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Prosperity will return to Nigeria in 2019, Atiku says in Ibadan

...as Transparency International endorses Ezekwesili INIOBONG IWOK, Lagos & AKINREMI FEYISIPO, Ibadan

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ormer Vice President and Presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general elections, Atiku Abubakar yesterday said he headed the best economic team for Nigeria between 1999 and 2003, adding that such prosperity will be returned to Nigeria in 2019.

“Nigeria is now the headquarters of poverty in the world. We shall return Nigeria to prosperity in 2019. When we get to government in 2019, we will continue to give you the best policies.”

Addressing thousands of PDP supporters at the opening of the South West PDP campaign held at the ancient Mapo Hall in Ibadan, the Oyo state capital ,Atiku said “One of the best Continues on page 38

Inside NSIA to raise private capital to partly fund 2nd Niger Bridge P. 2

L-R: Uche Olowu president/chairman of council, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), presenting Certificate of accreditation for UBA Academy to Patricia Aderibigbe, group head, human resources, UBA plc, flanked from left registrar/CE, CIBN, Seye Awojobi; 1st vice president, CIBN, Bayo Olugbemi; national treasurer, CIBN, Deji Olanrewaju; head UBA Academy, Akin Morakinyo; group head, HR operations/shared services, UBA, Bayo Odeyale, at a ceremony in Lagos, yesterday.

Fintechs bridge financing gap for smallholder farmers offer investors 6% in 4 months to 35% in 7 months

Farmcrowdy raises $6m, Thrive Agric $2.5m, over 30,000 farmers reached CALEB OJEWALE

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ccess to finance, one of the biggest factors limiting agricultural productivity in Nigeria,

is getting some innovative solution through a new breed of mostly technology start-ups that are revolutionising agricultural finance; helping farmers remain productive, and in many cases,

scaling up their production.

The best part, perhaps, is that when annualised, investors on these platforms are offered much higher returns than current Fixed Deposit and Fixed Income rates.

These platforms offer returns varying from six percent in four months, to as high as 35 percent in 7 months. The returns vary by Continues on page 38

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BPE, NDPHC move to conclude sale of Geregu, Omotosho, Calabar NIPPs

Nigeria records progress in financial inclusion, but challenges remain

OLUSOLA BELLO

n the last 9 years, the largest economy in Africa Nigeria, has recorded significant progress in increasing financial inclusion in the country. However, major challenges which may inhibit the attainment of the nations vision 2020 of achieving 80 percent financial inclusion remain.

According data revealed in the 2018 state of the market report released on Thursday by Lagos Business School (LBS), statistics of banked people in the economy has doubled from 23.6 percent of total population recorded in 2008 to 48.6 percent in 2017.

Meanwhile under banked Nigerians have reduced significantly to 10.7 percent compared to 23.9 percent recorded in 2008.

Also, unbanked Nigerians reduced to 40.8 percent of

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he Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) has begun moves to conclude the sale of three out of 10 power plants under the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP), in the first phase of its power privatisation programme.

According to documents seen by BusinessDay, the two agencies propose a revised transaction structure for the three power plants namely Geregu, Omotosho and Calabar, which would involve engaging with the preferred bidders and a revision of the Share Sale Agreement (SSA).

This is to ensure that the transaction structure proposed in the memo addressed to Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo who is the chairman

...Outline revised transaction structure of the National Council on Privatisation and commercialisation (NCPC) in respect of the plants is addressed adequately.

Following the revision and requisite approval of the council, the SSA will be executed between relevant parties. While the SAA remains the key document guiding the sales of the assets, 30 per cent of the sale value representing “initial payment” will be triggered after: “Execution of Gas Supply Agreement (GSA) and confirmation of adequate supply of gas within a specific period of time, execution of functional Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) tied to the PPA currently in place with NDPHC that would be acceptable to the parties and any other agreement required by Nigerian law to operate the plants.”

Also considered as part of purchase. the things that would trigger The total price tag placed the initial payment of 30 per on the three plants is about cent are the execution of a put $2.715 billion. A further breakand call option Agreement down of the price indicates (PCOA) containing provisions that Omotosho 2, 450megaof reimbursement in case of watts is to be sold for $939.4 undue termination, execution million, Geregu Power plant of an Escrow Agreement (EA), 2 with an installed capacagreement on the outline of ity of 434 megawatts, $572.7 methodology for the valua- million and Calabar Power tion of the power plants and Plant, 561megawatts for $889.9 execution of Shareholders million.

Agreement (SA) in case less The BPE and the NDPHC than 100 percent (i.e. 80%) of had written the 6 page docushares are sold.” ment with reference number The agencies said once BPE/ED/VPO/260 and dated the GSA, PPA, PCOA, EA and July 2, 2018 addressed to the SA, (if required) are executed, vice president, Prof Yemi Osinthe preferred bidders will be bajo to apprise him of various required to make the initial efforts that they have made payment to an escrow account. so far towards privatising the The Initial payment will be 30 three power plants. per cent of the bid price or the prorated increased amount •Continues online at in case of 100 per cent share www.businessdayonline.com

…Insurance least accessible financial product DAVID IBIDAPO

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total population from 52.5 percent recorded in 2008.

According to report, Nigeria recorded progress in growing the banked and under-banked segments by 7.5 to 48.6 percent and 0.2 percent to 10.7 percent respectively whilst reducing the unbanked segment by 7.6 percent”.

However, the report revealed that banked adults are more likely males while under-banked and unbanked adults are more likely female owing that women are more disadvantaged to financial services.

According to the report, a higher proportion of women lack access to financial services (unbanked) while a higher proportion of men have access to formal financial services (banked).

In the gender disaggregation analyses, the number of females categorised as

Continues on page 38

Senators urge FG to settle N800bn petrol subsidy bill …say Presidency sabotaging itself on issue OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja

T L-R: Jamy Goewie, community and market development director, European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA ); Margaret Olele, executive secretary/CEO, American Business Council; Piet Colruyt, founder, S12 Fund, and Oluwatoyin Adegbite–Moore, executive director, West Africa, African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA), at the social impact through sustainable investment S12 Fund in Lagos.

Pic by Pius Okeosisi

NSIA to raise private capital to partly fund 2nd Niger Bridge ONYINYE NWACHUKWU, Abuja

..Assures on-time completion by February 2022 date

igerian authorities hope to raise some private sector capital, majorly in equity and partly bonds to partly fund the on-time completion of the second Niger Bridge which was stalled for several years on account of politics and lack of funds.

The private capital would be raised sometime in 2020, but the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) which is main project financier has already injected the first N33 billion on the main works of the contract from the $650m Presidential Infrastructure Development PIDF announced by President Buhari in May.

Following the release of the PIDF, work has commenced earnestly on project and the handlers now assure that the bridge would be ready for usage by February 2022.

During a site tour of the project at both the Onitsha and Asaba ends, the NSIA Chief Executive, Uche Orji said for the first phase of the project which comprises a bridge and an 11.9 kilometer stretch, the funding structure is such that involves the PIDF, NSIA and third party funding.

“The private sector funding by 2020, is both equity and bonds,” Orji said. “There is a financing plan that involves a bond programme,

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but we believe that by the The federal government, time we go to the market to announced in May that it raise capital, we was releasing the $650milwould raise a significant lion to fund five critical part of it as equity alongside projects the projects which bonds but in the moment, all had suffered suffering cost options are on the table for variations over the past few financing,” he added. years, including the 2nd The project has reached Niger Bridge, Lagos-Ibadan 16 percent completion and Expressway, East-West Road, currently engages 820 direct Abuja-Kano Road and Mamworkers, authorities at the billa Hydroelectric Power.

Julius Berger, who are the Uche explained that the main handlers of the project coming of the $650m PIDF told BusinessDay at the site. did not change the project’s The project commenced financing structure in any fully following in September way but that it is an ad2018 following the release ditional funding. He also of the $650m Presidential mentioned that they are Infrastructure Development expecting a second $650 to the Nigeria Sovereign In- million tranche of the PIDF. vestment Authority (NSIA) •Continues online at to fund the project. www.businessdayonline.com

The lawmaker said his committee received a letter from Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association on the non-payment of subsidy arrears by the Federal Government.

He expressed concern that after the National Assembly approved the Executive request, the Debt Management Office (DMO) introduced stringent measures for the issuance of promissory notes.

These, he listed, include: document review by an International Accounting Firm, bonds to be issued in phases on the basis of discount with 10 years duration and reverse auction for the issuance of the promissory notes.

he Senate has urged the Federal Government to direct relevant agencies to pay the outstanding subsidy arrears owed to independent oil marketers within two weeks.

Senators on Thursday accused the Presidency of sabotaging itself by refusing to settle outstanding debts totalling N800 billion to independent marketers.

The resolution was sequel to a motion moved by the Chairman Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream), Kabir Marafa on the need to avert the looming crises in fuel supply due to non•Continues online at payment of fuel subsidy to oil marketing companies. www.businessdayonline.com

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Highlight of the news reports on our digital platforms this week

Best five stories this week ‘Jubril of Sudan’ resurrects at PDP NEC meeting

Sherifat Olabisi Adeleye is a civil engineer by training and profession. She owns a civil engineering, construction and facility management company called Shlaad Engineering Company & Handyman Services.

The controversy surrounding the alleged ‘cloning’ of President Muhammadu Buhari is yet to abate, as the matter reared its head at the National Executive Committee meeting of the People’s Democratic Party on Thursday.

For more visit our website at businessdayonline.com to catch up on full news stories.

Oshiomhole, Governors, Senators shun Buhari campaign Adams Oshiomhole, All Progressives Congress, APC, National Chairman, APC Governors, Senators and other high ranking members of the party were Tuesday absent at the National Consultative Forum, a campaign event for the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari, held at NICON Luxury, Abuja.

End of road for Abe, Uguru, Utomi, Zamfara as INEC closes substitution of candidates

Adams Oshiomhole, All Progressives Congress, APC, National Chairman, APC Governors, Senators and other high ranking members of the party were Tuesday absent at the National Consultative Forum, a campaign event for the re – election of President Muhammadu Buhari, held at NICON Luxury, Abuja.

Meet Sherifat Adeleye, the construction entrepreneur

POLL RESULTS: When it comes to real estate, which do you prefer?

51% of our audience across out digital platform say they prefer to purchase land and build a house, while 49% say they prefer to buy the house upfront?

Kindly send your opinions on this question to digital@businessday.ng

Poll of the week

The hopes of Magnus Abe, Usani Uguru and Pat Utomi to become Governors of Rivers, Cross River and Delta States on the platform of the ruling Progressives Congress, APC have been dashed as Independent National Electoral Commission.

Video of the week

Updated: Oshiomhole, Governors, Senators absent at Buhari Campaign Tweet of the week

Cartoon of the week

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Global economic outlook after Trump-Xi timeout

Dan Steinbock Dr Dan Steinbock is the founder of Difference Group and has served as research director at the India, China and America Institute (USA) and visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see https://www.differencegroup.net/

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s the G20 Summit ended in Buenos Aires, the G20 official summit statement acknowledged flaws in global commerce, called for reforming the World Trade Organization (WTO) and deleted the word “protectionism” after U.S. resistance.

The statement was completed only after hours of diplomatic bargaining over the night. As far as the European Union (EU) was concerned, the U.S. was the lone holdout on almost every issue in Buenos Aires, particularly in climate change.

The G20 economies preferred a diluted final statement to further G20 division.

Tango in Buenos Aires Following the summit’s close, Presidents Trump and Xi and their top aides met in a highly-anticipated dinner, which lasted longer than expected. Either there was magic dust in their grilled sirloin steaks paired with a malbec from the Argentine winery Catena Zapata. Or perhaps, just perhaps, reason finally prevailed.

Before Buenos Aires, Trump threatened to impose tariffs on an

FRANCIS KEHINDE EMENI Emeni is associate professor, Department of Accounting, University of Benin, and research fellow, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN).

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ater is a natural resource of fundamental importance and an essential ingredient for human security and sustainable development, hence its significant impact on health, food security, poverty and the environment. Despite the indispensability of this much-desired resource, and efforts made by government and individuals to make it available, an average Nigerian cannot get access to potable water because of the composition.

To ameliorate this problem of water scarcity, there is need to theoretically examine water accounting

additional $267 billion in Chinese goods. He also indicated he would raise the existing tariff rate on $250 billion in Chinese imports from 10% to 25% on January 1.

According to early reports, U.S. and China agreed to put on hold new tariff increases. Following Buenos Aires, the White House said that, after a “highly successful meeting”, Trump had agreed to leave tariffs on U.S. products at a 10% rate after January 1, while China agreed to buy a substantial amount of products from the U.S. The White House also said that China has agreed to start purchasing substantial U.S. agricultural, energy, industrial and other products from the U.S. to reduce the trade imbalance; and that the US and China agreed to try to reach an agreement on several trade issues “within the next 90 days.”

The first impression is that the Trump-Xi Summit may have achieved a critical truce, de-escalation of tensions, and possibly a path toward a long-term compromise.

The timeout came at the 11th hour.

Three trade-war scenarios Last October, Roberto Azevêdo, Director of the World Trade Organization (WTO), said that the trade war between the U.S. and China was far from over. The speech preceded the release of the WTO Indicator, which suggested that trade growth is likely to slow further into the fourth quarter of 2018 and below-trend trade growth in the coming months.

After a sharp upswing in 2017, both exports and imports in Asia had held up very well year-todate, with continued double-digit growth in many economies. But since the onset of Trump’s tariff

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According to WTO, merchandise trade volume growth was expected to reach 4.4% in 2018, which is still below the 2017 level.

But as Trump’s tariffs have escalated tensions, a fall in business confidence and revised investment decisions may soften the outlook

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wars in spring, elevated uncertainty has haunted the global economy.

According to WTO, merchandise trade volume growth was expected to reach 4.4% in 2018, which is still below the 2017 level. But as Trump’s tariffs have escalated tensions, a fall in business confidence and revised investment decisions may soften the outlook. Moreover, a full trade war could derail trade recovery for years.

According to the UN, global investment flows were projected to resume growth in 2017 and surpass $1.8 trillion in 2018. Thanks to U.S. neo-protectionism, they fell to $1.5 trillion last year. The current status quo looks even gloomier; especially with the trade tensions and central banks’ planned normalization.

Three scenarios illustrate the rising economic stakes of Trump’s tariff wars that have rapidly expanded from a bilateral trade conflict to a potential global trade war.

Last July, U.S. and China imposed 25% tariffs on $34 billion of the other’s imports and levies on another $16 billion. In this $50 billion Muddling

Through Scenario, the tariff’s economic impact would have been limited to 0.1% of Chinese GDP and 0.2% of U.S. GDP, respectively.

Recently, Trump has threatened with further tariff escalation. In the ‘America First’ Scenario, the stakes will quadruple to $200 billion, with soaring collateral damage. In China, it could shave off 0.4% of GDP; in the U.S., 0.8% of GDP. If the stakes of the White House’s tariff war would escalate to $500 billion – Trump’s pre-Buenos Aires goal – the potential collateral damage would increase tenfold from the first scenario. In this Global Trade War Scenario, China’s GDP could take a hit of 1%, but the U.S. GDP would suffer a 2% impact.

How will these trade war scenarios impact global growth prospects?

Three global scenarios As the global economy has passed its peak, thanks to rising interest rates and global trade tensions, each trade war scenario implies different growth prospects.

In the Muddling Through Scenario, both full trade war and ‘America First’ prospects are avoided. A good start would be a bilateral tariff truce starting in early 2019. But it is predicated on successful bilateral diplomacy that will lead to positive prospects in the second half of 2019.

In this case, global growth prospects would remain close to the OECD/ IMF baselines at around 3.5%-3.9% - possibly even higher.

In the ‘America First’ Scenario, neither truce nor diplomacy would prevail. After spring 2019, continued friction would result in progressive escalation and spill-overs in global economy. As a result, global prospects would dampen as world GDP growth in 2019 would sink to 3% or worse.

In the Global Trade War Sce-

nario, diplomacy would fail, while ‘America First’ escalation would spread across the world economy.

Risks to global outlook would overshadow world GDP growth, which would plunge to 2%-2.5% for several years to come – which would translate to plunging world trade and investment, and new geopolitical conflicts.

High stakes After Buenos Aires, the Global Trade War scenario has been temporarily suspended. Yet, the ‘America First’ scenario has not been fully reversed.

We’ve been there before. After the Trump-Xi Florida summit in April 2017, U.S. and China announced a 100-day action plan to improve strained trade ties. Yet, only two weeks later, Trump issued a memorandum, which directed Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to investigate the effects of steel imports on national security – and that became the first shot in the bilateral trade war last spring.

With the truce, the Muddling Through scenario prevails momentarily but it can easily reverse back toward escalation, even global trade war.

If the White House and the Congress fail to achieve a decent compromise in the Trump trade wars, the complications would degrade global economic outlook for years to come.

The stakes are historical. Failure should not be an option.

• Based on Dr. Steinbock’s briefing on the Trump-Xi meeting and its impact on global growth prospects on December 2, 2018

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Water accounting and challenges of water scarcity in Nigeria and how it can be used to alleviate the challenges of water scarcity in Nigeria.

Water accounting is the systematic study of the current status and trends in water supply, demand, accessibility and use in domains that have been specified.

Furthermore, it entails systematic acquisition, analysis and communication of information relating to stocks, flows and fluxes of water (from sources to sinks) in natural, disturbed or heavily engineered environments. Water accounting in a practical sense is used as a basis for evidence-informed decision-making and policy development by answering questions such as: What are the underlying causes of imbalances in water supply (quantity and quality) and demand of different water users and uses? Is the current level of consumptive water use sustainable? What opportunities exist for making water use more equitable or sustainable?

A critical aspect of water accounting is that it considers and assesses both the supply and the demand sides of water supply systems. Water accounting was developed from three distinct perspectives viz, (1) The hydrological perspective: This is based firmly on an understanding of the physical processes that govern volumes and rates of water flows, fluxes and stocks in different landscapes and/or under different agro-climatic conditions or management regimes. (2) The engineering perspective: This focuses primarily on the design, construction and operation of storage structures, bulk transfer schemes, well fields, irrigation and drainage schemes, municipal water-supply systems and water treatment plants. (3) The monitoring and evaluation perspective: This focuses on using water accounting to support or underpin management decisions or as a means to learn lessons or gain incremental improvements in policies and practices on both the supply and demand sides

of water supply and water services delivery systems.

The idea behind water accounting is the existence of scope worldwide to improve water-related sectoral and inter-sectoral decision-making at local, regional and national levels. Improvements often initiated by basing decisions on ‘best-available’ information, evidence and analysis, rather than intuition, assumptions and guesswork. The relevance of water accounting becomes more important where available water is fully or over allocated. Water accounting tracks quantities of water, aiming to maximize the way that available water can be managed to meet known water needs. Water accounting matters because, without reliable information, debate is uninformed and stakeholders have no basis for challenging factually incorrect or biased positions. Similarly, effective planning is near impossible if stakeholders are working with their own differing information bases.

Yet, such a situation is very common. For example, government line departments, when attempting to align plans, rarely have access to a common information base.

Similarly, local level water users may have a very different perception of their levels of water services as compared to organizations that are responsible for delivering these services. A key output of water accounting is, therefore, a common information base that is acceptable to all the key stakeholders involved in planning or other decision-making processes. Based on this, the Nigerian government should create the Nigerian Bureau of Meteorology that has a clear mandate to create the ‘National Water Account’ that would assist in meeting the information needs of various stakeholders and improve the public understanding about water resources in Nigeria.

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Child protection: Who’s on the other side of the line?

BOLANLE OTUKOYA Otukoya is a budding Child Protection advocate who seeks to create awareness about children’s rights violations.

