Rise,’ which was signed by the management and sent BusinessDay on Monday, APM Terminals urged customers with containers in this category to take advantage of the offer and take delivery of their containers.

The statement, which notes that the terminal has recently experienced a substantial increase in volume of

containers arriving through the seaports, further attributed the positive development to various government policies such as improvement in the implementation of Ease of Doing Business policy, the Agriculture Promotion Policy and closure of land borders.

“If these containers are not cleared by customers soon enough, this volume increase could lead to high yard density which could impact berthing of vessels resulting in vessel queues,” the statement said.

APM Terminals however said it was anticipating further improvement in throughput ahead of Christmas and year-end rush.

“We therefore urge all the relevant stakeholders and the wider port community to ensure timely delivery of containers in an effective manner without compromis-

ing government’s policies and procedures,” the statement said.

“We assure the shipping lines and our landside customers, that we are dedicating adequate resources despite the seasonal bad weather, working closely with the Port authority, other relevant agencies and stakeholders for improved terminal performance to ensure prompt cargo delivery after release by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS),” the statement further said.

Recall that BusinessDay on Monday reported that the expected gains of the Federal Government’s Ease of Doing Business policy was presently being put into jeopardy as over 5,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of overtime and abandoned containers continued to pile up in Apapa, Tin-Can Island and Onne ports.

6,500 new start-ups established in Africa with $12bn investment in 2019 - AfDB ...urges universities to deepen entrepreneurial courses Godsgift Onyedinefu, Abuja

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resident of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Akinwumi Adesina, says 6,500 new tech startups have been established in Africa with $2.27 billion investments in 2019, compared to 2015, which had 3,500 techrelated ventures and $1 billion in venture capital.

Adesina said start-ups are emerging in Africa while urging universities to deepen entrepreneurship programmes, develop structured institutional arrangements for supporting innovations to expand the growth of start-ups, enable graduates become entrepreneurs, create businesses, and become job creators rather than job hunters.

The AfDB president who made this call while delivering a convocation speech at Bowen University Iwo at the weekend, expressed concern that youths are today graduating into a world of uncertainty as there are few white-collar jobs available. He stated that over 13 million people enter the job markets each year but only 3 million get jobs.

According to Adesina, Africa will have the largest number of youths joining the labour market by 2030 than the entire world taken together.

While stressing on entrepreneurship to secure the future of youths and curb unemployment, Adesina said the agricultural sector was an important area ripe for entrepreneurship. According to him, the size of food and agribusiness in Africa will be worth $1 trillion by 2030.

He also said the continent’s Internet of Things (IOT) is estimated to be $12.6 billion by 2021 in Africa and Middle East, and financing for Big Data start-ups inched to $9.8 million by 2019.

“How many students here have taken courses on entrepreneurship? How many even know about venture capital or angel investors?” he queried He therefore urged universities to shift away from rote teaching into allowing students to experiment, try things, put ideas to work, and innovate.

“Today, I ask you to add new skills, entrepreneurship, and make the university not just about knowledge, but about transformative knowledge, one that is enabled to create the next great busi-

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nesses for the word.

“Transformative knowledge is best captured by the World Economic Forum on Human Capital: The Knowledge and skills people possess that enable them to create value in the global economic system,” he said.

In fostering a path to the future for entrepreneurship and universities, the AfDB president recommended that universities set up technology business incubator and innovation hubs and should be connected to venture capital and angel investors.

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@Businessdayng

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34

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

news Take advantage of Nigeria’s huge return on investment, Osinbajo, Emefiele tell investors

L-R: Babatunde Fowler, executive chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS); Jumoke Oduwole, special adviser to the president on ease of doing business; Adeyinka Asekun, high commissioner of Nigeria to Canada, and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, during the opening of Nigeria-Canada Investment Forum in Abuja, yesterday.

…highlight opportunities in mining, power, agriculture, education HARRISON EDEH, Abuja

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Nigerian palm oil producers embrace global standards, certification

. . . As companies race to access int’l markets, funds …SNL first certified palm oil grower in Nigeria, Presco in advanced stages

CALEB OJEWALE

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igeria did not have any palm oil grower certified according to standards of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) until sometime in September when Siat Nigeria Limited in Rivers State became the first to be certified. This does not mean palm oil produced in Nigeria has been unsafe for consumption or usage; rather, players had yet to sign up to globally accepted standards of production.

BusinessDay exclusively gathered there are also two Palm Oil Supply Chain Certificate holders in Nigeria, both of which were also secured this year. These are Certain bvba, getting certification for

its Nigerian operating unit as Perfetti Van Melle Nigeria Limited in Agbara Industrial Estate, Ogun State, and Beiersdorf AG in July, with a certified Nigerian operating unit named Beiersdorf Nivea Consumer Products Nigeria Limited in Ilupeju, Lagos.

Presco in Edo State, BusinessDay learnt, has had its certification audit, but yet to receive its certificate. Okomu, which had its RSPO membership approved in April this year (2019), is considered a new member, and now just trying to put things in order to get certified.

In Africa, there are currently 51 certificate holders in the palm oil value chain; 42 supply chains certificates in eight countries, and nine certified growers in five countries. For the certified growers,

there are four in Ghana, one in Madagascar, one in Gabon, one in Cote d’Ivoire and one in Nigeria, which also has two out of the 42 certified supply chain certificates.

Major palm oil producers and processors of its many different byproducts in Nigeria appear to be racing to get their operations certified according to standards in order to, among several benefits, gain access to international markets such as Europe where by 2020 it will be hard to find buyers of non-certified palm oil or its derivates.

Certification also gives large companies access to funding from certain institutions, which consider it a germane criteria. Among these is the International Finance Corporation, according to BusinessDay findings.

“What RSPO does is to set the standards for sustainable palm oil production globally,” said Elikplim Dziwornu Agbitor, technical manager, Africa, Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), in a Skype interview with BusinessDay from his Accra, Ghana base.

“When we talk of sustainability, it is three key pillars: one pertains to the environment, to ensure that palm oil is produced in a way that is not damaging to the environment as much as possible.

The second pillar is the social pillar, that ensures palm oil is produced in a way that is socially equitable where local communities benefit from the palm oil production,” he said.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

African peers leave Nigeria behind in race for big wind farms STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

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gypt and Kenya are investing in the construction of big wind farms as part of a grand strategy to become energy sufficient and reduce pollution, but Nigeria is yet to scratch its wind energy potential.

Egypt’sfirstprivateandlargest wind farm has started operations six weeks ahead of schedule thanks to the support of its offtakers, the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC)

and a consortium of partners.

This is a feat Nigeria is failing to achieve despite the country’s abundant wind supply.

Kenya, East Africa’s largest economy, has launched Africa’s biggest wind power plant, at the cost of $775 million, a project aimed at reducing electricity costs and dependence on fossil fuels, nudging the nation towards meeting an ambitious goal of 100 percent green energy next year.

The sprawling wind farm of 365 turbines on the shores

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of Lake Turkana in northern Kenya was designed to boost electricity supply by 13 percent, giving more Kenyans access at a lower cost.

In Egypt, the ENGIE Africa consortium oversaw the construction of the 262.5 megawatts (MW) Ras Ghareb wind farm. The wind farm is now fully connected to the grid and is ready for commercial operation at maximum capacity.

Siemens Gamesa supplied the wind turbines and Orascom Construction conducted the

civil and electrical works. The consortium is preparing the next wind project of 500MW, according an African Press Organisation’s report.

“There is a huge potential for low-cost renewable energy in Africa,” Yoven Moorooven, chief executive officer of ENGIE Africa, said. “We are honoured that the Egyptian authorities have selected the ENGIE consortium to be part of their strategic energy plan.”

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•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

ice President Yemi Osinbajo and Central Bank of Nigeria Governor Godwin Emefiele on Monday told Canadian investors to take advantage of Nigeria’s huge return on investment and deepen their investment targets beyond the $984 million trade value between both countries.

Osinbajo specifically told Canadian investors to set their eyes on Nigeria’s mining, power, agriculture, education and information technology sectors, citing numerous opportunities that exist in those areas.

Speaking at the NigeriaCanada Investment Summit 2019 in Abuja, Osinbajo informed the investors that Nigeria’s Energising Education Programme alongside the Energising Market Programme expose huge opportunities for investors as investment in such sectors through provision of mini-grid solutions to

support off-grid electricity is already paying off.

“Businesses are prepared for regular power supply and there are opportunities. Markets, institutions and even Nigerians who are not connected to the grid show tremendous opportunities in the Rural Electrification Project of the government which has over 100 million unconnected people to cater for,” Osinbajo said.

In his remarks, Emefiele told Canadian investors that Nigeria’s position as Africa’s largest economy and as a top choice investment destination in the West African sub-region widens the opportunities for investors seeking to invest in the continent.

He said Nigeria controls 47 percent of the West African population, in addition to controlling 65 percent of the sub-region’s Gross Domestic Product which makes it a natural investment gateway for investors.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

Maturing OMO bills worth N351.7bn to bolster liquidity this week HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

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he Nigerian financial market will witness increased liquidity following the expected maturing Open Market Operation (OMO) bills which will be auctioned by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) this week.

New OMO issuances will now mature on Tuesday rather than Thursday as the CBN aims to help investors differentiate between OMO bills and NT-Bills in the money market, Afrinvest Securities Limited said in a note.

Also this week, momentum in demand is expected to be sustained due to the volume of unfilled bids at the primary market auction (PMA) last week.

“Retail investors and local corporates are advised to trade cautiously and position in NT-Bills with attractive yields as we expect yields to continue to decline on the back of increased de-

@Businessdayng

mand,” analysts at Afrinvest said. “Nonetheless, N-T-Bills rates remain attractive relative to other money market investments due to the tax free and upfront interest advantages.”

The CBN conducted an OMO auction last Thursday, offering a total of N330.0bn across the 96-day, 187-day and 362-day instruments.

The short and medium tenor instruments were undersubscribed at 0.3x and 0.2x, respectively, while the longer tenor bill was oversubscribed at 1.8x. Subsequently, the apex bank allotted a total of N363.09 across all three tenors with stop rates clearing at 11.6 percent, 11.8 percent and 13.3 percent, respectively.

The Overnight (O/N) rate on Monday declined by 0.21 to close at 3.86 percent, while the Open Buy Back (OBB) rate increased by 0.14 percent to close at 3.14 percent.

•Continues online at www.businessday.ng

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

35

news Border closures across Africa...

Continued from page 1 vehicles travelling to Eritrea from the Ethiopian town of Rama had been asked for permits in December 2018, according to a Reuters report.

“We did not receive any prior notice,” Reuters quoted Liya Kassa, spokeswoman for the regional administration in the Tigray region which borders Eritrea, as saying in December 2018.

In March this year, Rwanda shut its borders against Uganda over a diplomatic row.

In June, three civil society organisations sued Rwandan and Ugandan governments on behalf of women traders suffering financial losses owing to the border closure.

The civil society groups said it contravened the 1999 Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community and violated the economic rights of women to engage in trade.

Deaths were reported along the border, with security forces accused of perpetrating the acts. In August, Equatorial Guinea said it was building a Trump-like border wall to stop Cameroonians and West Africans from illegally entering its territory.

Kenya, Rwanda, Equatorial Guinea, and Uganda, among others, are among countries that have signed onto the AfCFTA. Eritrea is not part of the AfCFTA. Analysts believe the AfCFTA may fail unless African countries understand the impact of unilateral trade policies.

“The demands of sacrifice imposed on businesses and the citizens by border closures are disproportionate and unbearable,” Muda Yusuf, director-general of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), said in an email statement.

Nigeria has signed onto the AfCFTA and it is expected to remove barriers to trade.

The AfCFTA seeks to liberalise trade among African countries. It is targeted at a ‘borderless’ Africa, with an eye on a single market for goods

and services on the continent.

It is easily the largest trade agreement since the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 1994 and a flagship project of Africa’s Agenda 2063, targeted at creating a single market for 1.2 billion people and exposing each country to a $3.4 trillion market opportunity on the continent.

“Border closures are against the spirit and letters of the AfCFTA,” said Ike Ibeabuchi, CEO, MD Services Limited, a servicing and manufacturing outfit.

“If we continue this way, there will be a lot of unilateral trade decisions that will be taken across the continent in AfCFTA era. This could defeat the AfCFTA objectives,” he further said.

Nigeria has extended its border closure with Benin and there are indications that the trend will continue well into 2020.

“Our land borders have been closed and this is affecting import of raw materials and export by our members,” Ede Dafinone, chairman of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Export Promotion Group (MANEG), said.

According to Yusuf, complete shutdown of cross-border trade between Nigeria business and their counterparts in the West African subregion has grave consequences for investments and jobs.

Olu Fasan, member of the International Trade Policy Unit (ITPU) of the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the border closure will enrich local producers, without increasing their productivity and competitiveness, while also harming the interests of Nigerian exporters and consumers.

“Truth is, Nigeria’s deepseated protectionism is not compatible with its international legal commitments. It would have to decide whether to comply with its international obligations, legally invoke the escape provisions in international trade agreements or withdraw from them altogether,” he said in a Monday column in BusinessDay.

L-R: Hajara Adeola, guest speaker/chief executive officer, Lotus Capital Limited; Muhammad Sanusi II, Emir of Kano; Oussama Kaissi, CEO of Islamic Corporation for the Insurance of Investment and Export Credit; Aliyu Ahmmed, representing minister of finance, budget and national planning, and Ummanhani Amin, managing partner, The Metropolitan Law Firm, during the 4th Pic by Olawale Amoo African International Conference on Islamic Finance (AICIF), in Lagos, yesterday.

Buhari signs law amending Nigeria’s oil contracts Continued from page 1

contracts or PSCs offer investors the cheapest rates among OPEC peers and drilling in depths below 1,000 metres did not attract royalty, though it is responsible for about 40 percent of Nigeria’s production. The government said cumulative losses have reached over $21 billion.

Legal analysts say Nigeria has been unable to review the PSCs because the law did not provide clear guidance on how to implement a review.

It did not specify whether individual contracts or the Act will be amended, how often it will happen, and what will happen to fields with peculiar characteristics such as irregular production volume or even due to crisis. The section does not also provide a specific sharing ratio to which a review of the PSC Act must conform.

Wale Ajayi, partner at KPMG, said it would have made more sense if Nigeria had undertaken a holistic review of the issues of fiscal and overall governance of the oil sector.

“As it is, this law only addresses how much the gov-

Sale of Petrobras Nigerian oil assets is not going according...

Continued from page 1

Petrobras Oil and Gas B.V. (POGBV), Canada-based Africa Oil had anticipated it would raise adequate cash to complete the proposed acquisition of an effective 12.5 percent ownership interest in assets.

The primary assets of Petrobras are an indirect 8 percent interest in Oil Mining Lease 127, which contains the producing Agbami Field with 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) capacity, operated by affiliates of Chevron Corporation, and an indirect 16 percent interest in OML 130, operated by af-

filiates of TOTAL S.A., which contains the producing Akpo and Egina fields.

Consequently, it had agreed a $250 million loan facility with BTG Pactual, Brazil’s largest independent investment bank, which owns the other 50 percent stake in Petrobras Africa hoping to fund the rest with available cash.

If cash was tight when the company was part of a consortium hunting for 12.5 percent stake, it’s an uphill climb now that it has become the sole acquirer of the 50 percent interest in Petrobras’ assets.

“We remain committed to completing this acquisition www.businessday.ng

and look forward to working with Petrobras and all stakeholders to accomplish that goal,” Keith Hill, Africa Oil president and CEO, said after his partners walked on account of delays and uncertainties.

But there is not enough financial power to back this optimism. The firm’s net cash from operating activities stood at $1.07 million in the period (same as its free cash flow) compared to a net outflow of $526,000 a year before. It had a cash and cash equivalent of $341.33 million, about 7 percent lower than it did in the same period of 2018.

ernment can take under the Production Sharing Contract and we are still left with considerable uncertainty in the sector,” Ajayi said.