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n the game of football, there are 2 sides, each seeking to win the game. There is a ball being tossed back and forth until the referee’s whistle marks the end of the game. The game of life is similar to that of football but here the ball represents children. While many people are introduced into their lives there are only two teams; those who seek to take advantage of their innocence and those who don’t.

As the world evolves, protecting children has never been so important. The violation of the rights of children comes in many forms (violence, child labour, trafficking, sexual exploitation, female genital mutilation, child marriage, lack of official recording of births etc.) and millions of children around the world experience the worst kinds of ADEMOLA CROWNSON ADEGOKE Adegokeis a Lagos based media consultant and Public Affairs commentator.

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ith all its thrills and frills, the electioneering season is here once again. It’s the season of vote-shopping and citizens are in for all manner vote winning baits and gimmicks. From the sublime to the bizarre, politicians will stop at nothing to sway and persuade prospective voters to their sides.

One ploy commonly used by politicians in this clime to present a façade of general acceptance of their candidacy is endorsement by groups and associations of diverse nature and intent. This, they do in the belief that the more endorsement they get from different groups, the brighter their electoral prospect. But is this really the case? To what extent does endorsement of a candidate by different groups affect the electoral fortune of the candidate?

To guard against intentions being misconstrued, let it be said from the onset that the motive here is neither to support nor discredit any candidate. It is not to detract from the popularity anybody ascribes to himself arising from the endorsement received from various groupings in the land. Rather the intention is to look at the reliability or otherwise of such endorsements. It is for us to determine whether lack of such endorsements automatically spell doom for the unendorsed candidate. Let it also be made clear that we are not out to question the right of the endorsers to endorse

rights violations (UNICEF). In the present day, child sexual abuse has become like a cancer eating into the very fabric of our society.

Worldwide, around 15 million adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 have experienced forced sex in their lifetime; 9 million of these girls had been victimized within the past year. Of those abused, 9 in 10 reported that they experienced forced sex in the hands of someone known to them. Unfortunately, only 1% of adolescent girls who have experienced forced sex reached out for professional help.

Boys are at risk too but many of the atrocities against them are largely unreported (UNICEF).

In Nigeria, according to the 2014 Violence Against Children Survey (VACS), 16.4% of females and 8.4% of males aged 13 to 17 years experienced sexual abuse in the 12 months prior to the survey. Of those reporting sexual abuse in the past 12 months, 64.1% of females and 76.0% of males experienced multiple incidents of sexual abuse over the course of their lifetime.

Whereas, 47% of female and 34.9% of male reported cases took place at age 13 or earlier. The abused children frequently named neighbours as the last perpetrators of

the abuse.

Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) takes place multiple times every day but many are unreported as evidenced in Nigeria. People who sexually abuse children can be found at home, in schools, churches, mosques, recreation centres, youth sports leagues, and any other places children gather.

Surprisingly, abusers can be and often are other children. With CSA, the stranger danger rule does not apply. Those we contend with are often closer to the children than we think, they manage to gain their trust and then strike.

We cannot always be with our children. Hence, we have to equip them with knowledge. It is important to help them understand when a touch is predatory and intrusive.

Children - both boys and girls - need to be able to identify their private parts by name and know when contact with these organs is tantamount to abuse. They must also be aware of what to do when this occurs - report to a trusted adult. This is where educating the school, parents, and religious leaders, amongst others, about the sensitivities of child protection becomes important.

Also, laws will need to be amended to account for current realities.

CSA goes beyond penetration to

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People who sexually abuse children can be found at home, in schools, churches, mosques, recreation centres, youth sports leagues, and any other places children gather.

Surprisingly, abusers can be and often are other children

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include inappropriate touching or fondling of private parts, illicit exposure of children to sexual content, which may be a form of grooming before the actual act and so on. These need to be accounted for in our laws. A child need not go through the painful experience of forced sex before we are able to take action.

We can no longer bury our heads in the sand and act like this

is not happening around us. CSA is a global epidemic with dire effects and should be treated as such.

Statistics reveal that delinquency, crime, substance abuse, teenage pregnancies, amongst other vices are more prevalent in adolescents with a history of child sexual abuse than their counterparts. Often times, the victims eventually become the abusers if the situation is not managed properly, and in most cases, it is not.

Following the recent UNICEF World Children’s Day which was celebrated on 20th November, it is important to remember that children have the right to be protected.

A key UNICEF goal is to ensure that government decisions are influenced by an informed awareness of children’s rights and by improved data and analysis on child protection issues. Children’s rights violations have to be captured. You have a part to play. Sign the UNICEF petition here: https://www.unicef.org/ node/20606/#petition and #GoBlue to call on world leaders to commit to fulfilling the rights of every child and acknowledge that these rights are non-negotiable. It is your duty.

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2019: Much ado about endorsements candidates of their choice. Surely anybody has the right to endorse any candidate to whom he is so attracted.

The first question that needs be asked and answered however is the motive behind the endorsement. Was the endorsement arrived at after a painstaking analysis of the strengths, weaknesses and performance prospects of all the available candidates or was it just a ventilation of personal and selfish interest with little or no bearing to the collective aspirations of the people on behalf of whom the endorsement has been given. More often than not, the latter, rather than the former, is usually the catalyst for the endorsement. In many instances, top officials of the endorsing organisations would have enjoyed some monetary largesse from the candidates being endorsed.

Where this does not happen, there would have been promises of juicy contracts or political appointments to the endorsers or their cronies before endorsement takes place. Pray, tell me, how reliable can such endorsements be?

Another issue that comes to the fore is the political strength, relevance and influence that the endorsers command for their pronouncement of support or absence of it for any candidate to deserve serious attention. With due respect to the leaders of the socio-cultural organisations that have declared support for some candidates in the 2019 elections, the caveat needs be served that their ability to influence voting pattern among the people they

claim to be representing may after all be more imaginary than real.

Without doubt, many of the leaders have paid their due as far as serving the Nigerian nation is concerned.

The fact that they have, in their time, served with untainted commitment and zeal cannot be controverted by any objective appraiser. This, however does not confer on them the right to choose for the rest of us. Besides, to what extent does a record of unblemished service to fatherland translate to political influence; especially in a moneydrenched politics like ours. The political clout of the major protagonists of the socio-cultural organisations is seriously diluted by the fact that many of today’s electorate for whom they claim to speak, were born after the leaders had left public service. What this means is that a large number of the electorate does not have first-hand information about the political and public service antecedent of many of these septuagenarians and octogenarians claiming to be protecting their socio-political interest. We may then want to ask, to what extent can the political views of those whose antecedent one knows little or nothing about influence one’s political decisions?

Sight must also not be lost of the absence of wide consultation across the larger nationalities and groupings whose interest the endorsement is supposed to represent.

Such a broad-based consultation would have served the purpose of conferring legitimacy, popularity and true representation on the endorsement.

Nothing typifies the impossibil-

ity of all members of an ethnic group reaching a consensus on the choice of a candidate for the entire group more than the bedlam of disputations that have been emanating from different quarters within the ethnic groups on behalf of whom the endorsements were made. For instance, no sooner had the president of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Professor Ben Nwabueze announced the group’s endorsement of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s candidacy than another Igbo socio-cultural organization, Igbo World Union (IWU) countered the stand of Ohaneze, claiming that the Igbo people had not decided which candidate to vote for in the 2019 election. As the President General of IWU, Mishak Ntanta put it, ‘Ndigbo have not decided on which direction to vote in 2019, be it PDP or APC candidate, and no fewer individuals or stakeholders should mortgage the political future of Ndigbo as they did in 2015’.

Also kicking against the stand of Ohaneze was the leader of another Igbo group, Igboezuo, Chekwas Okorie who also doubles as the Chairman of Progressives Peoples’ Party (UPP). Okorie claimed to be among the four founders of Ohaneze Ndigbo and to his knowledge, they had not met to decide on who to support.

The situation in the Oduduwa enclave where the leading sociocultural body, Afenifere has also declared support for Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has not been less cacophonous. One of the leading members of the group, Senator Ayo Fasanmi has not been hiding his disdain for the stand of some

of his colleagues in the leadership of the group. For the nonagenarian oldest surviving disciple of Awolowo political ideology, the Ayo Fasoranti led Afenifere had derailed from the original vision of the group by its support for a politician of conservative leaning.

Now, where does this lead us about endorsement.

It should now be clear to us that we are far gone from that age and time when a group of people could gather together and decree what the political choice of millions of others will be. Going down memory lane, every election season in the country has always thrown up situations where various groups of similar political or cultural persuasions conflate to prescribe a political course of action for the larger group which they claim to be speaking for. Way back in1983, in the build-up to the presidential election of that year, the Kaduna Mafia, a nebulous assemblage of influential military officers and top civil servants, reached an accord with the candidate of the Unity Party of Nigeria, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Going by the influence the group wielded, it appeared to many, that the accord with the group was a fait accompli for Chief Awolowo to win the election. The election came and went and Chief Awolowo could only come second to the incumbent, Alhaji Sheu Shagari.

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12

BUSINESS DAY

comment God bless Nigeria

Stanley Ekpa Ekpa is the Editor-in-Chief, Nigerian Corruption Cases Law Report. He writes from Kaduna.

O

ur democracy is desperately turning to a stock of commerce - one which the equation of wealth with politics is the outstanding feature; a political culture defined by the motive of direct financial gains, characterized by huge campaign expenses, with a terrifying concentration of wealth, influence and power in the hands of a few politicians who claim to be the Messiahs of the people. It will be entirely pejorative to classify Nigerians as uneducated people; Nigerians, anywhere in the world are creative, smart and highly intelligent people.

My purport, however, is to xray the relationship between education, educated people and democracy, particularly as it partakes to Nigeria. Since 1728, Daniel Defoe made it clear that of our reflections, none should be more constantly our companion than a deep sorry for the present decay of learning among us and the manifest corruption of education. The special difficulties is that democracy and education are closely linked, and the quality of a democracy can only improves as quality education increases, yet, education is worth little unless it includes education in civilized character, creativity and ability to own up your destiny. The di-

Friday 07 December 2018

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comment is free

Send 800word comments to comment@businessdayonline.

Uneducated democracy and encumbrances on development lemma is that in reality, a large number of Nigerians are semi electoral-literate - people who mostly belief what their political heroes tell them without much questions or merely resort to armchair criticism; and people who rely even more on anything that their favorite media outfit presents as reliable news.

But it is important to underscore that education and the ability to read newspapers and listern to news are not synonymous. The question, therefore, is, what exactly is the nexus between literacy and electoral process, electoral process and sustainable development?

Nigeria achieved a democratic franchise from the pre-independence days in some part of the country; with a dangling question of how to devise a qualitative franchise, the electorates having the capacity to exercise their franchise in manners that bring about good governance and development.

The role of an educated electorate in a democracy is classified into three segments, viz: pre-election (assessment of candidates credentials of competence and the viability of their manifestos); during elections (exercising franchise in civilized, free and patriotic manner); post elections (holding leaders accountable and duty bound to discharge their constitutional responsibilities and to fulfill campaign promise).

In the old Nigeria, with a soul less entrenched in selfish compromises and sentiments, people were elected to represent their constituency based on who they are and what they can do.

In 1950, money, ethnicity and violence played less role in the elections of Mazi Mbonu Ojike as the Deputy Mayor to Olorunimbe in Lagos; similarly, Gboko constituency of Tiv Land, elected Alhaji Ibrahim Abubakar (a man from Maiduguri) to represent them in the Parliament; this was the Nigerian electoral

‘

Informed and educated electorate are expected to go beyond the shouting of Buhari, Atiku, Fela, Kingsley, Sowere, Ezekwesile, Ahmed, amongst others, to distilling the issues on the manifestos of the candidates - this is the pre-election responsibility of an educated electorate in a civilized democracy

’

system before the ‘spoils’ system in our democracy and before the need to distribute high offices geographically.

These two systems introduced election rigging and violence; it hiked our census data, the highest number gets the lion share in development index, and communities began to see the urgency to install ‘sons of the soil’ as leaders, who are sent on errand to bring home their share of the ‘national cake’: later, rigging was introduced as a simple path of electoral fraud. Now voting buying defines our electoral culture.

Owning up the electoral process is the major hallmark of a political system that has an educated electorate.

Nigeria, is still divided along the temporary opportunities our support for candidates in our elections can fetch us. With the unveiling of the electoral

manifestos by political parties for the 2019 general elections, the questions are not about the quoted campaign promises but the fundamental issues of “how” would the candidates actualize those ideas if given the mandate?

How would the government fund the ideas? What time frame would it take the government to actualize the ideas?

Informed and educated electorate are expected to go beyond the shouting of Buhari, Atiku, Fela, Kingsley, Sowere, Ezekwesile, Ahmed, amongst others, to distilling the issues on the manifestos of the candidates - this is the preelection responsibility of an educated electorate in a civilized democracy.

The discourse and civic voices must be engaged from the rural areas to the presidency. Unfortunately, Nigerians prefer to monetize their PVCs than leverage it as an essential instrument to restore a decent society and country of their cravings.

More so, with the emptiness of the campaign documents, the onus is on the people to remind the candidates and their political parties that Chapter II of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, already makes eloquent provisions that it shall be the primary purpose of every Nigerian governments to secure the nation and ensure the welfare of the people. What is more therefore, is to provide an equipped manifestos that clearly answers the question of how to achieve this constitutional duty and to bring new innovations in line with the global development demands. Including the fight against corruption in campaign manifesto is saying that the candidates and their political parties are unaware of the sanctity of Section 15 (5) of the 1999 Constitution, which states that “the state ‘shall’ abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power”;

likewise, sections 16 of the constitution already talked about harnessing our natural and human resources to promote inclusive national prosperity, what is left unfixed is the parameters for filling in the promotion of a planned and balanced economic development for a functional, efficient and productive Nigeria, and how such economy will benefit the common man in Nigeria.

The electioneering period presents a window of responsibilities for an informed and educated electorate, with the demands to exercise their franchise in a civilized, free and patriotic manners. The people must shun the culture of money induced voting. It is understandable that the impoverished economic situation and beclouding hunger in the country has the tendencies of compromising our uprightness in not selling our votes, but we must know that cowing in is simply to allow the politicians succeed in their ploy to perpetuate poverty in order to perpetuate themselves in power. God forbid that we sell our birthright for a two day plate of food. We must think long term, think of our children’s future, think of the jobs or economic recession that we may avoid by voting right, think of the politicians as social investors who are definitely going to milk the state treasury dry to recover their political investment, we must think of a whole four years of complaints and suffering, above all, we must think of a prosperous Nigeria that our votes will ushered in if we vote in the best interest of the country.

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Employee retention: Why employers get it wrong Jude Adigwe Adigwe is a certified Human Resource Management (HRM) professional and an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist. He is the Human Resources and Administration Manager at Sharemind Lagos. adigwejudeobi@gmail.com

W

ithin the organizational space there is so much talk about recruitment and selection then profit making – screen, test, select and employ the best crop of applicants then keep them focused on maximizing profit for the company. Make no mistake, profit maximization is a good thing...but what about retention of those who make profit-making a reality? For many employers, money is all it takes to retain employees in organizations– there is nothing farther from the truth.

Sometimes, employees stay in organizations not due to fantastic pay rather because there are no alternatives jobs out there – that

is not the sort of employee commitment or loyalty that you should brag about as an employer. It is important to keep in mind that there are more subtle factors that make employees genuinely committed to a company. These are factors that employers either turn a blind eye to or unknowingly lose sight of. It is fitting at this point to ask: what is employee retention? Employee retention, according to www. mbaskool.com, “is the overall strategy or ability of an organization to retain its best employees and hence maintain a lower turnover”.

This definition makes it very clear that the focus is to retain the best employees – those who add value to the business. While it is a common sense to retain this category of employees, it is important to say that those who are not categorized as such should be those who display poor performance only after organizations have made efforts (in form of training etc.) to improve their performance.

The assumption that employees will remain committed to organizations insofar as they get paid at the end of the month is an orientation shaped by formal contracts among other things. It is paramount to mention here that a formal contract and a psychological contract are two different things. Business Dictionary defines a formal con-

tract as a “contract made legally enforceable by following a prescribed format, and by incorporating standardized conditions and provisions in its body.” Succinctly, it is a legally enforceable agreement – in this context, the written employment contract between an employer and employee is apt. A psychological contract as defined

by HRZone is “the unwritten set of expectations of the employment relationship as distinct from the formal, codified employment contract”. Interestingly, these unwritten and unspoken expectations are most times linked to high turnover rate (i.e. the high rate of employees’ exit from organizations). According to Forbes, employees quit companies for these reasons: lack of company vision; no connection to big picture; no empathy; no (effective) motivation; no future; no fun. Katie Martinelli in her article Causes of employee turnover and strategies to reduce it, identified the following as reasons for high turnover rate: lack of growth and progression opportunities; being overworked (i.e. burnout owing to a work-life imbalance); lack of feedback and recognition; little opportunity for decision making; poor employee selection (i.e. getting the employee selection exercise wrong). These issues are rarely captured in employment contracts

nonetheless employees have these expectations.

The reasons behind why employees leave organizations vary from company to company and it is the responsibility of Human Resource Departments in organizations to investigate and unpack the reasons behind the exodus of employees from their respective organizations– an issue that might eventually to call to question the integrity of their corporate brands.

I would be remiss if I fail to mention that some exits are inevitable hence the reason why focus should be on resignations that are avoidable.

Employers must realize that to retain valued employees, they must go beyond salaries and wages (and staff training – actually, for companies that train their staff ).

They should consider the whole spectrum of factors that guarantee retention of employees in organizations. Management must have a deep understanding of human behaviour and the myriad of factors that motivate and engage employees – there must be a genuine interest and resolve to truly engage employees because this is what will ensure sustainability of retention strategies that are designed and adopted. Adopted retention strategies must be backed by policies and procedures to show the value

placed on employee retention. I recall upon joining an organization, an employee retention policy and procedure was among the first set of policies I had to develop because I felt talent attraction was insufficient without a robust plan to engage and retain them. If indeed we value the employees we spend money to recruit and select then we must invest in their retention.

Also, this led me to design a survey instrument to gauge employees’ expectations – this was necessary because I realized over time that employers lose sight of the fact that employees’ expectations implied in employment contracts are narrow and skewed because they are defined by employers for employees which is indeed a huge problem.

In conclusion, I am of the opinion that companies should develop varied and robust employee retention programmes – ‘varied and robust’ implies that a blanket retention approach would be ineffective because what will retain employee A in an organization may not retain employee B. Lest I forget, organizations might want to consider having employee retention as one of their corporate key performance indicators.

Send reactions to: comment@businessdayonline.com

Friday 07 December 2018

Publisher/CEO

Frank Aigbogun editor Anthony Osae-Brown DEPUTY EDITORS John Osadolor, Abuja Bill Okonedo NEWS EDITOR Patrick Atuanya EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, OPERATIONS Fabian Akagha EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DIGITAL SERVICES Oghenevwoke Ighure GENERAL MANAGER, ADVERT Adeola Ajewole ADVERT MANAGER Ijeoma Ude FINANCE MANAGER Emeka Ifeanyi MANAGER, CONFERENCES & EVENTS Obiora Onyeaso SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Patrick Ijegbai CIRCULATION MANAGER John Okpaire DIGITAL SALES MANAGER Linda Ochugbua GM, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT (North)

Bashir Ibrahim Hassan

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

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Editorial

Rethinking Education: The road ahead

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ducation delivery in Nigeria grapples with three major problems: relevanc e, stand ard and accessibility. Whilst graduates complain of soaring unemployment rates, employers of labour express dissatisfaction with the quality of graduates churned out yearly.