“While the law ensures significant rise in government take, it is unlikely that it would make Nigeria any more attractive, especially given that we no longer compete just against Angola but also Mozambique especially in the area of gas. The trend around the world today is that governments are improving incentives aimed at attracting more investments into their oil sector,” he said.

But the All Progressives Congress-led government with control of both National Assembly and the presidency has amended the law anyway. “ Today this changes.

For the first time under our amended law, 200 million Nigerians will start to receive a fair return on the surfeit of resources of our lands.

Increased income will allow for new hospitals, schools, infrastructure and jobs,” Buhari said.

Lawmakers passed the bill last month. Under the new law, oil companies will no longer pay graduated rates for deep offshore production sharing contracts but will now

For the acquisition of $1.4bn, Africa Oil Corp in the nine months already reported does not seem to have generated enough cash from its operation for the proposed acquisition and would have to seek external financing whether debt or equity.

Africa Oil has a debt to equity less than 0.03x, which means almost all the capital that funds the business is from shareholders equity.

The debt to equity ratio shows that Africa Oil Corp has enough room to raise debt capital given its total equity of almost a billion dollars.

In fact, raising the entire $1.4bn needed for the acquisition from borrowing would raise its debt to equity

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pay a flat rate of 10 percent for finds in fields deeper than 200 metres.

The new law also requires the minister of petroleum to call for a review of PSCs by the NNPC every eight years and introduces offences and penalties for violating the law, such as a minimum fine of N500 million or minimum of five years imprisonment or both upon conviction.

The amended law also introduces specific price reflective royalty rates. The previous law required a review of royalty rates where crude oil price exceeds $20 per barrel to ensure additional revenue for government, but this was not effected for over two decades.

Now the amended law provides for review of royalty rates where crude oil and condensates price exceeds $20 per barrel using different rates according to price benchmarks. For example, when oil prices rise to $60, a royalty rate of 2.5 percent will be charged and above $150, oil companies will fork over 10 percent as royalty rate.

The president during the 2020 budget presentation to the National Assembly noted that amendment of the contracts law was one of the priorities of the Federal Government of Nigeria as it

has the capacity to generate additional revenue of at least $500 million which will aid the government in achieving the proposed 2020 budgeted revenue.

However, International Oil Companies have kicked against the amended law, saying it would constrain new investment.

Oil Producers Trade Section (OPTS), which represents oil companies responsible for 90 percent of Nigeria’s oil and gas, said the proposed law change, and the regulatory uncertainty it will create, could significantly undermine profitability for the projects, including large fields such as Shell-operated Bonga and Total’s Egina.

The industry group expects the changes to the law to slash future offshore production by 27 percent to 2023, cut $55.5 billion from investment over the lifetime of deepwater projects, and remove some $10.4 billion in potential government revenue by 2030.

“This is not in line with FGN’s objective to grow the economy,” OPTS said in a detailed analysis of the measure sent to Nigerian lawmakers.

It added that the changes would be “almost equivalent to no new (deepwater) projects being viable”.

to around 1.53x, which might not be a bad level, but there are concerns on the potential impact on the bottom-line.

In 2018, the company made a net loss of $66.71 million compared to $4.5 million in 2017. As at six months ended June, Africa Oil had a loss of $9.97 million, a significant improvement over $48.17 million last year but a loss nonetheless.

Depending on the terms and duration of its debt finance, it remains to see if the cost of funds would pressure future earnings should Africa Oil chart the unfamiliar terrain of debt financing.

This, however, further exposes the poor capacity of the Nigerian National Petroleum

Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiary the Nigerian Petroleum Development Corporation (NPDC) to acquire oil assets disposed of by foreign oil companies.

Yusuf Matashi, the company’s managing director, said in 2017 that NPDC was poised to grow its equity production from 180,000 barrels per day to 300,000 bpd by 2018 and by 2019 and 2020 its production is expected to hit 400,000 bpd and 500,000 bpd.

In NNPC’s July 2019 financial and operations report, the company continues working back on its target. The report said the “NPDC is projected to ramp up production level to 250,000bp/d in the near future”.

@Businessdayng

Tuesday 05 November 2019

FT

BUSINESS DAY

36

FINANCIAL TIMES

World Business Newspaper LAUREN FEDOR

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early two-thirds of Americans say they are not better off financially than they were when Donald Trump was elected, casting doubt on whether economic expansion and a record bull market will boost the president’s re-election campaign in 2020.

According to a poll of likely voters conducted by the Financial Times and the Peter G Peterson Foundation, 31 per cent of Americans say they are now worse off financially than they were at the start of Mr Trump’s presidency. Another 33 per cent say there has been no change in their financial position since Mr Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, while 35 per cent say they are better off.

Persistently slow wage growth appeared to be a main driver of discontent, with 36 per cent of those who said they were worse off blaming their income levels. On Friday, the US labour department said average hourly income had risen 3 per cent in October, growth that was near highs for the past decade but lower than before the financial crisis. Another 19 per cent pointed to personal or family debts as the reason they felt worse off.

The FT-Peterson poll’s findings underline the challenges facing Mr Trump, who is relying on his stewardship of the economy as a main argument for his re-election.

The president has repeatedly touted stock market records and robust job creation as his administration’s most important accomplishment, and has angrily blamed the US Federal Reserve for any signs of economic weakness.

Nearly two-thirds of US voters say Trump has not made them better off FT-Peterson poll casts doubt on whether economic arguments will boost president’s campaign

Thirty-one per cent of Americans say they are now worse off financially than they were at the start of Mr Trump’s presidency © Dylan Hollingsworth/Bloomberg

Last week, after the latest US economic data showed gross domestic product had expanded by 1.9 per cent in the third quarter, Mr Trump said in a tweet: “The Greatest Economy in American History!”

Chart of FT-Peterson poll data that shows change in wages is the most frequent reason that people feel better or worse off, but for those that feel worse off, debt is a significant factor accounting for 19% of responses

in that category The poll suggests the economic expansion and financial market rally of the Trump presidency have buoyed perceptions of only a narrow segment of the American electorate.

College-educated men, for instance, were most likely to feel better off now than they were when Mr Trump first became president, with 48 per cent saying their fortunes had improved.

The FT-Peterson US Economic

Monitor, which will be conducted monthly until the November 2020 election, shows the nation is sharply divided over Mr Trump’s economic policies, with 45 per cent saying they have helped the US economy and 45 per cent saying they have hurt. Mr Trump’s tax cuts for companies and the wealthiest Americans, as well as his focus on deregulation, have been hallmarks of his presidency.

The results showed party af-

filiation was a key driver in whether voters back Mr Trump’s economic agenda, with just 10 per cent of Democrats saying the president’s policies have helped, compared with 84 per cent of Republicans.

Chart of FT-Peterson poll data that shows Republicans are more likely to report feeling better off than Democrats Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said that while economic sentiment has traditionally played a major role in US elections, 2020 is likely to prove an exception given such high levels of partisanship.

“There are exceptions. When there is a war going on, the war takes precedence over the economy.

When there is a scandal going on, the scandal can take precedence over the economy,” said Mr Sabato.

“In this case, Donald Trump the person will take precedence over the economy.”

When asked what was the biggest threat to the US economy, 27 per cent of poll respondents pointed to trade disputes with major trading partners such as China and Mexico. Another 26 per cent cited rising healthcare costs, while just 7 per cent pointed to the Fed’s interest rate policies.

Last week, the Fed cut interest rates by 25 basis points for the third time this year.

European stocks strike highest Regulators press Deutsche Bank boss to drop dual roles ECB and BaFin fear radical restructuring could suffer unless Christian Sewing acts level since January last year Optimism over US-China trade dispute lifts global equities SARAH PROVAN AND DANIEL SHANE

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uropean stock markets climbed to a near two-year high, with Wall Street stock futures also rising, following positive signals around US-China trade negotiations.