Employers contend that a substantial number of these graduates are unemployable. These are two sides of the same coin: rising unemployment rates and un-employability of graduates. This raises questions about the relevance of skills (if any) learnt in school to real life problem solving.

The problem of relevance is compounded with one of standard and quality of learning in our education system. It is appalling that some university graduates have a hard time constructing simple sentences without grammar errors. Letter writing that used to be learnt with relative ease in the Junior High School is now a daunting task for many undergraduates. About 60 percent of final year projects submitted at our tertiary institutions were not written by their authors. We are looking here at symptoms of a bigger problem. Our education system promotes rote learning to the detriment of critical thinking skills. This starts from the basic level, where teachers impress on students the notion that students are like sponges; they must soak in all that the teacher has to say, and reproduce it during examination. Students are not encouraged to learn from experience.

Access to education is the last of the trio, but by far, the most vexing.

When the curriculum is relevant, and there is a delivery of high standard, but inaccessible to those targeted, the aim is then defeated.

In Nigeria, the problem of access is interwoven with the two preceding problems. Nigeria’s exponential growth in population has put immense pressure on its resources and has already overstretched public services and infrastructure.

According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), 40 percent of children aged 6 – 11 in Nigeria do not attend any primary school with the Northern region, recording the lowest school attendance, particularly for girls. Despite a significant increase in net enrolment rates in recent years, it is estimated that about 4.7 million children of primary school age are still not in school.

Increased enrolment rates have also created challenges in ensuring quality education and satisfactory learning achievement as resources are spread more thinly across a growing number of students. It is not rare to see cases of 100 pupils per teacher or students sitting under trees outside the school building because of lack of classrooms.

This situation is being addressed with the implementation of the Basic Education scheme. The compulsory, free Universal Basic Education (UBE) Act was passed into law in 2004 and represents strategic effort to fight illiteracy and extend basic education opportunities to all children in the country.

However, the number of schools, facilities and teachers available for

basic education remain inadequate for the eligible number of children and youths. This is more so in urban areas where there is population pressure. Under these conditions, teaching and learning cannot be effective; hence, the outcomes are usually below expectation. Besides, certificates are overrated in Nigeria at the expense of competence.

This is in the backdrop of current statistics, which estimate that 40.9 percent of Nigeria’s almost 200 million population is 14 years and below and 70 percent below 30. Approximately 1.8 million sit for the West Africa Examination Council exams. Recently, the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) announced that over 1.85 million young Nigerians sat for the examination to fill 400, 000 places in all tertiary institutions; an estimated 1.4 million of this number would join the army of the unemployed. This happens annually, bloating the bottom of the pyramid or the informal sector. Nigeria could learn from Bangladeshi education experiments and successes in creating a formal structure for skills acquisition in the informal sector. Both countries are third world and among the most populous in the world.

Bangladesh is the 8th most populous country in the world, whilst Nigeria is the 7th. Bangladesh has a large informal economy (like Nigeria) and an illiteracy rate of 65 percent. Three quarters of the population is rural; about 31 per cent live below the international poverty line.

This means that every third person is struggling every day to survive.

Bangladesh is highly dependent on the remittances migrant workers

sent back to the country (indeed, these constitute the largest source of foreign capital, as reported by Bangladeshi Ministry of Education).

The National Technical and Vocational Qualifications Framework (NTVQF) is currently being implemented in Bangladesh. It was initiated in 2008 as one of the most important building blocks of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Reform Project, funded by the European Commission (EC) and implemented by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in collaboration with the Government of Bangladesh Ministry of Education.

The NTVQF is intended to cover the existing workforce and those entering the workforce. The framework allows for the recognition of skills workers have acquired in the informal sector, and includes postsecondary qualifications up to diploma level. The new qualifications are to be offered in formal education and training as well as workplace training and all training provided by public and private organisations, whether officially recognised or not.

Nigeria needs to move from certificate-based to competencybased education system. True, a few in research and teaching would need advanced academic degrees to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. However, Nigeria’s economic prosperity depends on how it conceives of and delivers education to the largest segment of its population locked out in the informal sector with no access to formal institutions that badly need upgrading in terms of curriculum and carrying capacity.

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

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MoneyInsight

Personal Finance: Investing Retirement

Taxes

Credit Cards

Home Buying

Nigeria’s fintech operators strategise to elevate financial literacy …as FinTechNGR organises first African Fintech Festival STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

F

inancial technology (fintech) companies in Nigeria are mapping out strategies to drive an inclusive financial services model, which will cover those excluded by the traditional financial industry but massive education is needed.

FinTech, refers to new technology or innovation that disrupts traditional ways of conducting financial transactions. This includes digitising processes that were previously handled with paper money and human interaction.

“We need a radical paradigm shift in Nigeria to reap the full benefits of fintech. This requires massive financial education. Nigerians understand trade but struggle to understand services based business models. It is time to start productising fintech” Temilola Adejane, cofounder/CEO of Bankly, a start-up fintech company said at the first Africa Fintech Festival in Lagos, December 03 – 07, organised by the Fintech Association of Nigeria.

According to the latest Global Findex Database report published April 19 only 40 percent of Nigerian adults have bank accounts. This translates to 118 million Nigerians who are not captured in mainstream financial services sector.

Globally, about 1.7 billion adults remain unbanked, without an account at a financial institution or through a mobile money provider.

Nearly half live in seven developing economies such as Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan.

To deal with this, Nigerian fintech developers and their investor partners are working out strategies to provide financial services to Nigeria’s 118 million unbanked adults,

S who live in rural or semi-urban settlements. Nigeria’s unbanked adults belong to the poorest 40 percent of households. And of these poorest households, over 60 percent of women are unbanked.

“Two factors will help speed up the financial inclusion and bridge the last mile in Nigeria: unstructured supplementary service data (USSD) and agent banking” Salami Abolore, founder/CEO Riby Finance Limited, a unified finance platform said at the Africa Fintech Festival. “We are providing micro loans for school fees to parents in Makoko.”

The objective of agent banking is to provide minimum standards and requirements for agent banking operations, enhance financial inclusion and provide for agent banking as a delivery channel for offering banking services in a cost-effective manner.

Agent banking is the provision of financial services to customers by a third party (agent) on behalf of a licensed deposit taking financial institution and/or mobile money operator (principal).

“We have registered 1, 000 agents who have in turn registered 400, 000 customers” Abolore said.

Fintech is not new. It has been around in one form or another vir-

tually as long as financial services have. After the global financial crisis of 2008, Fintech has evolved to disrupt and reshape commerce, payments, investment, asset management, insurance, clearance and settlement of securities and even money itself with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin.

Fintech in Nigeria deals with basic needs such as help customers save, borrow, invest, make payments, get mortgage and insurance.

“There is a fintech revolution going on requires the collaboration among banks, fintech companies and the government” Abolore said.

Companies in Africa’s most populous nation’s fintech space have also attracted international attention. Funding has surpassed $250 million. Lending and savings have surged. There is increased partnership with banks and an oncoming competition from telecommunication companies (telcos).

“The market is growing rapidly and very simple traditional technologies can solve many problems for Nigerians. There has also been a lot of hype and regulation has been slow to catch-up” Lexi Novistske, principal investment officer - Africa at Singularity Investments said.

FRANK ELEANYA

T

hood with Aso Rock and the city centre, the apartments and hotel are a 35 minute drive from the Abuja International Airport.

There are 55 rooms and 12 lush apartments all with spacious living rooms, three fully fitted en-suite bathrooms, guest toilets, premium furnished kitchens fitted with state-of-the-art washers, dryers, dishwashers, ample storage facilities, with in-room climate control to ensure occupants are very comfortable no matter the weather.

There are ample spaces for events including a conference centre suitable for private meet-

ings and corporate events, a rooftop terrace that offers a transcendent view of the FCT, giving guests an elevated experience and a secluded ambience of serenity.

The Wells Carlton Hotel also houses two avant-garde bars and four stately restaurants that serve continental and local cuisines.

Guests can also be treated to both ancient and contemporary beauty therapies at the Hotel Spa called Tirta Ayu. “As a crowning jewel located in the plush Asokoro area of the Federal Capital Territory, the Wells Carlton Hotel and Luxury Apartments offers its guests 14 breath-taking and stunning Luxury Apartments and Penthouses,” a statement from the hotel stated.

“Level of detail, attention to excellence, breath-taking splendor, and the provision of every imaginable comfort and facility make these accommodations stand out from anything obtainable anywhere in the world.”

Financing

South Africa retains most popular city in Africa – Mastercard Index FRANK ELEANYA

The Wells Carlton brings five star hospitality, lifestyle to Abuja he Wells Carlton Hotel and Apartments will be unveiled to residents in Nigeria’s federal capital territory, Abuja, seeking premium hospitality and lifestyle on 15th December, 2018.

The event which will be headlined by the Vice President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbajo will take place at the site of the apartments located within the serene and secure Asokoro District area.

“This is a brand to which I have attached my name,” Idahosa Wells Okunbo, chairman of The Wells Carlton Hotel and Luxury Apartments noted in a statement. “It has taken me nine years to achieve.

Not nine years because it could not have been ready sooner; but nine years because, for me, only the word ‘Perfect’ will do. This brand stands for my character of tenacity, perfection, integrity and excellence.”

Apart from sharing neighbour-

Small Business Shopping

outh Africa’s Johannesburg attracted 4.05 million international overnight visitors beating every other country in Africa as the most popular destination city in 2017, says the annual Mastercard Global Destination Cities Index. It is the fifth time in a row the country is topping the index.

Its closest competition, Marrakech in Morocco welcomed 3.93 million international overnight visitors in 2017. Two South African cities Polokwane and Cape Town which saw I.88 million and 1.73 million visitors took the third and fourth positions while Djerba in Tunisia with 1.65 million rounded off the top five African cities ranked in the index.

South Africa also knocked off competition in terms of spending as inter-

national overnight visitors spent $2.14 billion during the period. Marrakech in second position earned $1.64 billion. International visitors to Johannesburg stayed 10.9 nights on average and spent $48 per day with shopping accounting for more than 50 per cent of their total spend.

“The ranking is significant for Johannesburg’s economic prospects as visitor expenditure contributes an important source of revenue to the retail, hospitality, restaurant and cultural sectors,” Mark Elliot, division president of Mastercard Southern Africa said in a statement sent to BusinessDay. The 2017 index ranked 23 major African cities including Cairo, Nairobi, Lagos, Casablanca, Durban, Tunis, Dar es Salam, Accra, Kampala, Maputo and Dakar among others.

Vatebra emerges ‘Tech Company of the Year’ thrice in a row

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atebra, a leading ICT company with competencies in customized, portal, OEM and cloud e-payments and energy solutions, has emerged the ‘Tech Company of the Year’ for the third consecutive time at the 4th edition of the Nigeria Technology Awards (NiTA) held in Lagos recently.

The annual award, organized by Beta Media 360, celebrates the technology companies that have demonstrated leadership, success and outstanding quality service in Nigeria for the year in review.

In January 2018, Vatebra officially opened its East African office in Nairobi, Kenya as a way of further pushing the boundaries of innovative software solutions in Africa.

“Winning the NiTA award three times in a row is a testament to the commitment and hard work the entire Vatebra team devotes to innovative

software solutions that work for Africa,” said Kunle Akinniran, MD/CEO, Vatebra Limited, while receiving the award.

To buttress his assertion, Vatebra, through its innovation hub, recently hosted the second iteration of its tech meetup known as CODIFY. Deputy Managing Director Mike Aigbe explained that the meet-up was targeted at not only bringing techies together but also bridging the skill-gap in the technology space by providing the ambience and innovative education needed to grow the industry.

In May 2018, Vatebra also gave back to the society through its walk-for-charity initiative which saw staff and friends of the company embarking on a 6-kilometer charity walk in the heart of Victoria Island, and donating consumables and other sundries to the Living Fountain Orphanage in the locale.

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MoneyInsight

Families adopt prudent spending as Christmas beckons

...some tips to facilitate shopping STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

S

eventeen days to Christmas, families and individuals are making some last minute prudential tweaks to their budget aligning it to prevailing economic conditions.

Most people want to plan their Christmas shopping ahead of time in order to avoid last minute rush. By some unforeseen twists and turns this often does not happen.

Should you find yourself in a similar situation, shopping the last week before Christmas, here are a few tips for you, synthesised from talking to both consumers and experts.

So, before you go into a desperate shopping frenzy, check out these tips for last-minute shoppers.

Make a list and check it twice One of the biggest traps of last-minute shopping is going over budget. Before you brave any store, make a list of how much you’d like to spend on each person you are buying for, and stick to it. Resist the urge to keep shopping

for the perfect gift, and leave the store as soon as you’ve crossed everyone off your list.

Set a time limit Retailers have a few tricks up their sleeves to get you to linger in their stores, such as playing catchy holiday music and scenting the air with

pleasant holiday smells, making it more likely you’ll buy something on impulse.

To avoid this trap, make plans immediately following your shopping trip to limit the amount of time you spend in the mall. The less time you spend shopping means less temptation to overspend or impulse buy.

Get online Most online retailers guarantee delivery up to a few days before Christmas, so skip the mall and shop online for your gifts instead. You can avoid the hustle and bustle of the holiday crowds, and you can either ship your gifts right to the recipient, or have them sent to you.

Shop on Christmas Eve We know — waiting until the day before Christmas to shop sounds like a terrible idea. But think of it this way — most people are finished by Christmas Eve, meaning the malls will be less crowded, allowing you to shop without having to fight hoards of other panicky procrastinators.

Get creative Do you have a special talent, such as painting, pottery-making, or photography? Or maybe you’re an expert on car repair, childcare services, or dog-walking? Create a coupon offering your service to be used in the weeks to come. It will take some of the pressure off having to have a gift in time for the holidays, and the recipient will love the thoughtfulness of your gesture.

Know when to Stop Once you’ve bought for everyone on your list, stop shopping. It sounds simple enough, but often times, the urge to find the perfect gift compels anxious shoppers to keep going. Just because your gift is last-minute does not mean it’s inadequate.

Skip the clothes Clothes can be tough to get right even when you aren’t shopping in lastminute frenzy. Do yourself a favour and skip the clothing department altogether.

Re-gift If it’s come down to the wire and you’re really in a bind, considering re-gifting as a last resort. Just make sure your gift doesn’t fall into the hands of someone who might find out your secret — or worse — into the hands of the person who originally gave it to you!

How to write a business plan in seven steps STEPHEN ONYEKWELU

ment Use this section of your business plan to show off your team superstars. In fact, there are plenty of indications that your management team matters more than your product idea or pitch.

Venture capitalists want to know you have a competent team that has the grit to stick it out. You are more likely to be successful and pivot if needed when you have the right management and organisation for your company.

Make sure you highlight the expertise and qualifications of each member of the team in your business plan. You want to impress.

O

ne of the challenges facing young entrepreneurs is how to craft a bankable business plan, which could make a potential investor pay attention.

No matter how long you have been in operation, your business needs a clear plan. A good business plan can help you secure funding for your start-up, or expand your operation.

Even if you are not looking for a capital infusion right this moment, a business plan can still be a great deal of help. The process of creating a business plan forces you to look at your business and evaluate what is working — and what is not. It can help you focus on the right things and give you a roadmap to future success.

There are seven elements you should get right when writing a business plan, these include: executive summary, business description, market analysis, organisation management, sales strategies, funding requirements and financial projections.

All of these elements can help you as you build your business, in addition to showing lenders and potential backers that you have a clear idea of what you are doing.

Executive summary The executive summary is basically the elevator pitch for your business. It distils all the important information about your business plan into a relatively short space.

It is a high-level look at everything and should include information that summarises the other sections of your plan.

One of the best ways to approach writing the executive summary is to finish it last so you can include the important ideas from other sections.

Business description This is your chance to describe your company and what it does.

Include a look at when the business was formed, and your mission statement. These are the things that tell your story and allow others to connect to you. It can also serve as your own reminder of why you got started in the first place. Turn to this section for motivation if you find yourself losing steam.

Some of the other questions you can answer in the business description section of your plan include: What is the business model?

(What are your customer bases, revenue sources and products?).

Do you have special business relationships that offer you an advantage? Where are you located?

Who are the principals? What is the legal structure? What are some of the market opportunities? What is your projected growth?

Answering these questions narrows your focus and shows potential lenders and backers how you are viewing your venture.

Market analysis This is your chance to look at your competition and the state of the market as a whole. Your market analysis is an exercise in seeing where you fit in the market and how you are superior to the competition.

As you create your market analysis, you need to make sure to include information on your core target market, profiles of your ideal customers and other market research. You can also include testimonials if you have them.

Organisation and manage-

Sales strategies How will you raise money with your business and make profits a reality? You answer this question with your sales strategy. This section is all about explaining your price strategy and describing the relationship between your price point and everything else at the company.

You should also detail the promotional strategies you are using now, along with strategies you hope to implement later. This includes your social media efforts and how you use press releases and other appearances to help raise your brand awareness and encourage people to buy or sign up for your products or services.

Your sales strategy section should include information on your web development efforts and your search engine optimisation plan. You want to show that you have thought about this, and you’re ready to implement a plan to ramp

up sales.

Funding requirements Here is where you ask for the amount of money you need. Make sure you are being as realistic as possible. You can create a range of numbers if you don’t want to try to pinpoint an exact number. Include information for a best-case scenario and a worst-case scenario. You should also put together a timeline so your potential funders have an idea of what to expect.

No matter your business, get an idea of what steps you need to take to make it happen and how long they typically take. Add it all into your timeline.

Financial projections Finally, the last section of your business plan should include financial projections. Make sure you summarise any successes up to this point. This is especially important if you hope to secure funds for expansion of your existing business.

Your forward-looking projections should be based on information about your revenue growth and market trends. You want to be able to use information about what is happening, combined with your sales strategies, to create realistic projections that let others know when they can expect to see returns.

Even though it can be timeconsuming to create a business plan, your efforts will be rewarded.

The process is valuable for helping you identify potential problems, as well as help you plan ahead. You will be more organised and better prepared for success.

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Investors sidestep Nigeria as I & E window inflows slump to $1.98bn

Pg. 19

C o m pa n y n e w s a n a ly s i s a n d i n s i g h t

BANKING

CSL sees wider FG fiscal deficit on revenue shortfall MICHEAL ANI

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igeria’s fiscal deficit may widen in 2018 due to the persistent shortfall in federally collected revenue, according to analysts at Lagos-Based CSL stockbrokers.

Gross revenue collected by the federal government in the month of October stood at N682 billion, which is 62.3 percent of the N1.1 trillion monthly budget estimate, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s monthly economic report for October.

Less than projected revenue has been the trend all year, with the highest collection being the N948 billion made in July.

Income from oil and nonoil revenues have been disappointing this year, a situation the stockbroking firm says will trigger higher borrowing from the government.

“Revenue shortfall and no ease up in expenditures suggest the government will need to seek more funding by issuing debt”, the stockbroking firm said.

Oil receipts which came in at N422 billion in the month of October, was 34 percent short of the monthly budget target while non-oil proceeds were short of estimate by 44 percent at N260 billion.

Oil earnings have been under pressure due to combined effect of lower production levels and reduced demand for Nigerian crude.

The advancement of the US shale extraction has dealt a much steeper blow to the Nigerian economy, whose foreign exchange earnings is largely dependent on crude oil exports, accounting for about 80 percent of its product export. The US has cut down greatly, its importation of oil.

Until about six years ago, the US was a major importer of Nigeria’s bonny light crude purchasing as much as 53 percent of the country’s crude in 2007.