Europe’s bellwether Stoxx 600 on Monday, its first day of trading since the S&P 500 struck a record, rose 0.9 per cent during morning trade to its highest since January last year. US stock futures imply another all-time high on Monday when Wall Street opens. Other bourses followed suit with London’s FTSE 100 and Frankfurt’s Dax accelerating their advances to 1.1 per cent.

S&P 500 futures were pointing to a 0.6 per cent advance at the open.

The US index’s gains on Friday came after a strong US jobs report brought its rise this year to 25.5 per cent. Europe’s Stoxx mirrored the S&P 500 as it notched a 22 per cent advance this year and pushed towards a four-year high. Monday’s gains were boosted

by Ryanair and Siemens Healthineers, which both clocked about a 7 per cent jump.

An apparent further thawing of US-China trade relations also boosted equity markets. Wilbur Ross, the US commerce secretary, said on Sunday that he was “quite optimistic” that the remaining obstacles in the first

OLAF STORBECK AND STEPHEN MORRIS

phase of US trade negotiations with China could be overcome soon, adding that the Chinese and US leaders still planned to meet this month.

“In light of recent developments and apparent progress in US-China negotiations, we are shifting our view and no longer believe tariffs will increase further,” said Goldman Sachs analysts in a note. “Instead, we expect that tariffs on imports from China will remain at current levels through 2020.”

Meanwhile, data on Friday showed that the US economy added more jobs than expected in October, defying predictions that a year of slowing manufacturing growth would stunt consumer spending and company hiring.

“Some green shoots of data recovery were seen towards the end of last week in the US,” said Deutsche Bank strategist Jim Reid.

In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index hit a three-month high, adding 1.7 per cent, and China’s CSI 300 of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed shares edged 0.7 per cent higher. South Korea’s export- and electronics-heavy benchmark Kospi gained 1.4 per cent to a four-month high, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was up 0.3 per cent, as a lacklustre set of earnings from bank Westpac capped enthusiasm. The Japanese market is closed for a public holiday. www.businessday.ng

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egulators are pressing Deutsche Bank’s Christian Sewing to give up his dual role as chief executive and investment bank head because of fears his twin responsibilities could undermine the group’s radical restructuring.

The European Central Bank and German regulator BaFin want the positions to be separated in the next year or two, as they were before Mr Sewing took charge of the investment bank, according to three people familiar with internal discussions.

The regulators also warn there is a potential conflict of interest between the two roles, arguing that the chief executive has to promote prudent risktaking while the top investment banker by definition was a “risk creator”.

A senior supervisory official with first-hand knowledge of the matter said the watchdogs regard Mr Sewing’s double role as “a temporary stopgap [rather than] a permanent solution”.

Four large Deutsche shareholders added that Mr Sewing’s double-role was a good short-

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term solution but stressed that the lender needed to get more investment bank expertise on the executive board.

One of the investors warned that Mr Sewing “is spread too thin” and cannot run the overall bank and oversee the investment bank sufficiently robustly to satisfy supervisors and shareholders.

Deutsche said the bank was in a “continuous constructive dialogue with our regulators”, but had “presently no plans to change management board responsibility for our investment bank”.

Mr Sewing, chief executive since April 2018, assumed direct oversight of the struggling investment bank in July. Although Mark Fedorcik replaced Garth Ritchie as investment banking chief in the same month, Mr Sewing is in practice the boss.

New York-based Mr Fedorcik is not a management board member and reports to Mr Sewing. Ram Nayak, head of fixed income sales and trading, also reports to Mr Sewing.

Mr Ritchie was one of the first casualty’s of the group’s radical downsizing, which involves the bank pulling out of equities @Businessdayng

trading, cutting 18,000 jobs and hiving off €72bn of risk-weighted assets as it plans to shrink its balance sheet by more than a fifth.

Supervisors want Mr Sewing to concentrate on running Germany’s largest lender as chief executive. The bank has 90,000 employees and €1.5tn in total assets. “Neither of his roles are part-time jobs,” said the supervisory official.

The ECB and BaFin accepted Mr Sewing assuming direct oversight of the investment bank in the summer because Deutsche needed his experience to make up for the departing Mr Ritchie.

But since, the ECB and BaFin have raised concerns in informal talks with senior Deutsche representatives, three people familiar with the discussions said. They added that the supervisors have not undertaken formal steps and have not given Deutsche a hard deadline.

Deutsche insisted its governance structure was “wellfunctioning”, pointing to the division of labour between the executive board and the group management committee, a new body created in July that has Mr Fedorcik and Mr Nayak among its members.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

FT

NATIONAL NEWS

Former Weinstein assistant speaks out against harassment and NDAs Rowena Chiu was silenced after accusing film producer of sexual assault ELAINE MOORE

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or nearly 20 years Rowena Chiu refused to talk about her experience working for Harvey Weinstein. When the Hollywood producer was accused of serial sexual aggression two years ago, few people in her life realised that she had her own story to tell. In fact she had been silenced by a punitive non-disclosure agreement signed after she accused Mr Weinstein of sexual assault in 1998.

“When you’ve kept a secret for 20 years, the idea of speaking out is just sheer terror,” she says. “It took time to kind of unravel the story and for me to be ready.”

Emboldened by the women who have come forward as part of the #MeToo movement and aware how few were people of colour, Ms Chiu broke her NDA and revealed her identity in She Said, a book by New York Times journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey, documenting their investigation into Mr Weinstein. Now that the book has been published she is ready to share the details of what happened.

In the summer of 1998, Ms Chiu was a 24-year-old Oxford graduate with a dream role as an assistant at film distributor Miramax’s London office, then riding high on the success of hits such as Pulp Fiction. A couple of months into the job, she was asked to go to the Venice film festival. “I was thrilled,” she says. “It all seemed so exciting and glamorous.” While there, she was asked to meet Mr Weinstein in his hotel room to do some work. In the room, Ms Chiu claims Mr Weinstein made a series of sexual requests, which she refused. She alleges he then massaged her legs, took off her tights and held her on the bed, telling her it would all be over with one thrust, but she managed to get away and stop anything further from happening.

Now she has come forward, Ms Chiu is facing the possibility of a new legal fight. Although agreements used to hush up accusations of sexual misconduct have been widely criticised she is still at risk of retaliation for breaking her NDA. Mr Weinstein’s lawyers told the Associated Press that he was “studying taking legal action” against Ms Chiu.

The use of gagging clauses in confidential financial settlements has emerged in the #MeToo era as a key method of keeping abuses by

powerful figures quiet. Once used as a way to protect trade secrets, they have been co-opted to silence misconduct accusations.

Now 45 and living with her husband and children in Palo Alto, California, Ms Chiu is confident and forthright. Her reluctance to speak out was not, she says, driven by fear of legal or financial punishments but the safety of those she loves.

“People were afraid of Harvey,” she says. “[Miramax] was a culture of fear . . . his way of bargaining was: if you don’t do this for me, I can make your life really unpleasant. I know who your boyfriend is, I know who your parents are and I’ll make sure you never work again.”

When Zelda Perkins, Ms Chiu’s colleague at Miramax, broke her own NDA in an interview with the Financial Times in October 2017, Ms Chiu said nothing.

Even so, journalists called her workplace and turned up at her house. “We were being pretty hotly pursued by [reporter] Ronan Farrow,” she says. “He called all our workplaces. He called my husband at his workplace.” At this point, Ms Chiu had still not told her husband or parents about what had happened.

While it took another two years for her to speak publicly, Ms Chiu had begun to provide anonymous testimony behind the scenes. In She Said, Ms Chiu is instrumental in revealing the ways women were kept silent.

The pattern of business meetings conducted in hotel rooms will sound familiar to those who have read similar allegations from both famous actresses and employees who worked with Mr Weinstein. “It is obvious from listening to interviews done with victims that he clearly had a modus operandi,” says Ms Chiu. At the time, however, she had no way of knowing this. No formal complaints had been made public. “We were all locked in our own individual silences’.

Silence was a form of enablement for Mr Weinstein. Ms Chiu says that Ms Perkins was one of the few who stood up to him after she had confided to her what happened. “She knew Harvey all too well both in terms of witnessing his behaviour with other people and in terms of his behaviour towards her.” Together the pair sought legal advice, hoping to prevent the same thing from happening to anyone else.

Entrepreneurs at the i-Hub tech innovation centre in Nairobi, Kenya. Similar hubs across the continent struggle with slow data speeds and other limitations © Bloomberg

Governments must invest in infrastructure and skills AUBREY HRUBY

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frica’s digital economy is still small in size compared with those of its global peers. But it has seen exponential growth over the past decade and now has the potential to redefine the continent’s economies.

Africa had the fastest growth in internet access of the world’s regions between 2005 and 2018, from just 2.1 per cent of the population to 24.4 per cent. It is home to the fastest growing mobile phone industry, with 20 per cent annual growth between 2005 and 2017. It is estimated that half of Africa’s population will have a mobile phone subscription by 2025.

Even so, immense challenges must be addressed to ensure that Africa’s digital ecosystems are positioned to support the employment growth the continent needs. African governments and development finance institutions (DFIs) should look to India as a model and focus on critical infrastructure needs. This includes reducing the cost of data and increasing access to fixed line broadband, spurring corporate ventures in the tech ecosystem, and providing Africans with the skills they need to take part in this digital transformation.

The lack of adequate access to the internet in most African countries boils down to the fact that mobile data is too expensive and fixed line broadband is too slow and not widely available.

It costs Africans on average $7.04 or

nearly 9 per cent of their monthly income for just 1GB of mobile data (enough to watch about three hours of low quality video on Netflix). That compares with just 3.5 per cent of monthly income in Latin American and 1.5 per cent in Asia.

There has been progress in some countries. In Nigeria, mobile data prices continue to drop following a decision by the Communications Commission in October 2015 to remove a floor on data prices, and increased competition among submarine cable companies.

In India, competition among carriers played a critical role in lowering mobile data costs, which are now the cheapest in the world. Reliance Jo, a young telecom operator, is highly responsible for the shift, investing $35bn in a 4G network and offering free unlimited data trials to attract new customers. While some have criticised the company’s practices and data prices may increase, the impact of private sector investment and competition has benefited average Indians.

African governments should further liberalise their telecoms sectors and encourage competition to promote private investment in infrastructure that can be shared by providers.

Regulators should track the cost of data as a measure of the healthiness of the industry.

Beyond mobile data, African countries must increase the speed of fixed line broadband internet and further improve access. A report by cable.

co.uk measuring countries’ fixed line broadband speeds showed zero African countries meeting speeds above 10 Mbps, the deemed minimum speed required by consumers.

Such limitations are problematic for Africa’s growing tech hubs and ecosystems, where internet speed is cited as a limitation for start-ups and customers. While some African countries, such as Kenya, have greatly increased the speed of mobile data, businesses are going to need faster speeds to accelerate growth.

As Africa builds its digital infrastructure, entrepreneurs and tech businesses need quicker access to funding. While numbers vary, WeeTracker reports that $725.6m in venture capital was invested in 458 deals in 2018, a year-over-year increase but still tiny in comparison with global peers.

Africa has 618 tech hubs today, with Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt leading the way.

DFIs, governments and venture funds were key to spurring the first wave of tech hub growth across the continent, but without increased investment and the professionalisation of incubators and accelerators, African start-ups will continue to fall short.

Despite hundreds of hubs (of which about a quarter are solely co-working spaces), start-ups are short of corporate partners to help with the challenge of scaling on a continent with nontraditional supply chains, difficult distribution and limited access to financial markets.

Free trade area is best chance to remake Africa The deal should energise a continent of 1.2bn people and $3tn output MARK VANDEVELDE

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t a time when much of the world seems to be cooling on the idea of free trade, at least one region is growing increasingly enthusiastic: Africa. This year, 54 of the continent’s 55 states — with only recalcitrant Eritrea on the sidelines — signed up to a free trade area that encompasses 1.2bn people and output of more than $3tn.

The project has gathered strong political momentum, going from conception to enactment in less than three years. Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, has called it the continent’s boldest attempt to bring to life the pan-African ide-

als espoused half a century ago by independence leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah. Colonialism left a Balkanised continent of primarily subscale economies. Most of them have arbitrary borders. Sixteen are landlocked. The African Continental Free Trade Area is an opportunity to remake the continent in its own image and in its own interests.

There is a strong economic case to be made. Only about 18 per cent of African exports are traded within the continent, against nearly 60 per cent for Asia and 70 per cent for Europe. African countries have agreed to cut tariffs to zero on 90 per cent of goods. That and other trade-facilitating measures should increase intra-continental commerce by more than 50 per cent www.businessday.ng

in four years, according to the UN Economic Commission for Africa.

More trade could bring many advantages. Too many African countries are stuck in colonial-like trading arrangements, exporting raw materials and importing manufactured goods. The free trade area should encourage both specialisation and higher value-added exports. Research shows that African countries trade more sophisticated goods with each other than they do with the outside world.

More trade could also help the continent reverse damaging deindustrialisation. A properly functioning free trade area could help fix that by giving impetus to efforts to attract investors with the prospect of a mar-

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ket of 1.2bn customers. Africa needs more manufacturing, from canning fruit to assembling mobile phones.

There are many obstacles. The greatest is effective implementation. The African Union has a history of grandiose pronouncements but poor follow-through. The next phase will be to hammer out dull but vital agreements on non-tariff barriers, rules of origin and dispute resolution. Countries also need to build the infrastructure — soft as well as physical — to facilitate smooth trade, linking their countries with road, rail and interconnecting power grids. They also need to streamline customs procedures, often maddeningly slow. Just as important, they must redouble efforts to lift educa@Businessdayng

tion standards, with a particular emphasis on the vocational skills that can help people participate in more interconnected economies.

The record of Africa’s multiple regional free trade areas is mixed. The east African Community, which is moving towards a customs union and has progressed further than most with joined-up infrastructure, is probably the most advanced. It should act as a template for the continent.

As recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa show, Africa is also prone to a backlash against the unrestricted free movement of people.

Leaders will have to do a good job of explaining the potential benefits of free trade and of enacting policies to make these real.

Tuesday 05 November 2019

BUSINESS DAY

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FINANCIAL TIMES

COMPANIES & MARKETS

@ FINANCIAL TIMES LIMITED

Vestager’s firm hand is an opportunity not a threat to EU tech

Tibet Water leaks two-thirds of value in Hong Kong trading Market-watchers scratch their heads after drastic fall in share price

Plan to put burden of proof on to companies underlines diverging path

HUDSON LOCKETT I

MARTIN SANDBU

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ibet Water, a supplier of luxury bottled water, saw its Hong Kong-listed shares drop by two-thirds on Monday, rivalling some of the most dramatic recent sell-offs in a segment of the stock market where shares are often pledged as collateral for loans.

The company’s stock crashed 67 per cent on Monday amid record volumes, which saw 165 times more shares traded than the daily average over the previous 12 months. The sell-off sliced HK$2.2bn ($281m) off the company’s market capitalisation by close of trading.

A representative for Tibet Water declined to comment on the fall.

By Monday evening the company had yet to file any explanation on the drop with the Hong Kong stock exchange.

David Webb, a Hong Kongbased corporate governance campaigner, said it was unclear why shares in Tibet Water fell.

Mr Webb said that one factor could be margin finance, a practice that remains common in Hong Kong, where shares are pledged as collateral for loans taken out by big investors and company insiders. If a pledged stock falls below a certain level, that can result in a “margin call” where the borrower has to put down more shares, pay back the loan or forfeit stock.

If a lender holding pledged

shares decides to sell them, prices can plummet. Hong Kong’s stock market has seen several episodes of apparent forced sales, including the sell-off that hit the so-called “Enigma” network of stocks with numerous overlapping shareholders flagged by Mr Webb a few years ago. Some of those stocks sank more than 90 per cent in 2017, prompting a probe by local market authorities.