The decline in demand for the bonny light by the US appears to have worsened in 2018 as the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) reveals that crude import from Nigeria stood at 45 million barrels as at September from as high as 95mb in 2017.

In addition to gradually losing the US market, Nigeria has also lost some major buyers like Canada and Brazil to the US as shale oil is extremely similar in quality to light sweet Nigerian crude oil and also trade at discount to Nigeria’s crude making it a less costly alternative. This poses a threat to the Nigeria’s crude sales and could adversely impact foreign exchange earnings, creating instability in the Nigerian foreign exchange market.

Qatar with a daily production of 670,000 bpd has announced plans of exiting the Organization of petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel that puts a quota on the production volume of its members, as of

L-R Yinka Ige, human resources consultant; Seyi Adeoye, CEO, Pierrine Consulting , and Ibukun Badejo, consultant, during the unveiling of Entertainment and Celebrities Report by Pierrine Consulting in Lagos.

Pic by Pius Okeosisi.

January 2019.

“We do not think that Qatar’s actions will have a material impact on oil prices, in particular as Saudi Arabia and Russia have announced that they will continue to co-operate in restricting production to keep price firm, CSL said in a December 4 note to clients. If prices rise too high, President Trump will ratchet up rhetorical pressure on Saudi to increase production”.

Brent crude oil prices sold for $61.97 per barrel as at Monday, according to Bloomberg data, representing a 3.3 percent in-

crease compared to the revised $60 oil benchmark in the 2018 budget.

Efforts by the government to improve collection from taxes, independent revenues and recoveries have not been as effective as anticipated and has contributed to government revenue missing its projected estimates.

The federal government’s aggressive spending proposal contradicts its earnings reality and could compel it to increase its borrowings, which could widen the N1.95 trillion fiscal

deficit in the 2018 budget.

Nigeria has tapped the international market once this year, so the focus may be more on issuing more domestic debt.

Nigeria has successfully raised a $2.8 billion in Eurobond, the first this year and the fifth since the Buhari-led administration came into power, to enable Africa’s largest economy fund its 2018 budget.

The National Bureau of Statistics will on Monday 10th December 2018, release data for Q3 GDP and Foreign trade by 9am and 5pm respectively, according

to a tweet by Yemi Kale, Nigeria’s statistician general.

While the country is waiting for the release of GDP figures, its largest African counterpart, South Africa on Monday released its figure, for Q3 2018, showing an exit from recession after two consecutive quarters of Negative growth, thanks to its manufacturing and agricultural sector.

GDP growth in SA stood at 2.2 percent on a quarterly basis and 1 percent year on year, with its manufacturing and agricultural sector recording a growth of 7.5 and 6.5 percent respectively.

BANKING

Can Diamond bank sustain renewed rally?

LOLADE AKINMURELE

D

iamond bank shares have jumped some 30 percent this week and investors are wondering if the stock still has legs to run.

The renewed rally comes as investors find that the tier-two lender will be needing less regulatoryimposed cash than expected.

The Central Bank of Nigeria’s approval for Diamond Bank to operate solely as a national bank means the lender’s capital adequacy ratio has reduced to 10 percent, from the 15 percent required of local banks with international operations.

Diamond Bank, which has a capital adequacy ratio of 16 percent, has suffered a sell-off in the past month by investors who feared the bank would be needing cash urgently to meet up with regulatory requirements.

Since the approval was first announced, the bank’s share price

has climbed 31 percent to N0.85 naira Wednesday from as low as N0.65 naira the week before.

Yields on its $200 million Eurobond due 2019 also cooled to 29 percent December 5, after hitting a record high of 30 percent last Friday, according to FMDQ data.

However, to sustain the improved investor sentiment, the

Source: Bloomberg

bank may need to use the excess capital unlocked from the reduced adequacy ratio to clean up its balance sheet.

“That may come at a cost to capital adequacy ratio but could prove a game changer,” said Tajudeen Ibrahim, head of research at Chapel Hill Denham.

Diamond bank may also need

to show it has the capacity to pay its outstanding $200 million Eurobond when it falls due in 2019.

“That could be done by providing an option for early redemption, a somewhat frequent practice by the likes of Guaranty Trust bank and Access bank,” said Wale Okunrinboye, head of research at Sigma Pensions.

Shares of the Lagos-based bank climbed 8.97 percent to N0.85 per unit, Wednesday, as it followed up on two day gains of 9 percent each on Monday and Tuesday.

Some 15.1 million shares of the bank were traded Wednesday, the third highest volumes after First Bank and Access Bank.

A torrid month of November had seen the bank slapped with two credit downgrades in the space of one week by global ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s.

Chioma Afe, the Bank’s spokesperson, said “the recent approval of the bank’s National license by the Central bank has provoked positive reactions and feedback from both retail and corporate customers.

“It has shown the bank’s stability and ability to carry out both local and international transactions,” Afe said in a text message to Business Day. The retail lender sold its West African operations about a year ago to focus on Nigeria, and is in the process of selling its U.K. unit,

Edited by LOLADE AKINMURELE (loladeakinmurele@gmail.com) Graphics: CHINEDUM ONYEMA

which Stanbic IBTC Stockbrokers estimates could fetch from $60 million to $70 million.

Diamond Bank’s dollar obligations next year also include a $51 million International Finance Corp. loan, according to Stanbic IBTC. “Ultimately, if we get clarity on the financial close of the sale of the U.K. entity, we get more comfort in terms of understanding the road map for Diamond Bank to meet its important Eurobond obligation due in May next year,” the Lagosbased broker said.

The Bank said last week that it was confident it can meet its obligations, and was in talks with unnamed development finance institutions and multilateral agencies for dollar funding to help it meet the Eurobond repayment.

Diamond Bank is among small Nigerian lenders trying to recover from an economic contraction in 2016 and a decline in oil prices that caused bad loans to rise above the regulatory threshold.

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Investment gone green Babatunde Ogala, Guest writer

T

he rapid growth of the international green bonds’ market demonstrates how the capital market can be utilised to address the consequences of global environmental and climate change Since the issue of the first green bonds by the European Investment Bank (EIB) in 2007, the market has grown exponentially, with a projected issuance of $200 billion in 2018 from $155 billion in 2017. The rapid growth of the international green bonds’ market is demonstrating how the capital market can be utilised as a mechanism to address the consequences of global environmental and climate change.

Green bonds can also be particularly attractive to investors looking for corporate social responsibility opportunities, in line with global best practice, which have not been available via fixed income investments till date.

Green bonds are fixed income securities that are issued to finance or refinance environment and climate beneficial projects (green projects), such as renewable energy, waste management and pollution prevention projects.

The structure of a green bond transaction is very similar to that of a traditional bond. The difference, however, lies in the application of the proceeds and the auditing and reporting requirements.

Is s u a n c e o f g re e n bonds has been largely driven by corporations and parastatals, with Poland being the first country to issue a sovereign green bond in December 2016.

Since then, countries such as France, Fiji, and Canada have followed suit. Nigeria recently became the first African country (fourth globally) to issue a sovereign green bond.

The N10.69 billion, five year Fixed Rate (13.48%) FGN Green Bond due 2022, issued on 20 December 2017, is the first Climate Bonds Certified sovereign bond and is to be used to finance Nigeria’s afforestation program, provision of renewable energy microutilities in 45 communities and energizing education projects under the 2017 Appropriation Act. In addition, the green bonds were also assigned a GB1 (excellent) rating

by Moody’s Investors Service, a global credit rating company.

Investors in green bonds are presented with an opportunity to invest in initiatives that contribute to sustainable development and protect the environment and the community at large. The resultant effect is improvement in the lives and welfare of the people living in rural areas, where green projects are undertaken; due to job creation and improved efficiency of production that translates into greater economic returns.

Furthermore, the rigorous reporting standards

L-R: Chairman, Nosak Group, Toni Ogunbor; assistant chief planning officer, Ministry of National Planning, Kike Ogunbadejo; senior special assistant to the President on ERGP, Folarin Alayanda and group chief operating officer, Nosak Group, Thomas Oloriegbe, during the visit of the Federal Government ERGP delegation to Nosak Group office and facilities tour.

structured to disclose the environmental impact of the green projects, ensure greater transparency with respect to the application of proceeds of the green bonds.

To provide effective regulation and oversight in the issue of green bonds targeted at the Nigerian market, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Environment issued the Green Bond Guidelines (GBG). The GBG has four components: these are use of proceeds, project eligibility, management of proceeds and reporting. The objective is to ensure that funds raised are channelled towards activities that complement

the nationally determined contributions (NDC); provide issuers with requirements in issuing a green bond; and aid investors and underwriters through effective disclosures that ensure transparency and minimise information asymmetries.

It is however important that tax incentives are introduced to help drive the market.

As it stands, Section 33 of the Personal Income Tax Amendment Act 2011 (PITA) exempts from personal income tax, bonds issued by Federal, State and Local governments and their agencies; bonds issued by corporate and supra-nationals, and in-

terest earned by holders of these bonds and securities.

The Companies Income Tax (Exemption of Bonds and Short-Term Government Securities) Order 2011 (CITA Gazette) also grants exemption to companies on their trading income, from corporate and government bonds, treasury bills and other shortterm securities. However, the exemptions under the CITA Gazette are for a period of ten years - ending January 2022.

It is unclear if the Federal Government will revisit the exemption upon the expiration of the stated term. Perhaps the Federal Government may consider the introduction

of tax policies targeted at green bonds.

In conclusion, the introduction of green bonds into the Nigerian capital market provides an alternative means of financing capital intensive green infrastructure projects.

This presents opportunities to fund solutions to environmental issues that affect governments, corporations, and investors.

Furthermore, it provides a platform through which Nigeria can fulfil her commitments under the Paris Agreement.

Ogala is the Intermediate Senior Associate in the Capital Market Group at Legal firm, Perchstone & Graeys.

TECHNOLOGY

Chinese smartphone eats into Apple, Samsung’s market share Jonathan Aderoju

W

hile Samsung and Apple are seeing their smartphone market share decline, that of Chinese brand, Oppo, is

rising.

Samsung and Apple had a collective market share of more than 52 percent for 2 years, but that changed in the last quarter of 2018 as the two tech giants made up 49.9 percent of the global smartphone market.

The Oppo brand how-

ever claimed a higher market share in that period after rising from a 7.6 percent share in Q3 2017 to 10.4 percent in Q3 2018.

Oppo has its most important market in its home, according to the research conducted by

Newzoo research which showed that 72.3 percent of Oppo smartphones were located in China.

Although Samsung’s and Apple’s respective market shares are decreasing, the two companies are still performing well, increasing their total number of active

smartphones on the market.

Despite a relatively slow start, the latest Samsung flagship smartphones Galaxy S9 and S9 Plus fared better in Q3, when they were world’s fastest-growing models.

Meanwhile, Apple’s smartphone installed

base also increased between Q2 and Q3 this year.

Two of Apple’s new flagships iPhone XS and XS Max were released at the end of the quarter, with the third iPhone XR launched in October 2018.

BUSINESS

Friday 07 December 2018

COMPANIES & MARKETS

Business Event

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19

MARKETS

Investors sidestep Nigeria as I & E window inflows slump to $1.98bn HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

F

oreign por tfo lio investors are growing cautious of investing in Nigeria, as the total capital importation through the Investors’ and E xporters’ Foreign Exchange Window (I&E w i n d o w ) i n Nov e m b e r 2 0 1 8 s t o o d at U S $ 1 . 9 8 billion, the lowest since August 2017.

The CBN remained the largest contributor to the inflow in November, the same trend observed in the last three months.

Transactions in the I&E FX window reached $24 billion ($6 billion net inflows) in 2017.

The CBN said it is determined to maintain its stable exchange policy stance over the next few months given the relatively high level of reserves.

“I will like to make it categorically clear that sustaining a stable exchange rate is of overriding importance to us even as we continue to put measures in place to shore up reserves,” said Godwin Emefiele, governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

FSDH Research, an arm of the FSDH Merchant Bank Limited forecasts that the inflation rate for November 2018 will inch up to 11.28 percent as a result of the impact of year end purchases.

In its monthly economic and financial market outlook, titled ‘Will Crude Oil Market Receive the Required Stimulus?’ FSDH noted there was accretion to the external reserves in November following four months of consistent drawdown. FSDH Research notes that the proceeds from the US$2.86bn Eurobond issuance contributed to the growth of external reserves in November. Meanwhile, with indications that OPEC and non-OPEC members may agree to an output cut, the oil price may recover and sustain the external reserves in the short-term.

The firm noted the significant drop in the price of crude oil in October 2018 and highlights implications on the Nigerian economy should the price continue to fall.

According to data obtained from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) ShortTe r m E n e r g y O u t l o o k (STEO) in its report for Novemb er 2018, cr ude oil prices declined in October at a faster rate than in any month since Ju l y 2 0 1 6 . B r e n t s p o t crude oil price declined

by U$10/b in October to close at U$75/b. Similarly, Bonny Light crude oil price declined by 16.01% in October to close at U S $ 7 3 . 3 4 / b. T h e p r i c e of Bonny Light crude o i l d ro p p e d f u r t h e r t o US$59.22/b as at 30 No-

vember 2018. This represents a drop of US$28.44/b from the highest price of US$87.66 recorded in October 2018. The decline in oil prices is attributed to two major factors: the indication of a global economic slowdown, and the higher-than-expected global crude oil supply.

“Crude oil is important to the Nigerian economy as the major source of revenue for the Government and the largest supplier of foreign exchange to the country. A significant drop in either the price of crude oil or production will directly have a negative impact of the fiscal position of the country. It will also cause maj o r ma c ro e c o n o m i c instability, particularly in the exchange rate and inflation rate”, Ayodele Akinwunmi, head, FSDH Research said.

FSDH Research notes that the crude oil market developments in 2018 and 2019 appear better than in 2017. “Despite these fairly positive developments, we are aware that the crude oil market is very volatile, therefore it is crucial to learn from the events that happened in 2014 through to 2017 in order to take proactive measures against unwarranted economic crisis in Nigeria.

Government at all levels must intensify efforts to implement policies that will grow the non-oil sectors of the economy”.

L-R; Eke Kingdom Chukwudi, director, National Institute for Sport (NIS); Bursar, Ruben Ichado and Jimmy Adeniyi , head of department, coaching and training, at the press briefing on 25th anniversary and convocation ceremony of the Institute in Lagos

L-R: Obinna Obiekwe, MD, Brymart Automobile; Ukwuaba Ogbonna, operations manager, Cartalogs; Shafie Ibrahim, founder, Mamushcar, and Kelechi Idoko, CEO, Cartalogs, at the media launch of the Carta logs online market place for cars in Lagos.

BANKING

FCMB says received $3mn from 9mobile sale

N

igerian bank, FCMB, said on Wednesday it had received $3 million as part of the proceeds from the sale of debt-laden telecoms

firm 9mobile, which was seized by its lenders and sold to new investors.

In November, Teleology completed a takeover of 9mobile, the country’s fourth biggest operator,

ending a long bidding process for the debt-laden company that started a year ago.

FCMB has around 4 billion naira exposure to 9mobile, the bank said.

L-R: Amos Yakubu, chairman, Banex Plaza in Abuja; Baldwin Onuigbo, zonal head, Wuse of First City Monument Bank (FCMB ; some of the winners at the grand finale of the FCMB Millionaire Promo Season 5 in Abuja & North region and regional service head of the Bank, Abubakar Soyemi, during the promo draw ceremony in Abuja recently

GLOBAL

Glencore, Vitol and Trafigura accused of bribery by Curled from GLOBAL WITNESS

B

razilian authorities today launched a huge investigation into alleged bribery by the world’s largest commodity traders, as part of the country’s mammoth Car Wash scandal.

Glencore, Vitol and Trafigura are accused of bribing employees of the state oil company and

middlemen $5.1m, $6.1m and $4.1m respectively, to secure deals for trading petroleum products and the rental of storage tanks.

“Today’s news should send alarm bells throughout the oil industry. The world’s three biggest commodities traders stand accused of paying millions in bribes to secure deals with Brazil’s national oil company, in one of the big-

gest corruption scandals of all time. This comes as no surprise to us,” said Daniel Balint-Kurti, Head of Investigations at Global Witness.

“We’ve repeatedly uncovered how commodities traders engage in murky deals with dubious middlemen. It’s now time for prosecuting authorities in all relevant jurisdictions to get their act together and clean up the oil business.”

Commandant, Nigeria Immigration Training School, Kano, Segun Adegoke (l), holding the tape with the managing director, Bristow Helicopters, Captain Oladapo Oyeleke (r) as the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Mohammed Babandede cuts the tape to finally commission two Blocks of Classrooms and two solar-powered boreholes donated by Bristow Helicopters to the Training School as parts of its Corporate Social Responsibility in Kano,

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How to improve healthcare delivery in Nigeria, by experts ANTHONIA OBOKOH

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igeria is currently ranked 187 out of 191 countries in the world’s health systems, according to the World Health Organisation. This low ranking for the country obviously reflects the state of the nation’s healthcare sector.

This sector is characterised by such problems as insufficient budgetary allocation, decayed infrastructure, low universal health insurance coverage, among others. It means that Nigeria has a lot to do to improve its health system and make healthcare delivery affordable and accessible to the millions of its citizens.

Nigeria’s primary, secondary and tertiary health institutions are besieged by challenges. Primary Health Care facilities are the people’s first point of contact with the health system, but insufficient service delivery, overburdened clinics with long queues, and poor quality of services have resulted in many people avoid-

ing PHC facilities and going straight to hospital outpatient departments where services are perceived to be better. But the same scenario plays at these outpatient departments, and the patients are made to pay more out of their pockets because many of them are not covered by any health insurance.

Experts in the industry believe that for Nigeria to have improved healthcare delivery, the government must tackle these and other problems effectively by taking the following steps: increasing the budgetary allocation to the sector, deepening health insurance coverage, and encouraging collaboration to address the gaps identified in the sector.

Chibuzo Opara, Co-CEO DrugStoc Nigeria, says that the government should have a well-defined programme that sets the priority areas to be covered in the healthcare industry, rather leaving everything to chance.

“There should be an agreement and a commitment between citizens and decision makers on where the country places universal healthcare among

other important priorities.”

“In order to create a catalytic process within the system, we need to focus on tackling the issue of financial access to healthcare, holding individuals and entities accountable and measuring the impact of interventions and activities in the healthcare sector,” Opara said.

He spoke at a time that resident doctors at government-owned Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) are on strike in protest against unpaid three-month salaries and allowances.

The doctors told BusinessDay that they had been informed by the Budget Office in Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of power, that the budgetary allocation for LUTH for 2018 has been exhausted.

“The federal government proposed 2018 budget for health is not up to the required 15% the WHO said we need to move our healthcare sector to the next stage,” said a medical expert who did want to the identified.

Nigeria’s health budget for 2018 was N304.2 billion, which is just 3.9 per cent of the total budget for the year, lower than 4.1 per cent for 2017

What types of pain can HIV cause?

E

xperiencing pain is common among people living with HIV. Types of HIV-related pain can include headaches, joint pain, and abdominal cramping.

Pain can have a profound, negative impact on people’s overall quality of life. One study revealed that people with HIV were more likely to experience pain than those without HIV. The researchers also found that HIV-related pain increased symptoms of depression and functional impairment.

In this article, we discuss the causes, types, and treatments for HIV-related pain, including some home remedies that may help.

Causes There are different causes of HIV-related pain and the type, location, and severity of the pain can vary between different people. It is important to work with a doctor to determine the possible cause and devise a suitable treatment plan.

Some people living with HIV may experience short-term pain from secondary infections, injuries, or surgery. Short-term pain usually goes away once the body recovers.

Many people who are living with HIV experience chronic or long-term pain. In one study that followed 238 people living with HIV, 53 percent of participants reported having chronic pain within the last 6 months.

Chronic pain in people living with HIV can be the result of: the direct effects of HIV on the body, nerve damage, also known as peripheral neuropathy, cancer, opportunistic infections, HIV treatments.

Types of HIV-related pain HIV-related pain manifests in a variety of ways. People living with HIV can experience pain as a result of the HIV itself or as a side effect of HIV treatment and other medications.

People with untreated HIV are

at risk of developing secondary infections that can cause inflammation and painful symptoms.

Types of pain that people with HIV often have include: Headache: Pain can range from mild to severe and may present as intense pressure, tightness, or throbbing sensation. Low CD4 cell counts, infections, or other HIV-related illnesses can cause headaches.

Joint, muscle, and bone pain: HIV can lead to arthritis and osteoporosis that can cause pain in the joints, muscles, and bones.

This type of pain can also occur with aging.

Abdominal pain: If left untreated, HIV can weaken the immune system, leaving the body vulnerable to opportunistic infections. These infections sometimes occur in the gastrointestinal tract, causing painful symptoms, such as inflammation. Some HIV treatments can also cause painful abdominal cramps.

Peripheral neuropathy HIV can cause damage to the peripheral nerves, which can lead to a neurologic disorder known as peripheral neuropathy. In people living HIV, doctors sometimes also refer to this condition as HIV neuropathy.

Peripheral neuropathy is the most common neurologic complication in adults with HIV. According to one study, older age and smoking increase the risk of developing peripheral neuropathy.

Some symptoms of peripheral neuropathy include: numbness or pain in the hands and feet, muscle weakness in the hands and feet, numbness or tingling in the extremities and increased sensitivity to pain.

Treatment There are many ways to manage HIV-related pain. Doctors can

prescribe medications to reduce painful symptoms.

People living with HIV can also purchase over-the-counter (OTC) pain medicines, but they should speak with their doctor before starting any new medications.

Non-drug therapies and home remedies may also provide relief for some people.

We discuss the different types of treatment options below:

Medications Some HIV medications can increase a person’s pain sensitivity.

One of the first approaches doctors take when managing painful symptoms is either stopping or reducing the dosage of HIV treatments. If this approach does not work, the doctor may recommend prescription or over-the-counter pain relief medications.

Some of these options include: Opioids: These are the strongest type of pain medication available and are only available on prescription. Opioids can cause side effects, such as drowsiness, nausea, and constipation. It is essential to follow the doctor’s instructions when taking opioids to prevent complications and overdose.

Non-opioid medications: A wide variety of non-opioid pain relievers are available both OTC and on prescriptions. Common examples include acetaminophen, aspirin, and ibuprofen.

Topical pain relievers, such as gels, creams, or patches, are also available.

Non-drug therapies some people may also find pain relief from: acupuncture, massage, cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT and joining a chronic pain support group.

Culled from Medical News Today.

health budget. With such a dismal budgetary allocation to the health sector, it is not clear how far the country can go with the health sector.

“We need more commitments from our leaders to achieve the set goals because the poor state of health sector in the country is alarming giving room for increase in medical tourism and brain drain” he said.

The solution to the funding challenges, some of the experts say, is for specialised financing arrangement that can insulate the funds from political influence.

“We need to set up a dedicated fund for healthcare. People and right infrastructure make it happen, if we can get the demand sorted out, the supply will be easy,” said Clare Omatseye, president, Healthcare Federation of Nigeria.

The experts also stress the need to tackle the rot in infrastructure in the healthcare industry. They point at depilated hospital buildings, and obsolete equipment that make both proper diagnosis and treatment difficult, if not impossible.

Omatseye also hinges her hope on public-private partnership in the industry to help deepen financing the business of health delivery, “and not people dictating policy.” She says that Nigeria needs to get policies right, both in the public and private sectors but points out that the biggest problem is implementation of those policies.

“So we need to keep it simple, get guidelines, timelines, just like we do in the private sector for both achievements and non-achievement. If we are talking about disrupting innovation, it’s time to disrupt code, it starts with ourselves”, Industry watchers say for Nigeria to achieve universal health coverage to deliver substantial healthcare, economic and political benefits across populations, healthcare provision should be considered as human right and no one should be denied access to it. They believe that no reason – financial, gender, geographical barriers or any other issues should be allowed create such a barrier to healthcare access.

Kuku bags gold medal award for exceptional service in healthcare delivery

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he Nigerian Sonny Kuku a co-founder of the EKO Hospitals was awarded the Gold medal for his exceptional services to the College and Medical healthcare in the West African Sub Region.

He was awarded the highest award of the college at the recently concluded 42nd Annual congress of the West African college of Physicians held at the Bintumani conference centers, Aberdeen in Sierra Leone, Freetown.

The annual general congress a four days meeting held under the theme “ Defining the role of the laboratory in the era of emerging and re-emerging diseases in the sub region and sub themes ” Anti – Microbial infection and Super infection and ” Integrative Medicine development in West Africa”.

Kuku who was a past president and the current vice chairman of the Board of Trustees of the College has won the highest award of medical colleges

around the world including the distinguished Fellowship of the National Post graduate Medical College of Nigeria and the Master of American College of Physicians, its first African awardee.

Two other leading physicians including a sierra Leonean, Oluwumi Coker also received gold awards.

However, Research papers were delivered at the AGM. Among these were research papers on Ebola, HIV and Aids, Malaria and other endemic topics in West Africa. On display at the venue of the meeting were vaccines for emergency purposes.

One of the recommendations at the West African College of Physicians annual general meeting is the need for Government to strengthen the health system in the sub region.

The West African College of physicians is the fraternity that sets the standard on how Medicine is practiced and the lead Agency for the training of specialists in the sub- region.

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enera consulting, a leading public relations and advertising firm, in partnership with Lakeshore Cancer Centre, a certified private cancer centre in Nigeria, recently organized a walk tagged ‘Hope Beats Cancer’, to give hope to people suffering from cancer and to drive awareness to combat the disease.

Speaking at the walk in Lagos to mark the five years anniversary of the firm, Meka Olowola, the Managing Partner, Zenera Consulting highlighted the motive behind the initiative.

“Cancer is something that people do not like to talk about. We live in a society that tends to mystify these things,” Olowola said.

“I am excited that we are raising awareness to let the people know that early detection is key, and that when they are diagnosed with it, it is not a death sentence. I have lost a loved one to cancer, my brother died of Multiple Myeloma 4 years ago. This walk is being used to preach the message of hope.”

“Common cancers in this part of the world which affect the breast, prostate, cervical and colon are treatable, but people just fall into anguish.

We are telling them that there is hope, there are cures. But it is best if you detect it early, so that you can fight it

before it gets to the aggressive stages.

So, you have to eat right, look after yourself”.

He charged the government to increase the budget allocation for health and upgrade the infrastructure at the various health centres across the country.

“I think that government really needs to be serious about our health budget. There is opportunity to put more funds in health and education sector as we all know, our primary health centres should work as well as they should. Many companies are contributing to some of these things, but if there is no maintenance, if there is no focus on quality delivery of services, such as the right infrastructure, because doctors have complained, they need to be equipped with the right equipment to be able to help the masses.”

Bekeme Masade, Partner, Zenera Consulting, revealed that the walk is to emphasise that cancer is not a death sentence.

“We are creating awareness today to make sure people are aware that there are four screenable types of cancer that they can do something about, which are: prostate cancer, cervical cancer, colon cancer, and breast cancer, and with early detection, it’s hundred percent curable, and all you have to do is make sure you screen on time.”

L-R: Allison Nelson, 2018 Mr. Universe Nigeria; Bekeme Masade, Partner, Zenera Consulting; Meka Olowola, Managing Partner, Zenera Consulting; Godman Akinlabi, Lead Pastor, The Elevation Church and Yomi Awobokun, CEO, Enyo Retail & Supply at the Zenera Consulting fifth-anniversary cancer awareness walk tagged ‘’Hope Beats Cancer’’ in Lagos

Global brand announces $50,000 African innovation challenge at FAMSAGA 2018 healthcare conference IFEOMA OKEKE

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n line with the theme “Repositioning Healthcare in Africa for Sustainable Development”, global brand Johnson & Johnson announced the Africa Innovation challenge second edition at the 32nd assembly of the Federation of African Medical Students’ Associations General Assembly (FAMSA GA).

The week-long conference which also celebrated the 50th anniversary of the federation held from the 18th-24th November at the prestigious University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

Building on the Millennium Development goals, the United Nations and other development partners in 2015 adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals to serve as a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

With SDG 3 specific to health the FAMSA General Assembly was a proposed solution that brought together young vibrant minds as well as professionals and relevant stakeholders in both public and private sectors

HBL TEAM

from across Africa to discuss ideas and initiate steps towards the goal.

As efforts are made towards a path of development, Africa’s ability to create sustainable and efficient health systems is fundamentally dependent on its capacity to embrace innovative strategies, implement them and scale-up these solutions to the evolving health challenges of today and the future.

The just concluded FAMSA General Assembly aimed to inspire a generation of healthcare students and participants to take charge and play active roles in structuring the future of healthcare in Africa for sustainable development. In a statement given by Jesutofunmi Omiye, the conference organizing chairperson, he stated that “Healthcare is central to the overall development of a region, hence, we must reposition healthcare in Africa if we are to achieve sustainable development.”

He buttressed his point by saying, “Everyone should play a part in revolutionizing the African healthcare system; government, those in the public and private sectors as well as individuals. If everyone is involved, then progress can be ensured.”

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Executive Travel Health

Zenera consulting calls for more awareness to combat cancer ANTHONY NLEBEM

BUSINESS DAY

Cruise ships and cruises ADE ALAKIJA

Alakija, medical director Q-Life Family Clinic, Victoria Island, Lagos.

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uring the last decade, the cruise industry has been the tourism sub-sector with the highest growth rate. In spite of the Titanic, Zebrugge & Estonia disasters, the travellers on high standard luxury liners are usually quite safe.

Of the 1,326 million(1.326 billion) international tourist arrivals in 2017, the highest growth in international tourist arrivals in seven years since 2010, up 7% on 2016, about 27.2 million cruise ship passengers are estimated to sail in 2018.

The types of cruises include Family, Adventure, River, Transatlantic and World cruises. The average age of a passenger is gradually declining, now 45-50 years of age, however cruises of longer duration attract older travellers who are more likely to have chronic health conditions such as heart and lung disease. The most commonly reported on board health problems are respiratory tract infections, injuries, motion sickness and gastrointestinal illness.

The schedule of events and activities on board, and excursions in port can be tiring and arduous and travellers are advised to be as fit as possible.

The sheer magnitude of cruise ships and the number of passengers can approach the size of a small town with all its attendant health problems.

They may range from as little as five-people cruises on a small sailing boat where medical facilities will be zero, to large ‘city’ ships where a doctor and other key medical staff are available but medical services are still limited and in some cases for example blood transfusion, surgery. Medical evacuation will be needed and is dependent upon the ship’s position at sea, the sailing itinerary and the next port of call.

That is why you should prepare yourself properly for such trips by consulting your travel health consultant or family physician before the trip.

Ensure you have adequate supplies of your medication before you board the ship and appropriate travel insurance which should cover repatriation. Also carry along a summary of your condi-

tion and a copy of your prescription with a letter from your practitioner attesting to your need for the medicines.

Most cruise ships do not have assigned space for a dental office and very few have resident dentists. Cruises are increasingly becoming popular in allowing for adventure along with good accommodation, food, security and many other facilities. Ships’ movements are inherently unstable due to sea swells and currents. Accidents are common due to falls on deck and staircases (wet surfaces).

People tend to drink alcohol excessively and are more prone to accidents both on deck and in the pool. Passengers tend to put on weight because of the easily available and abundant excellent food. In hot and tropical regions especially, try to avoid sunburn and UV Light reflection from water as well as from the direct sun, this being more likely at sea. Extremes of heat and cold (including cooling effects of sea breeze) depending on itineraries can occur. Suitable clothing is advised. Try to drink a lot of non- alcoholic fluids to prevent dehydration.

Because some cruise ships are not suitable for frail, elderly or handicapped travellers, try to ascertain the suitability of the ship before you book your trip. Make sure special facilities are available on board for your condition. Over indulgence in alcohol, food and lack of exercise can worsen heart conditions. Over exposure to the sun can increase the possibility of stroke. The elderly with poor balance are at higher risk of injury from falls especially in rough weather, due to their slower reaction time and reduced agility. Check your vaccination status with your travel consultant depending on the regions you are visiting.

In cruises outside Europe and North America, Hepatitis A vaccination is usually necessary for the nonimmune because hepatitis A is so easily spread(most Nigerians will not need this).

Food on cruise ships is usually safe because great care is taken to prevent outbreak of food poising, but rarely contaminated food may be taken on board during stopovers. If you eat when you go onshore at a stopover, take care to avoid risky foodstuff and contaminated water. Remember that stopovers may have more risk than being on board and insect bites with

the accompanying diseases (like malaria) and infections can be picked up.

Because a large number of people are together in close proximity, influenza outbreaks can occur.

The elderly and those with medical conditions that can be made worst with an influenza infection should be vaccinated. They should also receive pneumococcal vaccines if not previously given. A very popular outbreak of disease amongst passengers is the ‘epidemic vomiting disease’ often due to the Norovirus. It is spread via the respiratory route and through fomites and is very difficult to control.

Large number of passengers may be infected but the illness is usually mild and self-limiting. Practise good personal hygiene to reduce the spread of the virus and other faeco-oral diseases.

More than 100 disease outbreaks have been identified in the past 30 years. This is probably an understatement because many outbreaks are not reported or detected. Outbreaks of measles, rubella, varicella, meningococcal meningitis, hepatitis A, legionellosis and other respiratory and gastrointestinal illness amongst ship passengers have been reported. A valid yellow fever certificate of vaccination may be needed for cruises to the Caribbean, South and Central America and sub-Saharan Africa or you might not be allowed into the ship if you do not have one.

Consult your doctor on possible malaria risk and take necessary precautions if the need arises. It is not necessary for most cruises. Sexually transmitted diseases from casual sexual relationships among passengers and among passengers and crew are reportedly quite common. It is better to abstain, and if you must have sex, practice safe sex to prevent HIV infection, Hepatitis B, Herpes.

Have a fun Cruise. Don’t forget your fully charged roaming mobile phone. Whatever you do, don’t fall overboard into the ocean (Laugh).

The next topic will be the traveller with Asthma.

Visit reference sites below.

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/yellowbook/2018/conveyance-transportationissues/cruise-ship-travel www.istm.org.

Aunt Landa, Alibaba set to intervene with love at Market Square for the less privileged …offer free medical check-up

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opular Humanitarian, Yolanda N. George-David, also known as Aunt Landa and the Fair Chairman of the Market Square, Alibaba, is set to intervene with love at market square for the less privileged and to offers free medical check-ups.

The event is set to hold on the 22nd of December 2018 in Festac, Lagos, tagged the forthcoming edition of Aunt Landa Market Square as the “Intervention Edition”.

This edition aims at intervening in the deplorable state of living among many Nigerians by providing job opportunities for hundreds through the vocational training made available at the market square.

A team of qualified medical doctors and nurses will also be available

to provide free professional healthcare to attendees in need of medical attention.

Commenting on the purpose of the Market Square, Aunt Landa remarked; “This edition is nothing like we’ve ever done in the past. It is going to be the biggest market square ever!

Intervening in the lives of people is not something to speak lightly about, neither is it something I can do all by myself, hence why a lot of my friends will be joining me to make sure that everyone who steps into that venue leaves with a smile and a clear definition of what love really means”.

She further revealed anyone can be part of the event, as it her desire with the fair chairman, Alibaba to see everyone excited in this season of love.

Aunt Landa Market Square is the only market square in the world where the needy gets to buy food, clothes, medicine and almost every other thing they need to survive for FREE at the price of the “Aunt Landa Love Currency (Zero Naira wrapped in God’s love).

It has been revealed that the market will open to the public, and for the less privileged to shop for free as well as acquire free vocational training including hair styling, graphics designing, hand craft, music, catering, soap making and many more.

Items like clothes, shoes, books, food items, fruits and everything needed to make the Christmas celebration worthwhile will be made available for free at the market square.

ANTHONIA OBOKOH and ANI MICHAEL / Reporters. Email: obokoh.anthonia@businessdayonline.com I David Ogar, Graphics

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BUSINESS DAY

FinTech News

Products Review

Technology Review

Personality Review

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Friday 07 December 2018

Company Review

Big ticket fintech M&A looms as investors plot 2019 strategy Stories by FRANK ELEANYA

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nvestors in the financial services industry say they plan to acquire at least two fintech firms in 2019 as a measure to boost capacity amid fears of being left behind, according to a survey by Reed Smith in collaboration with Mergermarket.

The survey which features 100 corporate senior executives globally, found that more than half the banks and other financial institutions that responded to the survey (52%) plans making two or three acquisitions in the next 12 months, while 42 per cent expect to initiate four, five or more deals.

“There isn’t a significant financial services institution that isn’t already either a consumer or developer of fintech,” Herb Kozlov, partner at Reed Smith noted in a statement. “I think it is on the radar of every major institution because they are at a competitive disadvantage if they’re not as well positioned as their competitors

to adopt new technologies,” Kozlov added.

Many Nigerian banks could fall under this description as they have become unrelenting in creating fintech products for their market and

disrupting the disruptors.

In August, BusinessDay reported that some tech players have been approached by potential investors over merger and acquisitions. While these are yet to be confirmed, experts

in the industry also believe that 2019 may be the year they make the announcement.

“I think there are too many startups chasing same problems in very small markets across Africa,” Oluyomi Ojo,

co-founder of Printivo noted in a tweet. “The surest way to create the kind of unicorns people seek is to merge and create big companies instead of many small companies struggling to survive and chasing a very small market.”

The survey expects financial institutions to muster their substantial financial power as they survey mergers and acquisition opportunities in the next 12 months.

Nearly a third of the organisations plan to allocate $500 million or more to fintech investment during the period.

This more than doubles the number of companies that allocated such large sums in 2016 and 2017. A further third say they are likely to allocate between $200 million and $500 million.

Two-thirds (67%) of private equity, venture capital and family respondents plan to make smaller investments – reflective of their relative size – within the range of $50 million and $200 million. With increasing appetite for fintech, more of the respondents are expected to allocate larger sums of investments over the

next two years compared to the past 24 months.

In anticipation of tough contest from other dealmakers, some banks and financial institutions say they are willing to consider a single transaction valued between $50 million and $200 million.

21 per cent of respondents say they could go higher if it is a prize asset.

“These deals will naturally require careful planning to ensure smooth integration – particularly given the scope for culture clashes between large, traditional financial services and less mature, smaller startups, whose informal structures and autonomous working practices may not translate easily into larger institutions,” the authors of the survey noted.

The research also predicts a blurring of line between technologies innovations considered to be fintech and those that are not as they spread rapidly to other industries. Already this is being witnessed as distributed ledger gets adopted in healthcare, entertainment, media and advertising.

Will InsurTech startups make brokers go broke?

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he increasing adoption of technology innovations in insurance sector of Nigeria and around the world has some prophets predicting an end to the business of insurance brokers. At the Africa Fintech Festival that held in Lagos, an expert pointedly forecasted that the demise of brokers is not only a certainty but will begin from 2019.

Kobi Bendelak, CEO of InsurTech Israel, an investment fund focused on investments in early stage InsurTech startups said during a panel session that from 2019, innova-

tive services from insurtechs would ensure that customers access insurance packages directly from the insurance companies rather than go through brokers.