The share price fall for Tibet Water comes a little over two years since the company came under attack from Iceberg Research, a group that previously targeted Noble Group, the Singapore-listed commodity trader.

Iceberg alleged that there were “serious doubts” about the company’s books and said there was a “high probability” of fraud. It also raised concerns about the level of cash flowing to and from third parties. Tibet Water rejected Iceberg’s claims in an exchange filing and said it was considering legal action to protect shareholders’ interests.

Those allegations came on the heels of a backlash from the human rights group Free Tibet and other activists, after Tibet Water signed a deal in July 2017 to become the official regional water partner in China of Liverpool Football Club. In September last year, Free Tibet said it had confirmed that Liverpool FC had not renewed the sponsorship for another year.

Woodford trust breaches 20% debt cap after asset writedown Value of cold fusion developer Industrial Heat cut because of ‘delay in operational progress’ OWEN WALKER, PETER SMITH AND ADAM SAMSON

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eil Woodford’s ailing investment trust has breached a borrowing limit of 20 per cent of the fund’s value after another hefty writedown of one of its largest and most controversial investments.

Woodford Patient Capital Trust shares slid more than 7 per cent on Monday after it cut the value of Industrial Heat, which is trying to develop the unproven clean energy technology of cold fusion, because of “a delay in operational progress”.

WPCT has drawn scrutiny of its methodology in its valuation of Industrial Heat, which it has written down by 83 per cent since September last year, according to JPMorgan Cazenove estimates, having previously marked its value up by 357 per cent.

Mr Woodford, one of the UK’s best-known stockpickers, resigned as manager of WPCT last month after his Equity Income fund was closed by its administrator.

“There are likely to be further writedowns to come despite the wave of optimism last month that greeted Schroders’ appointment as the new manager when Woodford’s contract ends,” said Christopher Brown of JPMorgan Cazenove.

“Schroders does not possess a magic wand.”

The trust’s shares fell 7.6 per cent in early London trading to 35p.

WPCT previously marked down the value of its Industrial Heat holding in August.

The latest writedown caused the trust to breach its own investment policy, which states gearing must be below 20 per cent of net asset value. WPCT’s overdraft with Northern Trust, the US bank, stands at £111m, meaning debt to NAV has now jumped above 20 per cent.

Northern Trust and Woodford Investment Management renegotiated terms of the overdraft in September, allowing the bank to charge a higher rate of interest and giving it a veto over any new investments by the fund manager.

The overdraft is due to expire in January but negotiations are under way about extending it.

Industrial Heat, which was WPCT’s fourth biggest holding in June, has drawn interest from investors including Mr Woodford, actor Brad Pitt and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs’s Emerson Collective, who have backed its attempt to develop power sources that run on “low-energy nuclear reactions”.

But mainstream scientists have been sceptical over whether cold fusion — recreating the nuclear reaction that powers the stars at or close to room temperature — will be able to make the jump from science fiction to reality. www.businessday.ng

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argrethe Vestager is using her renewed and expanded mandate for all it is worth. The EU competition commissioner, who will be promoted to vice-president of the incoming commission in charge of digital policy, is contemplating a new move against digital market abuse. In future, large internet companies accused of anti-competitive behaviour may find the burden of proof is on them to show their conduct benefits consumers, rather than on authorities to prove harm.

What does the commission gain from such a policy change? One obvious answer is speed. Ms Vestager “is doing it to show we can have smart regulation, meaning that you can be fast enough to act upon market cases that require immediate action”, says Francesca Bria, a digital policy adviser to the UN and the commission. “This makes a lot of sense. If you intervene too late you do not have the tools to enforce your regulation and the problem may have moved somewhere else.”

The policy would dovetail with Ms Vestager’s revival of so-called interim measures to stop alleged market abuse during an investigation. That was a “very welcome” decision, says Thomas Philippon, a New York University finance professor and author of a book arguing Europe’s antitrust policy has overtaken America’s. “There is no presumption that the company is right or wrong, but when there is uncertainty and time is of the essence then it’s appropriate for regulators to have this instrument . . . the burden of proof argument is very similar in spirit.”

Requiring tech companies to show how their behaviour benefits users may have consequences beyond mere speed.

Margrethe Vestager’s aggressive approach ‘is not just regulation, but our competitive advantage’ © EPA-EFE

It could address what Ms Bria calls a “very strong paradox” — that other industries, such as “Big Pharma or telecoms or big monopolies”, share data with authorities “for competition inquiries and analysis” whereas “Big Tech [companies] are sitting on big amounts of data” but resist sharing it.

Greater access to data that the new policy would facilitate could help regulators examine whether the law is respected in matters beyond market abuse, such as privacy.

Privacy and competition “are very intimately linked,” according to Ms Bria, “but until now not much has happened because regulators and competition economists do not have the tools or the ability to analyse the situation”.

Ms Vestager’s latest move to take on Big Tech “fits exactly” a bigger picture of how Europe and the US have taken different regulatory paths since the 1990s, says Mr Philippon.

Antitrust ideas that were shared across the Atlantic and “partly originated from the US” were “set in stone” in European law and institutions, Mr Philippon says, “with regulators in charge of upholding these rules and strong enough to resist lobbies . . . The irony is that we [the Europeans] did it because we

did not trust each other very much, so we did not want a weak regulator in Brussels that could be swayed by a big country”.

The US went in the opposite direction. Mr Philippon says there was a “change in the ideology of antitrust” represented by the “Chicago School” view that new challengers to established firms would keep monopolists in check. That was true in the 1970s and 1980s, Mr Philippon has found, but is no longer true today. “Then [there was] a gigantic increase in lobbying and political expenditure . . . It’s basically corruption, to not put too fine a point on it.”

There are worries that European regulation can stifle innovation. But Ms Bria argues that “if you regulate and also have a vision, and you invest in that vision, then the innovators can dare” take risks. Europe’s strong backlash against privacy breaches has fostered the “biggest ecosystem for distributed ledger technology”, such as blockchain networks, she says. “Cryptography [technology to keep confidential data secure] could be the next innovation wave” for the same reason.

Ms Vestager’s aggressive approach “is not just regulation, but our competitive advantage,” Ms Bria says.

Under Armour knocked by accounting probe and outlook cut Shares fall 15% in early trade despite better than expected quarterly results MAMTA BADKAR

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nder Armour shares fell sharply on Monday after the athletic wear maker said federal regulators were probing its accounting practices and lowered its full-year outlook.

Shares in the Baltimore-based company were down more than 15 per cent to $17.95 shortly after the open after it confirmed that since July 2017 it has been responding to requests for documents and information from both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice relating to its “accounting practices and related disclosures”.

Under Armour said it “continues to believe its accounting practices and related disclosures were appropriate”. The news was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, which noted the probe was focused on whether the company inflated its sales figures.

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The investigation creates “another dark cloud” for Under Armour, said Rick Patel, an analyst at Needham.

The sportswear company’s shareholders are currently contending with a leadership change at the group. Chief executive Kevin Plank, who founded Under Armour in his grandmother’s basement, last month announced he would relinquish his title as chief executive and assume the role of executive chairman and brand chief, tasking chief operating officer Patrik Frisk with turning round the company when he takes the helm.

The news also comes during a tough time for Under Armour, which has seen growth moderate after years of rapid expansion as it has faced stiff competition from the likes of Nike and Adidas. Last year, the company acknowledged it had lost focus and would return to its roots as a sportswear company, breaking away from the “athleisure” trend that has helped fuel growth in workout wear makers in recent years. @Businessdayng

The company now expects 2019 revenue to increase 2 per cent yearon-year, down from its previous outlook for sales growth in the range of 3 to 4 per cent, amid “ongoing traffic and conversion challenges in directto-consumer” and negative impacts from foreign currency translation.

However, Under Armour expects operating income to come in at the higher of its prior guidance of $230m to $235m and boosted its gross margin outlook.

The accounting probe and downbeat revenue guidance overshadowed better than expected quarterly results.

Revenues fell 1 per cent from a year ago to $1.43bn, slightly ahead of Wall Street expectations, according to a Refinitiv survey.