InsurTech is used to describe technology innovations designed to squeeze out savings and efficiency from the current insurance industry model. InsurTech covers everything from wearables to the connected homes, and drones and artificial intelligence. Insurtechs are technology-led companies that enter the insurance sector, taking advantage of new

technologies to provide coverage to a more digitally savvy customer base.

In Nigeria, some of the companies in this category include AutoGenius which allows users buy auto insurance online; CompareIN – allows users compare and buy an insurance policy online; Cassava – helps individuals make small weekly and monthly insurance subscription payments; CompareGuru – a comparison website that gives users access to quotes for healthcare, life, travel and fire insurance, among others.

Insurance brokers who act

on behalf of their clients and provide advice in the interests of their clients control most of the activities in the industry.

In fact, corporate organisations totally depend on them for their insurance needs. Before Insurtech startups came on the scene, individuals also had to access insurance services through brokers.

Insurance penetration in Nigeria is one of the lowest on the African continent at 1 per cent compared to countries like South Africa and Kenya.

Bendelak’s prediction to some extent underscores the sentiments of most insur-

ance companies who see the fintech revolution as a major threat to the traditional system. A report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) showed that 74 per cent of incumbent insurers see fintech innovations as a challenge for their industry.

“There is a good reason to believe that insurance is indeed heading down the path of disruptive innovation, whether it is the effect of an external factor, such as the rise of the sharing economy, or the ability to improve operations using artificial intelligence,” the authors of the

report noted.

Nonetheless, a future where brokers go broke as a result of insurtech is not happening anytime soon says Andrew de Kock, managing director of 4Thawt Consulting.

“InsurTechs won’t move intermediaries (brokers) any time soon, but their operations can undergo transformation and improvement,” Kock said during the panel.

He however agreed that more individuals will be able to access insurance packages directly without recourse to agents or brokers.

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IMPACT INVESTING

BUSINESS DAY

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In Association With

Impact investing as a remedy for MSME financing gap in Nigeria Kelvin Umweni

Small Enterprise Impact Investing Value Chain

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lobally, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are considered as a backbone of any economy given the role they play in employment generation, creativity and innovativeness, poverty alleviation and a shared economic growth and development.

Like other countries of the world, SMEs account for a sizable number of all enterprises in Nigeria. A collaborative national survey conducted in 2013 by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria puts the number of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria at 37 million – 36.99 million micro enterprises, 68,168 small enterprises and 4,670 medium enterprises. This is the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and second highest globally after China (with about 56 million SMEs)according to data from International Finance Corporation (IFC).

One advantage of these large numbers of SMEs dotting the economic landscape of Nigeria is their capacity to employ a large chunk of the labour force. SMEs employ over 60 million people in Nigeria – that amounts to over 80 per cent of the country’s total labour force. More so, the sustainable paid employment SMEs provide is the main factor keeping majority of people out of poverty and helping them accumulate resources and improve their household living standards.

In the national survey conducted

by NBS and SMEDAN, six key constraints which needed proactive strategic action plans by relevant regulatory agencies were highlighted. These challenges included inadequate finance, weak infrastructure, inconsistency in government policies, poor access to market, multiple taxation and obsolete technology.

Despite the various financing programmes by the government and concerned private sector stakeholders, access to finance still remains a major challenge SMEs in the country grapple with.

SMEs in Nigeria largely depend on self-financing or informal financing solutions because commercial banks and financial institutions see them as too risky to extend credit

to. In the national survey on SMEs stated earlier, more than half of the sources of capital by SMEs were from personal savings.

A BusinessDay Research and Intelligence Unit (BRIU) report which will soon be published puts the MSME finance gap in Nigeria at $157.9 billion. That amounts to N48.4 trillion using the official exchange rate of N306.75/$ and it is the highest finance gap on the African continent.

While microfinance banks have evolved over time to reverse this ugly trend by making credit available to entrepreneurs at the grassroots, the excessively high interest rate they charge has further choked SMEs and inhibited their progress.

Entrepreneurs who are seeking funding in Nigeria constantly have to deal with the perception held by commercial banks that SMEs are too ‘risky’ for traditional loans.

Commercial banks’ reluctance to lend to the SME sector has been worsened by economy-wide risk, increasing yield in government debt securities, poor business succession plan, lack of collateral securities and inadequate financial records on the part of the SMEs.

One possible way forward is through a recently emerged new form of investment – impact investing – which basically entails the deployment of private capital to create positive impact whilst also delivering competitive market returns.

The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) defines impact investing as a financial driven industry that aims to solve social and environmental challenges while generating profit.

Impact investing is an extension of the effort of microfinance investors to redirect capital from saturated markets where supply exceeds demand, into underserved markets, where demand far exceeds supply.

Impact investing or responsible investing is when investors actively pursue and invest in businesses and organizations where their funds have a positive impact in the community and environment while realising a healthy financial return.

The primary target of impact investing remains the base of the pyramid in faster growing economies, both low- and medium-income households and micro, small and medium businesses.

Targeting underserved markets like these gives investors assurance of a more rational and sustainable value creation in their asset allocation, with a promise to achieve less volatility and more stable returns in the long term. Furthermore, by setting such objectives, investors provide their recipients with the means to benefit from economic growth, create value and move upwards onto a path of socio-economic development.

According to a report done by Oxfam and Symbiotics, impact investors in small and medium enterprise can effectively guide their investment selection upstream by using social responsibility ratings to assess the likelihood of their investees to contribute to sustainable development for their various stakeholders.

They will also seek to measure the downstream footprint of their investments over time in terms of positive social change. The key impact variable is to evaluate both the economic value creation capacity – measured by the growth and volume of output and revenues generated – and the social value creation capacity – measured by the number and quality of jobs they create and sustain.

Impact is assessed at the enterprise level: by the income and employment change within small enterprises financed by the investor, and not at the stakeholders’ (staff, management, suppliers, clients) household level.

Leveraging the power of impact investing for solving the finance need of small and medium enterprise becomes important for the sake of achieving measurable lasting change and development. This is because simply identifying a gap to bridge is not enough. Indeed, there is a need today for a re-allocation of capital from supply surpluses to unmet demand.

But the path towards bridging this gap is nevertheless paved by requirements that go beyond the individual freewill and immediate self-interest principles underpinning the financial first investment strategies of the majority of investors today. Arguably, investors lack the visibility and measurement of their gains in impact first investment strategies. Impact investing assumes that multi-stakeholder approaches will be used in selecting and monitoring investments.

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BUSINESS DAY

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Friday 07 December 2018

Betty G’s day of glory Stories by OBINNA EMELIKE

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f you listen to Betty G or watch her performance on stage, you will appreciate the songstress from Ethiopia.

Born as Bruktwait Getahun in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the upcoming artiste who stages as Betty G is sure on her way to stardom, having taken the Ethiopian music scene by storm with her themed renditions and stage craft.

In her early days, she spent most of her time in school amid her passion for music, which was born with her. Her perseverance brought her closer to notable Ethiopian artistes, especially Theodros Kassahun (Teddy afro), who mentored her, and Ras Kimono, late Nigerian reggae maestro to create awareness to global warming.

Betty G is interesting to watch on stage because of her stage craft, ability to sing in French, English and Amharic, which gives her an edge over other African musicians in the international market.

Again, she is interesting to watch or listen to her music because she infuses her Ethiopian heritage in her work, and by so doing, further exposing the richness and beauty of her culture to the ward.

Betty G at performing at AFRIMA 2018

She is rightfully the Ethiopian music and culture ambassador. Her creative ingenuity is evident in her numerous works such as “Manew Fitsum”, an album she released in November 2015. Since the release of that debut album Betty G

has been on the rise in Ethiopia, Africa and globally because 13-tracks album was an instant hit and won her many fans.

The songstress furthers her quest to become the best female voice in Africa with her recent album,

which shows her uniquely captivating repertoire.

Entitled “Wegegta”, the album consists of 13 songs across many music genres: contemporary, traditional Ethiopian songs, soft rock, and pop.

As expected, the ef-

forts she put in the album“Wegegta” paid off with multiple nominations just from that single album at the All Africa Music Awards Ghana 2018. With five nominations including Artiste of the Year, Album of the Year, Best African Jazz,

Revelation of the African Continent, as well as the Best Female Artiste in Eastern Africa, she was among the artistes with most nominations at the awards.

At the grand finale of the awards, which held at the Accra International Convention Centre, Betty G, broke record as the most awarded artiste of the evening with three awards, and the first time an Ethiopian is achieving such feat at AFRIMA. She surprised the audience and, especially established music acts when she beat many known musicians to emerge as the Best Female Artiste in Eastern Africa with her song ‘Mengedegna’, as well as, winning the Revelation of the African Continent category. The Ethiopian music sensation caught the most attention of the audience when she was announced as the winner of the Album of the Year category with her album ‘Wegegta’, and her highest music award so far.

Well, she has come of age.

While appreciating her continent-wide fans for voting her to victory, she noted at the awards the mere making the nomination list in five categories was significant for her. On her emergence as winner in three categories, she said it was huge achievement for her person.

Sunny Ade, 100 African artistes ignite Aim festival at La Campagne today

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frican musical scene will be on song today as King Sunny Ade, Afrojuju maestro, and over 100 African music artistes set aflame La Campagne stage as the second edition of the African International Music (AIM) Festival begins today. The festival, which is endorsed by World Conference of Mayors, will lasts until Sunday, December 9, 2018 with live coverage by Karnal 7 TV, Turkey.

Speaking on the three days musical fiesta, which is billed for the King Sunny Ade world stage of La Campagne Tropicana Beach Resort in Ikegun Village, Ibeju – Lekki, Lagos, Motherland Beckons, the organisers of the event, said the stage is set to play host to one of the biggest and most enthralling musical concerts of the decade from today.

According to the spokesperson for the organisers, AIM Festival, which is design

to showcase the best of African’s talents to the world and serve as a veritable platform for discovery and nurturing talents in the different fields of entertainment for export across the globe, is this year attracting the presence of some of the biggest names in the continent.

Legendary Afro Juju exponent and Africa’s leading musical icon, King Sunny Ade, is one of such names that will parade the stage and play with a number of the most talented and upcoming African stars, in entertaining guests at this three days music festival that is entirely devoted to a showpiece of Africa’s rustic and authentic musical performances.

Others on the list include; Malika, Falz, Adekunle Gold, Dede Mabiaku, Fire, Yemi Juju, Kamit, Kola Ogunkoya (Gbedu Master), Afe Ayodele and the trio of Atunda Entertainment proteges, Anu the lady Ekwe, Olo midan bata

and Ara (Thunder), with a host of renowned artistes from the other 54 Africa countries.

The World Conference of Mayors (WCM) in its endorsement letter to Wanle Akinboboye, president of La Campagne and founder of Motherland Beckons, which is hosting the event, said it ‘‘supports Ambassador Wanle Akinboboye’s vision with the

Motherland Beckons and lovers of Africa to enhance and expand tourism in Africa.

We cannot think of a better way of bringing our cultures together than through music and entertainment. ‘‘It is with pleasure that we pledge our full support for the African International Music Festival and chief promoter of the African International

Music Festival. The members of the World Conference of Mayors would like to show their appreciation to Ambassador Wanle Akinboboye.’’

According to Jack Sims, a retired Mayor of the City of District Heights, Maryland, USA and vice president of the World Conference of Mayors for Trade, who signed the statement, ‘‘I have had the

opportunity to develop a close 20-year relationship with Ambassador Wanle Akinboboye and the Motherland Beckons Programme.’’

Guests are expected to start arriving the resort this morning while live performances begin by 7pm on the day and will span all days and nights of the festival. It will be a heavily celebrated media event with Karnal 7 Television in Istanbul, Turkey beaming the event live to its audience in Turkey and other parts of the world while a number of other television stations, satellite networks and social media platforms across the world are also covering the event live.

The three days feast will besides the live musical performances witness a number of other entertainment activities, such as food festival, fashion show, art and craft exhibition, village market and water as well as beachfront related tourism activities.

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BUSINESS DAY

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Business Etiquette

Movie Review – NOBODY’S FOOL Linda Ochugbua

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obody’s Fool started on a very funny and hilarious note; it is a comedy kind of movie that cracked our ribs from start till finish.

We get to see Tiffany Haddish back in the act in this brand new movie, just a few weeks after Kevin’s Hart new movie “Night School”.

It seems like this is Tiffany’s season. She actually put up a good show again this time alongside her co-star, Tika Sumpter, who was called Danica in the movie.

Another nice appearance that made me excited was Whoopi Goldberg after her long stay away from the movie scene; may I just remind you of her classic - “Sister Act” – worth the watch a million times.

Nobody’s Fool had Tiffany play the role of a notorious young lady, who just got out of prison after serving her jail

term. When she got out, everything looked strange and it was slightly difficult getting back on her foot.

She was picked up by her sister Danica and immediately she got her freedom, she wanted to catch up on ALL she had missed - from food to drinks, to hanging out with the boys and being her thugself all again.

Danica had to assist her in every way possible so she wouldn’t make another mistake and end up in jail again.

Danica was able to find her a job at the coffee shop close to her office, where she dropped and picked her off daily. Tanya as she was called in the movie “Tiffany Haddish” observed that the coffee shop owner – Frank - was in love with her sister and would give her free coffee and roses daily. Danica, on the hand, had a list of what her idle man must possess and Frank was beneath the food chain.

The movie took a whole new twist when Tanya found out that her sister Danica was dating an imaginary guy – Charlie - she met online and deliberately avoided Frank.

Tanya was really upset and decided to dig deep and save her sister from this emotional trauma she was about to go through in life. Well you would need to watch the movie to see what Tanya found out during her inves-

tigative mission and how Danica finally found true love after numerous heart breaks.

It was really thrilling to see Omari Hardwick (Frank) play a lover-boy role and not the usual bad-guy character.

I kind of liked the end of the movie as I learnt a few lessons about not taking people around us who really appreciate us for granted, I was

with Janet Adetu

glad she –Danica- realised this in the end.

My Verdict: This movie deserves a 6/10; I liked the fact that it was a funny movie, but, I am always particular about a movie having a fantastic storyline -one that can hold water and stand the test of time.

This movie was just simple with a basic storyline. So if you do enjoy comedy movies, then you can give this a try and have a relaxed weekend.

Movie Credit: Cast: Tiffany Haddish, Tika Sumpter, Omari Hardwick, Mehcad Brooks, Amber Riley, Whoopi Goldberg etc Genre: Comedy Director: Tyler Perry Ratings: R (for sexual content and language throughout, and for drug material) Written by: Tyler Perry Runtime: 110 minutes Studio: Paramount Pictures Feel free to review any movie of your choice in not

more than 200 words and send via mail to linda@businessdayonline.com You also stand a chance to win a free movie ticket when you answer the question of the week on social media correctly.

Linda Ochugbua Instagram and Twitter - @ lindaochugbua

Year end retreat

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re you planning a year end retreat for your organization?

Have you considered the need or the importance of such a retreat?

As important as a retreat is, it is usually effective at the end of a year or the beginning of a new year; many companies do not align with the rationale. It is assumed to be money gulping and a way to spend more company funds ineffectively.

A retreat should be designed with major objectives in mind at an affordable cost with no added stress. It is true that at times some companies have experienced good retreats, that they have considered engaging interactive, fun and successfully executed. The main issue is after all said and done, ideas shared, plans discussed, and the future looking bright, slowly but steadily, ideas begin to fade away, due to the lack of ownership of the vision or task ahead.

I have experienced such in the past where indeed full energy is exerted, staff are excited about new ideas but poor execution killed the spirit. It is really the crux of all retreats to create impact and results moving forward. I learnt that it is not enough to birth the idea and assume everyone will run with it. It calls for a strategy as to how this will be executed. Even when you assign teams to tasks, there is a dire need for ownership to take place and this is most efficient when you specifically and intentionally assign a leader to a team or a group or a project. Accountability is essential if progress is expected.

Now the other task would be to give ownership to a capable leader who has that extra urge or potential to run with the idea, re- strategize the execution plan and have the tenacity to drive all other members to follow suit. I agree the task of finding that bulldozer is never easy. As a CEO or Executive it calls for taking the time to watch out for members of staff, to get to know them better. There is a need to regularly check on employees’ strength within and outside their current official role. It does not help by relying on the report of supervisors alone, a CEO should endeavor to engage with staff on a adhoc basis and acknowledge each person where possible or whenever you have an opportunity to greet and dialogue with them.

Strategies for a Purposeful Retreat There are some pertinent strategies to remember when planning a retreat for your organization, let me share my thoughts.

A corporate retreat is not a holiday or a party though it is expected that staff should engage, mix and mingle. There

are goals and objectives to be achieved from the exercise.

Location Ideally retreats are most effective when the exercise takes place outside the official office premises. It provides a less tense environment for easy thinking, relaxation and strategizing. The location outside the office is usually chosen as a hotel or resort destination, you may use hall venues or a total change in geographical location. Depending on the budget and corporate policy there is a vast number of locations that can suit the desires of the organization. It is not compulsory an external location be used, It can as well be the office premises itself. It means those included will be in the training room provided for the entire period. I recently delivered a workshop at a retreat that was conducted for quite a number of participants in their office premises. I was told the retreat was going well that the previous day was intensive starting early and finishing very late. It is best to settle for that which is very

and invites given to external participants in advance.

Assignments A retreat needs to have a team or committee in place where all involved are responsible for assigned tasks. No assumptions should be made for any part of the retreat provided each task or segment has a person in charge. Assignments or task ownership should include: - Activities for the Retreat - Members Sign Up - Accommodation & Travel Arrangements - Facilitator Invitations (Internal & External) - Fees & Invoices - Food and Beverage - Music & Entertainment - Work Materials& Stationary - Session Plan & Execution - Awards - Speeches & Presentation Tools - Staff Welfare & Dresscode - Gifts & Takeaways Activities A line up of activities for the retreat depends on the entire objectives of the organization.

It should include elements that

affordable and on budget.

Participants It is important to decide the target audience for this retreat.

Some organization see a yearend retreat as an end of year get together and celebration, the year they will invite all staff members. A retreat may include only key stakeholders or key management staff who are responsible for making decisions and creating strategy for the organization. Depending on the organizations future plans, middle level, senior and executive level staff are best used for strategic organizational retreats.

Agenda A good retreat needs to be planned effectively from beginning to execution. Some organizations employ the services of experts to ensure the seamless flow of events. A retreat must be strictly planned out and effectively conducted for it to be successful. This means strict adherence to timing is included.

Being a strategy session there is no room for mediocrity as this should be one of the pitfalls looking to be addressed at such retreats. The agenda should be communicated effectively from the choice of location, address, arrival and event timings to meals, feedbacks and after hours. The speeches and activities need to be aligned

involve serious brainstorming along with aspects of team bonding and social engagement. A typical retreat will include some of the under listed elements: * Strategy Session * Brain Storming & Team Development * Exercise * Team Activities * Rest & Relax Entertainment * Learning & Development * Year in Review End of Retreat/ Feedback At the end of a retreat it is advisable that feedback is received from all aspects, including the retreat itself, personal progress, company progress and findings moving forward.

A retreat is a great thing to have if you are looking to explore the minds, ideas, and thoughts of all staff and key decision makers. The entire day is spent and can extend to 2-3days depending on the line up of events. A retreat is only successful when you put feedback of the retreat to maximum use.

HR is responsible for ensuring that the punctual results of the retreat are applied intently to the success and progress of your company.

Please share your experience with me. Join my online community @janetadetu

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Day Hero Fiesta entertained ‘Heronaires’

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he venue was the Chuba Ikpeazu Stadium in Onitsha, Anambra State and the night began on an explosive note. Popular SouthEast based Disc Jockey, DJ Alonso, was on the wheels of steel and rocked it with so much gusto, setting the tone for the evening. He whipped the crowd into such a frenzy that the elevated tarp on the VIP section vibrated, while dishing out great music as a warm up to the fourth edition of the hitherto annual music extravaganza, Hero fiesta four.

This year’s edition was tagged ‘The Bridge Edition’ and aptly so because it identifies with the major landmark that typifies the South East, epitomized by the Niger Bridge. It also signified the bridging of the last fiesta, which held in 2014 and the current edition.

All over the world, music has always been a universal language appreciated by all. It connects people, unifying diverse culture and experiences. Multinational organisations have been known to use music as a tool in connecting with their customers as well as giving them the ultimate brand experience.

This is why the Super Bowl, for instance, in the United States of America, is very popular for using superstar artists for its halftime entertainment shows.

According to Nielsen data, a US-based research company, over 113 million viewers tuned in to watch the show in 2017, making it the most watched television sporting show in the world.

Taking a cue from this, International Breweries Plc, makers of Hero Larger beer and a proud member of the ABInbev family, has also successfully connected

with its customers, giving them even more value for their money, since 2012 when it began the Hero Fiesta music concert, which featured popular Nigerian artists that thrilled the crowd.

Frank De Don, a microphone maestro and compere for the show, displayed so much energy on stage and occasionally appreciated the enthusiastic crowd by gifting them souvenirs like music CDs, wrist chains, rings, among other gifts. It promised to be a night of great fun.

The performance lineup was made up of superstar artists like Rudeboy, Omawunmi, Timaya, Duncan Mighty, HarrySong, Zoro, Victor AD, Slow Dog, Reekado Banks and a host of upcoming artists who also displayed their music skills.

As is traditional with the brand, it provides a platform in support of aspirations, encouraging all to ‘Go Be the Hero’ in whatever they do. To this end, prior to the music fiesta, it organized an open mic tagged ‘Making of Heroes’ where young people displayed their musical talents. A few of them were selected as opening acts for the bigger stars on the day of the fiesta.

After a rapturous display by DJ Alonso, popular South-Eastern on air personality and DJ, DJ Tricia, took over and dished out a number of afro pop and afro-highlife tunes made popular by the likes of Flavour, Zoro, Slow Dog, etc.

The stage was set for an explosive night and fans were not disappointed.

The first performance by M’Prof, was a memorable one as he took the crowd to another level of excitement. The energy was high as he showed potentials of being the next rated artists across the country. He was

followed by Real P, Twister, Tinted and a host of other budding acts who also displayed their musical talents.

A trip down memory lane reveals why Hero became such a popular brand in the region. When it was launched into the Nigerian market in August 2012, it gradually endeared itself to customers majorly in the Eastern part of the country who christened it ‘Oh Mpa’, as a mark of respect. Mpa is usually the respectful yet endearing way a father is called. In addition to it being well loved, Hero recently became the first beer to be knighted as a red cap chief with the title ‘Dike Mba Nile’ a well-deserved reverence for the brand.

Slow Dog’s performance was expectedly exhilarating as the crowd sang along some of his hit songs including ‘Nwanne Waa’, ‘What’s My Name’, among other hits.

HarrySong did not disappoint with a performance so thrilling that he ended up giving a fan his warm cap, shirt, shoes, belt and even his expensive ring. Song like ‘After the reggae play the blues’, ‘Arabanko’ ‘Happiness’, among others, literarily tore the roof off the stage.

Omwunmi came as a

colossus and performed like the star that she is. She came on stage with her band and sang like she was giving her last performance on earth. Hits like ‘Megbele’, ‘If you ask me,’ Belle’ rent the air as everyone sang along with her. Not only did she thrill the crowd with her dance steps, she also engaged them when she brought a boy and girl on stage to likewise entertain the crowd. In connecting with her fans, Omawunmi walked into the crowd but had to quickly return to the stage to prevent her massive wig from being pulled off by excited fans.

Omawunmi’s performance was closely followed

by Reekado Banks, whose entry song ‘Easy’ made the crowd go wild. He sang back to back, ‘Oluwa ni,’ ‘Katapot’, among other songs and acknowledged the love from the crowd.

Another world class performance was by Rudeboy who like Omawunmi, came on stage with his band and thrilled the crowd. His entry elicited jubilant screams as fans scrambled to touch him on stage but were pushed back by security.

Rudeboy, the one half of defunct PSquare group per-

formed most of his solo songs from ‘Nkemji keke,’ Reality’ Call Heaven’ and a few songs from his PSquare days. Everyone agreed that his performance and that of Omawumi were the best of the night. Like other performers before him, Rudeboy gave a lucky fan his timberland boots and threw his shirt into the crowd, eliciting screams from female fans.

Zoro is an energetic performer whose brand of music is quite appreciated in the South-Eastern and South-Southern part of the country. He was introduced on stage by Nollywood actor, Harry B, who rhymed the introduction to the delight of the crowd. Zoro’s ‘Ogene’ Mbada’ ‘Echolac’ among other hits, were so energetic that the crowd screamed for an encore anytime he wanted to exit the stage. In addition to having the legendry Nkem Owoh, aka, Osuofia and Harry B dance on stage, Zoro thrilled the crowd with Ijele masquerades and other acrobatic dancers who displayed so much dexterity with their dance steps.

Duncan Mighty, aka, Port Harcourt first born, gave no less a performance.

Songs like ‘Port Harcourt son,’ ‘Obiauju,’ ‘Lova Lova,’ among other big time hits, blew the crowd as they chanted and sang along with the crooner, after which he appreciated the crowd by throwing some souvenirs to them.

Highlight of the night was the performance by the Eberipapa one of Bayelsa himself, Timaya. Throughout his performance, the crowd happily hand the songs, without the background music, indicating how much his songs were loved and how well they could sing it. Timaya, who was awed at the amount of love coming from the crowd, kept thanking them for the love. Songs like ‘Dem mama,’ ‘Ukwu’ ‘Sanko,’ among others, were used to thrill the crowd.

The night ended on a positive note as 17 customers were rewarded with one million naira each, for their patronage in the Hero National Consumer Promo awards. The excited customers, who received their dummy cheques, praised Hero for their good fortunes and thanked them for the recognition. According to Ugwuanyi Onyebuchi Emmanuel, one of the N1 million naira winners, “this is a brand that has never failed in rewarding us for our loyalty whether it is with the music fiesta or by this promo and we are sincerely grateful for their presence in the South East.”

Through music, IB Plc has been able to foster a stronger connection with its customers and has done so now for four years. Unlike other brands that would rather host such concerts in cities like Lagos and Abuja, Onitsha was favoured in order to bring it closer to the people and the turn out at the stadium showed the gesture was well appreciated.

Adekunle Gold set for Lagos showdown this December

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fro pop singer and songwriter, Adekunle Gold, has announced a 3-day live performance this December to the delight of fans and critics alike. Known for breaking the mold and challenging industry standards, this is the first time a home grown artiste will dare to pull off what is no doubt an ambitious live show residency.

The residency is set to kick off at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island from December 1315, 2018.

The show will end what has indeed been a remarkable year for the singer following the release of his

critically acclaimed album ‘About 30’ and a sold out Indigo Arena show in London.

In true Gold style, the live set will provide fans with the opportunity to catch Adekunle Gold and the 79th element band providing a professional music experience which will focus on undiluted music artistry, stage production, and showmanship.

The AG Live residency will be produced by U-Live Africa (a division of Universal Music Group Nigeria), Livespot Group, and Venn Agency, bringing forth their collective desire to curating high quality music expe-

riences that connect artists and their fans through

unique live productions.

Head of U-Live Africa

[Nigeria office], Adebayo Fatoba, stated that “Adekunle Gold is an extremely talented creative who is always looking for new ways to challenge himself and the industry, and deliver out of the box projects. This is something we haven’t seen in Nigeria for a very long time”.

“AG Live is set to be a spectacular show and we are incredibly thrilled to be a part of it”, he added.

Tickets are available for purchase at nairabox.com and physical outlets (Filmhouse Cinemas, HubmartSupermarkets, CityDia Supermarkets, and Tastee Fried Chicken).

Nigeria-Born Adekunle Kosoko, popularly known by his stage name Adekunle Gold, is an award-winning Urban Highlife singer-songwriter. He released his debut album ‘Gold’ in 2016 and his sophomore album ‘About 30’ in 2018. His hit single ‘Sade’ won him Best Alternative Song at The Headies 2015.

He has garnered awards from Nigerian Entertainment Awards (NEAs), Afrima Awards, Beat of Lagos, and many more. Adekunle Gold is an international artist with his sound transcending boarders with a sold out show at the Indigo, O2 Arena in London.

Friday 07 December 2018

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AgriBusinessInsight Market Insights

Analysis

Commentaries

Experts/Industry Views

Commodities watch

Friday 07 December 2018

In association with Policy Reviews

Send in Commentaries to caleb.ojewale@businessdayonline.com

Lack of reliable data limits investment prospects in agribusiness CALEB OJEWALE Twiiter: @calebtinolu

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aking investment decisions is largely data driven, but in the current setup of Nigerian agriculture, the possibilities in that regard are very limited. To start with, any investment in Nigeria’s agribusiness would need absolute clarity on the status of local food production as well as importation. Knowing what gaps exist is the feasible way of deciding exactly how to get involved in the industry. The problem, however, is, there is a dearth of reliable agricultural data in Nigeria.

Taking tomato for instance, Nigeria is said to be the 13th largest producer of tomatoes in the world and the second after Egypt in Africa, yet the country is unable to meet local demand because about 40 percent of tomato produce is wasted due to poor packaging, transportation and storage.

Tomato demand in Nigeria is put at 2.2 million metric tons per annum, while annual actual production is 1.5 million metric tonnes but 700,000 metric tonnes is lost to post harvest wastage, leaving only 800,000 metric tonnes supplied to the market, according to data from the agric ministry.

The 40 percent loss, valued at N72 billion annually, between farm and market, on face value, portrays what could be a viable business.

It therefore, appeared to make good business sense for any potential investor who thought tomato processing will be a money-spinner.

BusinessDay was provided with an insider account of how Dangote’s tomato factory in Kano was established, and in the midst of what should be overwhelming prospects (in terms of raw materials), has struggled to survive. During Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure as President, in a meeting attended by Aliko Dangote, and some stakeholders in the agric sector, the issue of

Source: Agricultural Promotion Policy, 2016-2020

tomato was raised. At the said meeting, President Jonathan expressed worry about the numerous reports of wastage he kept receiving on post harvest losses.

As the source who attended this meeting recalled, “Goodluck Jonathan turned to Dangote and said, can you please find a solution to this problem, even if it means setting up a factory”. While Dangote in his response, expressed scepticism about being able to venture into the new line of business, he promised to give it some thought and do his analysis.

The rest, as they say is history, as the Tomato factory later materialized.

A Reuters report aptly described the decision, stating “On paper this looked like a smart move as Nigeria imports up to 400,000 tons of tomato paste annually. The

tinned paste is an ingredient in Nigerian tomato stew, used as the base for a host of traditional meat stews, sauces, soups and rice dishes that are staples of Nigerian cooking.”

As previously reported

by BusinessDay, the Dangote tomato plant designed to produce 1,200 metric tons per day was built following a 2011 Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) study that showed it was cheaper to process tomato paste locally than import from China.

The factory has shut down and reopened a number of times since 2016 when it was commissioned, the main reason being lack of stable supply of tomatoes. But then, the question remains, if there was such a huge opportunity for tomato processing, in view of how much is said to be lost postharvest, why then did the Dangote factory find it difficult

to get raw material?

Dangote is not alone in this situation, as another tomato processor also shut down, due to its own reasons, which do not exclude raw materials. The perception that so much tomato is lost in Nigeria appears real by rhetoric, but hardly supported by the reality of those who eventually venture into production/processing.

“This season alone our members lost almost ten billion naira due to poor market and lack of guaranteed off takers,” said Sani Yadakwari, national general secretary, Tomato Association of Nigeria, in a statement made available to BusinessDay earlier this year.

Going by Yadakwari’s grief of losses suffered by his members, why then should processors find it difficult to get tomato as raw materials?

The data bandied in official policy documents, may

not be a product of thorough research, which would be truly reflective of the situation on ground. The tomato gap scenario is one proof of this.

More importantly is considering the value of Nigeria’s food import bill as a whole.

Ideally, the gaps should show opportunities for those willing to invest in the country, but Nigeria’s data could offer more confusion than insights.

Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture, at last year’s meeting of the National Council on Agriculture and Rural Development (NCARD) in Port Harcourt, said during his remarks to ‘declare the meeting open’ that Nigeria’s food import bill is $22.5 billion.

Ogbeh went further to explain this reflected how insecure the country is in food production, emphasising the need for concerted efforts to increase production across all types of crops and even livestock.

In an exclusive interview after the NCARD meeting with Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for Agriculture and Rural Development, the figure earlier given by Ogbeh was put forward for clarification.

“That has been the figure.

When we came, the statistics we have showed Nigeria’s food import bill is $22 billion. And that figure itself is being disputed, because some people are saying the figure is far less than what we actually spend on food import; because we import virtually everything.

Nigeria was in trade deficit with every other country. Today we are happy that some countries within the region at least come to Kano, Sokoto, Jigawa. They are entering Nigeria to come and buy goods but before, we were in trade deficit with every country in the world; including Benin republic,” Lokpobiri said.He also said; if we are importing food to the tune of $22 billion, it is money that effectively the private sector can earn in Nigeria, and there is no excuse why we have to spend $22 billion importing food.

However, the figures given by both Ogbeh and Lokpobiri,

contradict even the ministry’s official data as contained in the Agriculture Promotion Policy document for 2016 – 2020 released by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD).

The document stated; Nigeria still imports about three to five billion dollars worth of food annually, especially wheat, rice, fish and sundry items, including fresh fruits. As a result, Nigeria is not food secure.

Wastage levels remain high in production areas, reducing supply of feedstock to processing factories, requiring them to keep importing supplies.

A 2017 PWC report titled; transforming Nigeria’s agricultural value chain, which indicated estimates were deduced using a combination of sources including the World Bank, NBS, FMARD, UNCTAD, and the CBN, put the country’s food import bill at $5.3 billion.

The difference between $22 billion and $5 billion is a whopping $17 billion. The figure could have very devastating impacts if explicitly relied upon by investors as the basis for opportunities in food production. There is a need for accurate, objective collection of agricultural data that does not seek to suit any political preferences. Data should also be publicly made available as it is, in order for players in the sector to consistently have a clear picture of the state of agriculture, and decide where to commit their funds in investment.

This also resonates the recent controversy over Nigeria’s rice importation. If ports data had been diligently compiled and made public over time, it would have been easy to find out at a glance, if rice was being imported into Nigeria.

More importantly, perhaps, if Nigeria had an effective data gathering mechanism in place, it would have been possible to determine with considerable precision, just how much progress has been made in rice production over the last three years, and what space is left to be filled in potential investments.

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Transforming the African agribusiness sector: Tech, transparency hold key to inclusive growth FRÉDÉRIC MASSÉ, Africa Agriculture Industry head at Sap Africa

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ccording to experts, the African population is expected to double by 2050, which means that food demand on the continent is expected to at least double by then. Beyond feeding the population, the social and economic benefits induced by the increase in production and productivity in Africa are obvious. This increase in production would create jobs in agriculture but also in upstream, downstream and support activities; would help to eradicate hunger; would improve the economic situation of populations and would offer farmers new opportunities in international markets. This means that selfsufficiency is achievable, and that Africa could be a net exporter of food products instead of its current status as an importer.

However, the agricultural t ra n s f o r m a t i o n m o d e l s implemented in the rest of the world are not transposable as they stand. The African agricultural sector is unique in that it is largely dominated by millions of small family farmers, who cultivate small areas with poor farming techniques. They have limited access to inputs, financial services or technology and mainly practice subsistence agriculture because of their difficulties in accessing the market. These small family farmers are one of three groups that make up the African agricultural sector: the other two are large African and multinational agri-food companies that operate on a large scale on the continent and internationally; and small and medium-sized enterprises that process, transport, refine food or operate farms under conditions similar to those in industrialized countries.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the 250 million African smallholder farmers produce 80% of the food consumed in Africa. These small farmers are therefore essential to Africa’s food security, economic and social development : in fact, even if all large and small and medium-sized

enterprises operating on the continent completed their transformation, this would only affect a maximum of 20% of the African agricultural sector.

Today, the transformation of the smallholder farming sector is hampered by the lack of access to information, best agricultural practices, inputs (fertilizers, seeds, pesticides), m e c ha n i z at i o n , ma rk e t opportunities and financial services. On average, the smallholder farmer cultivates a plot of land of less than 2 ha and earns less than $1,000 per year, an income that provides a living for the entire family who must contribute to agricultural work. The transformation of this sector therefore requires a concerted - and specifically African - approach because of the uniqueness of its model and its challenges.

Ensuring inclusive transformation and upliftment The transformation of the sector and the increase i n p ro d u c t i o n mu s t b e inclusive. This means that the transformation of African agriculture cannot follow the same path as that followed by European or North American agriculture. Indeed, there will be no massive rural exodus to industrial jobs. The 250 million farmers represent 250 million families who earn a living and will have to continue to earn a living through agriculture.

As the population increases, t he numb e r o f f a r m ers will continue to increase accordingly.

The role of the private sector is crucial in the transformation o f A f r i c a n a g r i c u l t u re.

Agri-food companies have massive purchasing power,

while smallholder farmers are looking for ways to improve productivity and quality as well as increase their production and income.

When farmers are integrated into global value chains, both sides benefit: farmers improve their incomes by having easier access to markets and private companies have access to the raw materials needed to produce their goods.

However, integration remains a challenge. Sellers and buyers lack data on small family farmers and their cooperatives or other groups with whom they would like to work. There is too little data on crop types, production areas and harvest prospects. This complicates planning while often leaving smallholder farmers without the necessary advice and support to improve their production and income potential. It also complicates the implementation by small farmers of the quality and food safety standards necessary for food businesses.

Banks have strict risk management requirements that complicate the provision of financing to small family farmers: without precise knowledge of their farms, harvests and incomes, the risk of granting loans is simply too high and the interest rates on loans granted by banks or microfinance institutions vary between 20 and 40%, which limits their scope. The same phenomenon can be observed in the insurance sector.

Integrating smallholder farmers into the formal agri value chain Most of these challenges can be solved by connecting the different actors in the

agricultural value chain through digital marketplaces that manage the supply from smallholder farmers, manage the stocks and manage the commercialization of agricultural products and their transport. The viability of these marketplaces can be guaranteed if they are operated by private companies and financed by fees levied on the commercial transactions they allow. Indeed, other models based on philanthropy or national or international public funding have shown their limits. This private model does not exclude state control and regulation to avoid the creation of monopolies.

The aggregation of farmers into formal groups and cooperatives is also necessary. This will make it easier to work with them for sellers and buyers, but also to train and support them, for example in traceability and certification processes that are generally mandatory for food manufacturers.

Through these digital marketplaces, banks and insurance companies will have access to the data necessary to reduce their risks and thus be able to serve the untapped market of smallholder farmers.

Based on the data, input suppliers will also be able to sell directly to farmers or cooperatives. For example, fertilizer companies could significantly increase their incomes by working directly with cooperatives and smallholder farmers. On average, smallholder farmers use only 15 kg of fertilizer per hectare in Africa: significantly less than the global average of 120 kg/ha and the African

Union recommendation of 50 kg/ha. Part of the problem is that smallholder farmers often do not have direct access to fertilizer companies but go through intermediaries who subtract a large part of the value by significantly increasing prices. The double consequence is that small farmers do not have access to the quantities of fertilizer they would need, and producers’ sales are limited by the profits of intermediaries.