In North America, the company’s largest market, revenues fell 4.1 per cent, in line with forecasts, while overseas revenues grew 5 per cent.

Meanwhile, revenues from clothing climbed 1 per cent but footwear sales fell 12 per cent.

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Tuesday 05 November 2019

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ANALYSIS

FT

Japan’s foreign minister sees progress on end to US car tariffs Trade deal with Washington a ‘major feat’ despite criticism it favours America ROBIN HARDING AND LIONEL BARBER

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he new US-Japan trade deal is a triumph for Japanese industry and offers a route to the elimination of US car tariffs, Tokyo’s chief negotiator has said in an interview with the Financial Times.

Toshimitsu Motegi, who became foreign minister in September after sealing the trade agreement with Washington, hailed it as a “major feat” and said the two countries will now consult on which sectors to tackle in a second round deal.

Mr Motegi’s comments show how he plans to secure parliamentary ratification for a deal that has attracted some criticism in Japan because it reduces Japanese tariffs on beef and other agricultural imports from the US without cutting US tariffs on Japanese cars or automotive parts.

The foreign minister, who is a close ally of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and regarded as a possible future candidate for the premiership, said the US had given “unusually clear” assurances it will not impose Section 232 national security tariffs or seek quotas on Japanese car imports.

Such tariffs would have been a devastating blow to some of Japan’s biggest companies.

Mr Motegi said it was still possible to achieve the longstanding goal of cutting US tariffs on cars. “For automobiles and parts, it’s clearly written

into the agreement that we won’t just continue negotiations, but conduct a further negotiation to eliminate tariffs,” he said.

US tariffs would have fallen in the proposed 12-member Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, which was negotiated under former US president Barack Obama, but President Donald Trump quit that deal as one of his first acts in office. The remaining 11 countries then put TPP into effect, leaving US farmers at a disadvantage when selling to the Japanese market.

Under pressure from Mr Trump, Japan agreed to negotiate a smaller bilateral deal, eventually swapping a reduction in agricultural tariffs for more modest US concessions in sectors such as machine tools and musical instruments.

“On agriculture, this is within the level of our past trade agreements, and with the TPP11 already in force, it means the US is no longer in a subordinate position to other countries,” said Mr Motegi.

One of the biggest issues the new foreign minister will confront is the dispute with Seoul that arose over South Korean court rulings awarding damages for forced labour during the second world war. Mr Motegi warned South Korea not to liquidate the assets of Japanese companies in order to pay compensation. He hinted at the possibility of retaliation if Seoul went ahead, saying Tokyo would consider all its options.

Quarter of Qantas crew say they were sexually harassed in past year Audit in the wake of #MeToo reveals only 3 per cent reported cases to the airline JAMIE SMYTH

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quarter of cabin crew working at Qantas Airways were sexually harassed by a colleague over the past 12 months but only 3 per cent reported it to the airline, according to a group-wide audit.

A review commissioned by the Australian airline in the wake of the #MeToo movement found that a third of those who did not report sexual harassment said it was because they were able to put a stop to the harassment themselves.

Others said it was because they feared they would be ostracised, not taken seriously or it would damage their careers, according to a summary of the findings circulated to staff on Monday.

“To be clear, we have zero tolerance for any form of abuse or discrimination in any part of the Qantas Group,” said Rachel Yangoyan, chief operating officer, Australian Airports at Qantas, in an email to cabin crew seen by the Financial Times. “If you experience or witness behaviour that is unacceptable, I encourage you to speak up.”

Sexual harassment has become a big corporate concern over the past two years owing to the #MeToo movement, which broke the taboo about speaking out about the issue in Hollywood. The trend quickly spread throughout other industries.

Trade unions representing cabin crew have said sexual harassment is a particular problem in the global airline industry, where some female employees are still forced to wear high heels and make-up.

Staff must often work irregular hours and stay in overseas locations. Women are woefully under

represented at executive level: a 2017 survey found that just 3 per cent of airline chief executives were women.

Michael Kaine, national secretary of Australia’s Transport Workers Union, said it was alarming that just 3 per cent of Qantas staff reported sexual harassment to the airline.

“This is vastly lower than the national average of 17 per cent and well below the TWU survey of cabin crew across airlines showing 31 per cent reported sexual harassment,” he said.

Qantas said it would take steps to rectify the situation. This would include setting up a confidential independent counselling hotline for cabin crew and pilots, and providing employees with further guidance on how to formally report harassment.

Qantas commissioned Elizabeth Broderick & Co, an independent company, to conduct the survey of 1,650 cabin crew and 750 pilots that examined workplace bullying and sexual harassment.

The probe found one in four cabin crew — both male and female — had experienced sexual harassment from a colleague and about 15 per cent of cabin crew were sexually harassed by a customer in the past 12 months.

Female pilots were three times as likely as male pilots to be sexually harassed by a colleague, with one in four female pilots reporting they had experienced sexual harassment in the past year.

The survey found that there was a lack of confidence in Qantas’ reporting procedures.

“We come from a culture of what happens on tour, stays on tour. We don’t dob. So, it has to be pretty big to report,” said one anonymous respondent to the survey. www.businessday.ng

The age of democratic deadlock Around the world, radicalisation is making coalition and consensus much harder

GIDEON RACHMAN

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pain will hold an election — for the fourth time in less than four years — on November 10. But there is little prospect that any party will emerge with enough seats to break the country’s political deadlock. There is a similar situation in Israel, where political parties are still struggling to form a government, after elections in September failed to resolve the stalemate that followed the April elections. So Israel now seems likely to end up staging three polls within one calendar year.

Welcome to the age of democratic deadlock. Countries call an election, only to find that it settles nothing. So they try again, but get the same inconclusive result.

This emerging pattern across the democratic world should be a concern for Britain’s politicians. The prime minister, Boris Johnson, has called an election for December 12, arguing that it is the only way to end years of Brexit-induced drift. But there is a strong possibility that the result will be another hung parliament, with no party able to form a stable government.

The Spanish and Israeli situations are extreme, but they are not unique. The fracturing of the German two-party system meant that it took five painful months to form a governing coalition, after the last elections in 2017.

It is true that the Spanish, Israeli and German systems all use proportional representation, which helps smaller parties. But first-past-the-post systems are not immune to democratic deadlock. A US presidential election is guaranteed to produce a single winner. But the president is then often stymied by Congress — the situation that led in recent decades to successive government shutdowns in America.

Each country’s situation has its own intricacies and complica-

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tions. But there are also two general trends that may be leading democracies towards deadlock — and both are present in Britain.

The first is the fracturing of twoparty systems. And the second is the polarisation of politics, with the re-emergence of the far-right and the far-left, and the growing salience of identity issues, which make compromise harder to achieve.

In Spain, the centre-right People’s party and the centre-left Socialists dominated politics in the decades after the restoration of democracy in 1975. But the financial crisis of 2008 helped to shatter the two-party system, and the struggle over Catalan independence has widened the cracks. Spain now has a far-left party, Podemos; and a far-right party, Vox, as well as strong regional parties.

In Germany, the centre-right and centre-left parties took just 53 per cent of the vote in the last election, down from around 65 per cent of the vote in the previous election, which was itself a reduction from historic postwar norms. It is a similar story in Israel. In the decades after independence, Israeli politics was dominated by the Labour and Likud parties, which had little difficulty in forming governments.

But in the most recent election the main right and leftwing parties, Likud and Blue and White, both got around one-quarter of the vote. They have a multitude of tiny parties to deal with, each with their own non-negotiable demands.

It is not just the number of parties that matters; it is also their nature. The process of coalitionbuilding and consensus-forming is made much harder by political radicalisation. The rise of antisystem parties that are deemed to threaten democracy or the survival of the nation, narrows the number of potential governing partners for mainstream parties.

In Israel, the third-largest party @Businessdayng

is the Joint List of Israeli-Arab parties, which even the centre-left dare not bring into government, for fear of compromising their Zionist credentials. It is a similar story in Spain, where neither the Socialists nor the People’s party can form a coalition with the Catalan separatists.

In Germany, with its long tradition of coalition-building, the situation is less dire. But the formation of a national government is significantly complicated by the fact that the far-right Alternative for Germany and the far-left Die Linke, between them command 160 of the 709 seats in parliament, and are deemed to be beyond the pale.

The danger for Britain is that some of the conditions that are leading to deadlocked democracies elsewhere are now emerging in the UK. It is true that the last general election of 2017 saw a resurgence in the share of the vote taken by the two main parties, the Tories and Labour. But that trend is likely to be reversed this time, with both the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Nationalists gaining ground, and the Brexit party also eating into the Conservative vote.

Politics is also no longer dominated by economic questions.

Instead, issues of identity such as Brexit or Scottish independence are on the rise in Britain too, with the effects seen elsewhere.

The polls suggest that British people are genuinely fed up with deadlock and dither at Westminster. If Mr Johnson sweeps to victory with a clear majority, then he will have a chance to get his Brexit deal passed, and then to govern.

But if the UK ends up with a hung parliament, Britain will look more like the deadlocked democracies of Spain and Israel. Rather than heading off in the firm new direction promised by Mr Johnson when he became prime minister, British politics may simply keep spinning on the hamster wheel of Brexit.

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BUSINESS DAY Tuesday 05 November 2019 www.businessday.ng

Hilda Kabushenga-Kragha: The Uganda born CEO bridging Nigeria’s skill gap MICHAEL ANI

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igeria is confronted with an unemployment crisis, resulting from the country’s failure to attract sufficient investments and create jobs for its teeming population that is expanding at an average annual rate of 2.6 per cent.

At 23 per cent, Nigeria has one of the highest unemployment rates in Africa with its youthful population—those within the ages of 1534—accounting for a larger chunk of the figure.

However, aside the failure of attracting the needed investment to cater for its burgeoning population, which is growing faster than its economy, the country is faced with a failing educational system that lacks the needed infrastructure that has made disparities between the skills acquired by students in the universities and the actual skills needed in the labour market to widen Year in year out, Nigeria churns out millions of graduates who lack the prerequisite skills needed to get good placement and this has led to gross inadequacies in the supply of requisite skills needed by employers in the labour market, making Nigerian graduates unemployable.

Burdened by the zeal to change this narrative, Hilda Kabushenga-Kragha, CEO of Jobberman, birthed a youth engagement team empowered to provide employability and soft skills training across multiple states in the country for youths.

The team also conducts campus outreach programs including career fairs, case competitions and so much more.

This is in line with the belief that her firm has a key role to play in seeing young Nigerians get their dream jobs through the over two million job seekers that access the platform.

For her, most public universities in Nigeria do not offer after school career services hence, by filling this gap, young Nigerians would have the guidance they need as they think about their careers and will eventually graduate better prepared for work than previous generations in recent times.

At various times, KabushengaKragh has come up with various programs to reward job seekers in terms of material needs. To commemorate its 10th anniversary, the firm in partnership with the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), embarked on a corporate social responsibility project to give back to the community.

The event, which the firm tagged “shop for free”, gave participants the opportunity to shop official clothing items at no cost.

Hilda Kabushenga-Kragha

It also provided free employability skills training set up to provide job seekers with CV writing tips and interview best practices.

Under her watch as chief executive officer, the company has evolved beyond the traditional placements of employees to leveraging more on technology to develop data-driven solutions that will up-skill job seekers and make them compete globally.

The firm has also developed strong value propositions for mass recruitment including a “talent search” product, which comes with the opportunity for employers to search through the firm’s database of candidates directly and hire at their own pace.

According to KabushengaKragh, the firm is building a solid foundation for growth in 2020 with significant product and customer experience changes coming into play.

The journey to Jobberman Hilda Kabushenga-Kragha was appointed chief executive officer of Jobberman on the 10th of June 2019, following the exit of Ayodeji Adewunmi, one of the firm’s co-

founders.

Before taking up the role at Jobberman, Kabushenga-Kragha had years of experience working with several top organisation including the Central Bank of Uganda and global auditing firm, KPMG, where she showed prowess in human capacity development.

After working for over 2years with KPMG East Africa, she decided to enrol at the IESE Business School, University of Navarra For her, she wanted a bigger platform for impact and despite the exposure KPMG gave; she had the mind-set of being at the global stage, where she can widen her impact.

While developing her knowledge in the business school, Hilda remained with KPMG in a consulting role.

In 2015, she was employed by McKenzie and offered an opportunity to pick any of the firm’s three offices in Africa where she would like to work.

She chose the Nigerian office so as to feel some adventure since according to her, she had been to East and South Africa, and knew

those regions quite well.

Bridging Nigeria’s skills gap Many Nigerian higher institutions are yet to incorporate in their curriculum the necessary skills that are in high demand by the labour market. Most courses are taught theoretically, she notes, with schools ignoring the practicality and application of what is being taught. This makes the average graduate not fit for the realistic demands of the labour market, hence leading to poor labour performance.

Since coming into Jobberman, Kabushenga Kragha has been singled amongst many, as a leading voice in seeing that Nigeria’s skills gap is corrected.

Whether it is through conferences the firm organises to strengthen the relationship between employers and employees in an organisation, she has on several occasions proffered solutions to various ways in solving the skills gap.

When BusinessDay reached out to Hilda, on possible ways to solving youth unemployment which analysts say if not checked, could explode when the country hits the 400 million population mark by 2050, she noted that for youth to have access to dignified work, three things have to go hand in hand.

First is access to good and relevant training both at the formative level and higher education.

She noted that a lot of work has to be done to develop curricula relevant to today’s workplace and more importantly the workplace of the future.

At the same time, Nigeria needs to increase access to higher and/or vocational education. According to her, only 30 per cent of youth who sign up for the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) exams, eventually make it into university. Therefore, Nigeria needs to drastically increase access to good higher education otherwise it risks cutting off hope for more young people.

The second factor she explained is the democratic access to work. She added that in most places, whether or not a person gets a job depends on who the person knows or some other factor which puts the person in a position of privilege.

“Over 50 per cent of people applying for/securing jobs across Africa today are objectively not the right people for the role and this is a big hindrance to workplace productivity. By democratising access to work and giving every qualified person a shot at every job application, you begin to get the right person in the right job and company’s productivity soar,” she said.

The third factor is strong public and private sector markets, which can absorb the young population as they enter the workforce. This according to her includes doubling down on providing training and access to markets for young entrepreneurs because today’s structures cannot absorb every unemployed youth into work. She noted that some young people have a knack for entrepreneurship and they are best supported on that path.

She also added that the government is putting in place initiatives that directly and indirectly support this, for example, mandating banks to lend to Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (SMEs) which enables them to grow and employ more people.

“I believe, however, that a lot of work has to be done to redefine ‘work’ in the mindsets of all relevant stakeholders. We need to make bold moves to dignify and professionalise blue-collar work, not everybody is called to be a doctor or lawyer and in fact, the bulk of the jobs are typically in blue-collar,” Kabushenga-Kragh told Businessday.

She further explained that Nigeria needs to establish clear standards and career paths for plumbers and mechanics and nannies and all the other valuable work which goes unrecognised in society and let young children know that growing up to be an electrician is dignified work well worth one’s time and education.

Fortunately, these factors can be enhanced through technology.

On the training side, she says Nigeria can leapfrog the higher education challenge by encouraging good online education which can instantly provide access to millions as there is no need for physical space. “Companies like softcom with their Koyar platform and the EDC which provides training for entrepreneurs show that we can make progress at scale on this front,” she said.

On access to jobs, she explained that her firm is leveraging technology to ensure that each job seeker has access to as many available jobs as possible and also, helping to deploy relevant competencybased tests to ensure that each job opening is filled by the best match possible.

“Our platform uses a combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Resource (HR) experts to sieve through hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications and provide companies and recruiters with the best possible match for their opening based on objective metrics. Doing this at scale would see workplace productivity grow in leaps and bounds,” she said.

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