Buyers of agri-food products will be able to buy more easily from small farmers through their organizations, knowing that the quantity and quality promised by contract will be delivered and that they will have the means to monitor the progress of crops and agricultural operations.

Finally, through better stock management, storage conditions and adjustment of supply to demand, these digital marketplaces will also help to reduce food waste and loss, which, according to FAO estimates, currently represents 20% for cereals and up to 50% for fruit and vegetables in total food production on the continent.

SAP’s solution to connect smallholder farmers to agricultural value chains In recent years, SAP has worked with several smallholder farmer organizations and agribusinesses in Africa to develop and test a dedicated solution to connect s mallho ld er far mers to agricultural value chains.

This solution is called SAP Rural Sourcing Management, and it is designed to capture, maintain and share individual data of smallholder farmers such as crop types, geographical location of fields, farm size, harvest prospects, farmers’ production sales transactions, and more.

It also connects smallholder far mers to in fo r mat io n providers (training in best agricultural practices, weather data, market data, etc.) and facilitates access for smallholder farmers to various stakeholders in the broader agricultural value chain, including financial services, buyers and suppliers of inputs (fertilizers, seeds, pesticides and agricultural equipment).

For governments, access

to some of this data is also very important. It enables more effective and efficient public policy and intervention decision-making to ensure, for example, food security and safety, crop diversification and farmer financing at the local, regional and national levels.

SAP Rural Sourcing Management, sometimes in combination with other SAP commodity trading solutions, is currently being evaluated and implemented in several African countries as part of public-private producers partnerships managed and financed by private companies.

The most recent example is CBI Innovations Ltd. (CBIiL), the for-profit arm of CBINigeria, who chose SAP Rural Sourcing Management to integrate 850,000 small maize producers into the agricultural value chains.

CBIiL will be combining the use of SAP Rural Sourcing Management with the model of private extension services agents they have developed: the Community LIFE Agents (LIFE stands for Livelihoods Information Field Entrepreneurs).

Each LIFE agent supports 50 to 100 smallholder farmers.

They are young unemployed graduates recruited from around the communities in which they will serve. They are trained by CBIiL and equipped with a dedicated Android device on which various applications specific to their missions are installed.

They receive commissions on the products and services (inputs, telephone credit, banking, etc.) they sell to farmers and a premium based on the productivity growth of each farmer with whom they work.

A successful, thriving, highly productive African agricultural sector is possible.

The transformation of the smallholder farming sector into a high-performance producer integrated into the global food value chains will not only grow local economies, ensure a more successful agri value chain, contribute to achieve selfsufficiency and safeguard food security, but will transform the lives of the 250 million smallholder farmers and their families whose livelihoods depend on their produce.

Entertainers put spotlight on food security in #United4Food concert

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s part of efforts to inform and inspire young Nigerians on the importance of food and agriculture, Nigerian music artiste, Olanrewaju Fasasi who uses the stage name Sound Sultan, recently brought some entertainers together in a concert to create more awareness on food security.

“It is unacceptable that

nearly a billion people go to bed hungry every day and about a-third of that number lives in sub-Saharan Africa with Nigeria accounting for the highest percentage,” said Sound Sultan.

Speaking at the event tagged #United4Food, sponsored and supported by Oxfam and HEDA Resource Centre in collaboration with

Sound Sultan and friends, he noted that in 2017, they had the very first edition of the concert which had many celebrities in attendance.

A food security/agriculture ambassador for Oxfam, Sound Sultan said the 2018 edition of the concert was deliberately crafted to among other things, show appreciation to the millions of small-scale farmers

who toil every day to ensure that Nigeria is food secure.

He said, “Small scale women and men farmers are the ones who produce about 70 percent of the food we consume in Africa, yet they are not well appreciated and do not get the support that they deser ve. They are confronted by myriads of challenges including

climate change, insecurity and inadequate government s u p p o r t a m o n g o t h e r s.

Through this concert, Sound Sultan and friends seek to bring public and government attention to their challenges.

“Most importantly, we organize this concert to enlighten and encourage our young fans and friends to see

agriculture as cool and trendy.

We wish to change the wrong perception about agriculture and to let young people appreciate that agriculture can bring them that their dream lifestyle. That with agriculture you can live the life of a celebrity everyday if you are determined, innovative and business-like about it”, he emphasized.

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INTERVIEW

Zenith Pensions Custodian controls 40 percent of the pension industry market – Nkem Oni-Egboma The Nigerian pension industry has grown geometrically since the sector was reformed in the last decade as the industry now worth over N8 trillion. Following the emergence of Zenith Pensions Custodian as the Pensions Custodian of the Year 2017, TELIAT ABIODUN SULE and KELVIN AMADIN UMWENI, both of BusinessDay Research and Intelligence Unit (BRIU), engaged NKEM ONI-EGBOMA, managing director, Zenith Pensions Custodian who shared her experience with BusinessDay analysts on how her institution posted stellar performance in 2017. Excerpts:

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put into good use promptly.

Nkem Oni-Egboma

Do you mean no penalty was paid to PENCOM in 2017?

No, none.

What is the percentage of women on your board?

I would say it is about 50 per cent. We are seven (7) on the board and we have four (4) females and three (3) males.

Earlier this year, BusinessDay carried a report that PENCOM imposed certain fines on PFAs for not giving clients adequate returns. PENCOM found it so exploitative and imposed some fines on certain players. Between then and now, what has actually changed in the ways either PFAs or PFCs treat their clients?

Though PFCs were not affected however, the grouse was on the level of returns on invested Pension Assets and PFAs generally reviewed their investment strategies to up their game while having safety of the assets as the primary concern hence, strictly adhering to the PenCom investment guidelines; PFAs skewed their investments towards investment with higher returns and also tactically and strategically moved between investments to take advantage of uptrend in the returns of certain investment classes while diverting from those with lower yields.

Another strategy was to manage the tenor of some of their investments to create opportunity for pre-liquidation when the opportunities arise. Also, the lock-in strategy on high yields investments for a longer period. Lastly, PFAs also enhanced their cash management policy to avoid idle cash and that all funds are

The pension industry is highly regulated just like banks. From time to time, you can invest in this, you cannot invest in that. What kind of impact has regulation had on your activities/ operations?

The impact has largely been positive. A great pointer to this was the 2007 – 2009 global financial crises, the impact in the industry was almost insignificant because of the minimal exposure of the pension assets to capital market and any other volatile asset classes such as alternative investments. On the flip side some of the PFAs investments were dominated by government securities (T/B and Bonds) as they have exhausted other asset classs investment limit. Hence, this was the need for the expansion of the investment scope.

Nevertheless, without doubt the high level of regulation and controls in the industry need to be sustained considering past experience.

We noticed in your financials that operating income increased by 54 per cent. What strategy can you say was responsible

‘

With premium placed on corporate governance and compliance with the regulations no infraction has been recorded against us since inception

‘

he pension industry has come a long way as it is now worth over N8 trillion. Could you please give us the general overview of the pension industry in Nigeria in the last few years?

Pension industry in Nigeria witnessed a rebirth in 2004 following the enactment of Pension Reform Act (PRA) of 2004.

It was a total shift from the old unfunded Defined Benefit (DB) scheme to Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). Nigeria adopted a hybrid of Chilean model and instituted PFA, PFC, CPFA and also AES to be managed by PFAs. The business was novel however, there was quite a number of teething issues and also getting the public to understand and appreciate the difference in the new scheme and ultimately the public acceptance. In spite of the challenges the formidable regulatory requirements instituted from inception helped build a solid structure for the industry which has enabled it stand the test of time. The industry experienced steady and rapid growth in both the coverage and funds under custody to enviable assets under custody of N8.3 trillion today. This is a success story.

The Pension industry as at today has been a major source of long-term pool of funds for improved capital formation in the Nigerian economy. As earlier mentioned with the total Assets of over N8.3t , this will assist in funding long-term investments in the country for instance in the area of funding infrastructural deficit currently experienced in the country. It might interest you to know that out of the N8.3 trillion total assets in the industry today our ( Zenith Pensions Custodian) share is about 40% (over N3.3 trillion). What has helped us to achieve this outstanding performance and remain focused are our service quality, investment in human capital, IT and sound corporate governance. With premium placed on corporate governance and compliance with the regulations no infraction has been recorded against us since inception.

for this growth?

Total Pension Assets under your custody as a Pension Custodian drives your total operating income. Hence, the significant growth of the total assets under our custody accounted for the rapid growth in our income. It has been basically hard work especially in the area of retention and growing of existing clients and businesses and also bringing in new businesses on board. Our mutually beneficial strategic partnership with our highly valued customers helped to grow and more business to our clients means more business to us .Also, the window that was opened recently for Pension Custodian to manage the custody of Annuity Pension Funds was tactically explored by us in our usual style. We go for the crème-de-le-crème and give them the best customer service so that they cannot think of switching.

Pension assets are either in the capital market or money market. The capital market is unimpressive year to date. What unique strategy are you putting in place so that by year end, you will record a stellar performance as the one you posted in 2017?

Well, if you look at the dynamics of the pension industry in Nigeria the responsibility of taking investment decisions lie with the PFAs. However, a high percentage of Pension funds are still in Government Securities (Bonds and TBills). Most PFAs have grounded research units that consistently analyse various markets to guide their organisation on where to pitch their tents in line with the projections based on basic fundamentals. Our partners (clients) have the capacity to achieve and sustain good returns on funds they manage and we (in conjunction ) with our parent bank collaborate with them in terms of offering timely market information and strategic synergy where required. The success of our customers is our success.

The pension industry at N8.3 trillion is huge but

we still understand that so many state governments are not compliant.

The public sector is also big of which most players there are not compliant. State governments haven’t keyed into that scheme. So what strategies are players putting in place to attract the public and informal sectors to the scheme so that the full potential of the industry can be unlocked?

In line with your segmentation, the regulators are in constant engagement with the law makers and appropriate authorities for compliance and continuity as some agencies/parastatals started but stopped paying. There is also a direct engagement of the various state governments by the PENCOM and recently PENCOM published in the national dallies the level of compliance by all the states.

Operators (PFAs) are also aggressively engaging some of these state governments and offering to take them through the training process. Some states started but latter stopped remittance as well.

PENCOM strategy of the use of recovery agents also had its positive impact on the progress recorded in formal sector. The upcoming Micro-Pension is targeted at the informal sector and going by EFIna- report the target is an immediate 25.1m banked individuals and an ultimate size of 63.4m adult population.

What about the states that don’t have difficulty paying salaries only that when they deduct, they don’t remit? Is it not possible for PFAs and PFCs to put in place schemes that will make governments remit timely?

The industry players at various levels will engage such states. It is actually unethical to deduct people’s pension contribution and fail to remit. Depending on their responses, level of engagement will be exploited in following due process until we are able to achieve our desired result.

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Hotels ‘We have proven that we can sign and open hotels in the African market’ ANDREW MCLACHLAN is the group senior vice president, development, Sub-Saharan Africa, Radisson Hotels Group. In this interview with OBINNA EMELIKE at the 4th West Africa Property Investment Summit in Lagos, McLachlan unveils Radisson’s new African strategy, why the hotel is wooing more African partners, guarantee for quality offerings, among others.

Can you describe the brand in a nutshell? he Radisson Hotel Group is a global hotel company. We have presence in 115 countries with 15,000 hotels across eight brands. We are positioned from economy all the way to luxury.

Each brand is specifically designed and positioned in different segments of the market. So, we do not have any cannibalization between on e brand and the other. As a company, our DNA and roots come from the Scandinavia. We started in Denmark and today we are a public listed company on the Stockholm Stock Exchange.

We see ourselves as a late starter to the African continent. We only came to Africa 18 years ago unlike some of our competitors who have been in Africa for 50 or 60 years now.

Over the 18 years, we have been very successful in growing quickly.

We were the first hotel group to open a dedicated African development office in 2007 run by Africans, which gave us the acceleration into the African market. We were able to take global brand but develop it with local African know-how. I think that was one of the first successes we had in Africa.

What is Radisson’s new African Strategy all about?

When we opened the Africa office, we had eight hotels in five countries, today we have grown to 90 hotels in 31 countries. Over the last four years, we have doubled our portfolio in Africa. We just launched a new 5-year African strategy. We want to add another 50 hotels to Africa over the next five years. Within the five years strategy, we are not going to take all the eight global brands, we are only focusing on five of the eight brands; Park Inn by Radisson (three-star), The Radisson (four-star), Radisson Red (four-star targeting trendy lifestyle segment), Radisson Blu, which is upper scale and also our most known brand.

About 70 percent of our African portfolio is Radisson Blu. Then, we have a new brand called Radisson Collection; it is positioned above Radisson Blu and entry level luxury brand.

Our strategy has evolved overtime, where we now have what we call City Scale Growth. What we want to do is to have multiple hotels in same city under different brands. We have seen that we can drive more business in the same city with more than one hotel in the same city, and can market that city as a destination. When we have more than one hotel in a city, the hotels do better because they can feed off each other. With our new five years strategy, we looked at 60 cities in Africa that have more than a million people, out of these 60 we have identified 23 where we can have real growth. We determine that

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by the population of the city, the air traffic into the city, the economic demand generators in the city and we categorise them to tier one cities and proactive cities.

A tier one city is a city where we think we can have up to 10 hotels by the end of 2022, and Lagos, Cape Town and Johannesburg are three tier one cities where we can have more than 10 hotels in the cities.

Today, we have six hotels in Cape Town, but we need another four over the next five years. In Johannesburg we have three hotel s and got a bit of work to do. In Lagos we have four hotels today, it is still a little bit of work, but we think it is good opportunities to get another six.

Then we look at the proactive cities. These are cities where we can have between three to five hotels and Abuja is a proactive city for us in Nigeria. We have other 19 proactive cities like; Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Durban, Abidjan, Accra among others. Looking at Nigeria specifically, Abuja has not had a new hotel of 100-150 rooms may be in 30 years, the last hotels of that magnitude to open were the Hiltons, Sheraton and Nicon. Otherwise, everything has relatively been small.

There is a demand for quality hotels in Abuja, we have a number of different opportunities happening in Abuja right now. It is a city where we can have four of our five brands.

The only brand we think is not good for Abuja is Radisson Red because Abuja is the capital; a very traditional city, and we think Radisson Red is a little bit quirky or stylish for Abuja.

Lagos is completely different. It is a city that is ready for Red because it has a young hip population that can absorb the Red. So, we think Lagos is a city that can have all of our brands.

We are in Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Ikeja, but we can have a Park Inn in Apapa because it is a business community with seaports. We plan to take our brands outside of the big cities to some larger towns.

We have a Park Inn that is doing very well in Abeokuta, we have one under construction in Onitsha. We believe there is space for us to go into places like Enugu, Kano, Port Harcourt among others. We may not go into the 36 states, but we will push the brands far in 10 out of the 36 states. We need to have good three-star hotel and Park Inn

By Radisson stands out here. We make it a domestic brand, which has an international infrastructure behind it. But it must really behave like a local brand because a local Nigerian sees Park Inn By Radisson as his local brand.

Why the focus on Africa and what is driving your growth in Nigeria?

I think, from the Nigerian point of view, we believe there is huge opportunity in Nigeria. About 18 months ago, we decided to focus a lot of time and attention on Nigeria because

Andrew Mclachlan

the economy was starting to recover, Naira was becoming stable and we committed to coming in and out of Nigeria once a month to look at opportunities. In 12 months we have added three new hotels to Lagos. We also look at the ECOWAS region, and how to create a business route across the countries and further facilitate inter-travel. We looked at airlift, air routes to see if we can find partners to work in those countries that we can develop hotels. So, as business people start getting familiar with the brand, they recognise in every city they traveled to that there is a Radisson Blu or a Radisson hotel.

Our first hotels in West Africa are Radisson Blu Victoria Island Lagos and Radisson Blu Dakar, Senegal.

They are very nice and fresh designer hotels and the West Africans relate to the brands and they enjoy the style of the hotels. They were not too traditional and we also have brand equity. A lot of people who stay in the hotel call us to tell us how they enjoyed the hotels and ask how to get a Radisson Blu in their cities.

How is Radisson Hotel Group going to fund the 50 hotels?

When we developed our new strategy, we want to develop 50 hotels in five years. It was very careful, a lot of thoughts of how we are going to achieve this. With all our hotels in Africa, we are working with 90 percent of the time with local partners. As a hotel group, we do not own hotels. It is owned by a hotel owner and in most cases the hotel owner is someone from that country or that city and they want to diversify in a different real estate. If a hotel is designed and management properly, it is a very profitable business to be in. I think people have noticed the success of the hotels we manage and want

their hotels to be Radisson Blu or any of our brands.

As a company, we are very down to earth. We are a very approachable to owners and investors, we are very sensitive to different cultures and different ways of doing business and we have adapted our business model to the country we are working in.

We do not have rigid structure; we try to understand how business is done in the country we operate in and try to adapt. We try to understand the local skills set and what needs to be supported, train and which areas do we need to focus because each country is a little different.

2018 is the first year of our five years plan and our target for 2018 was meant to be eight new hotels we signed. By September we signed 10.

So, we are already two hotels above our target. We are quite confident and next year, we need to sign nine hotels, and I think we will do more than that because we have good partners, and a good team of people that are focused on certain cities to find opportunities.

What are the criteria for choosing partners?

We need to make sure that the person we are doing business with has a long term vision. He wants to own a hotel for a long period of time because in some new investments decisions are different. If you want to build a hotel and sell it, you might not be able to create quality. It might look good on the surface but will not last. The owner should have a long term vision and ambition to build more hotels. In our company, 60 percent of our owners are multiple hotel owners. We form relations, form trust, then you can do a second hotel.

Most important, is the location.

Is the location of the hotel good?

What are the owner’s aspirations and what does the market want?

Sometimes the owner will tell you that he wants a five-star hotel, but the location is three star, and the market will only pay a certain price.

Then, there is no point building a five star hotel. There is a need for us to show the owner that the best return on that location is a Park Inn and not a Radisson Collection because the market is not going to pay for example more N20,000 per night. We really want to make sure that we put the right brand in the right location.

Then, we help the owner pick the right professional team, good architect, experience interior designer and a very good builder so that when we start construction there is not going to be delays. The cost is going to be the same. If we thought that the cost of a hotel was going to be $30 million, we make sure that it cost 30 million and not 40 million. In the past, some people have made mistakes by starting the building without having all the plans in place. We have learnt over the years that it is better to plan before you start building.

How do you reflect the culture of the city you operate in your design and service offerings?

The reason a guest will pick on a Radisson Blu is because he wants reliability of the brand, certain level of quality and accountability. We make sure that the Radisson experiences in different locations are same in terms of quality. What we do not want to do is make the hotels to look same, if I wake up in Conakry, Cape Town or Lagos, I need to know that I am in that city. So, I need to design the hotel according to what is required in those cities. In Cape Town, there is lot of entertainment you can do outside the hotel, so the hotel does not necessarily need to have too much activities so that people can eat and sleep in the hotel and go out to explore.

In a place like Conakry, I need to make sure we have multiple restaurants and bars, multiple leisure activities because we are not just a hotel for the in-house guests but also the city residents who want to come and enjoy the hotel. We need to make sure we factor that into the design. We also need to have facilities that the locals want to come and use, they want to come to the restaurant, the bar, the pool, and when a guest is staying here he wants a peaceful atmosphere, a place that has energy, and vibe.

Radisson Blu Victoria Island, Lagos stands out in this category.

It is not just patronised by in-house guests but also by local guess that come in to enjoy the facilities. So, if I stay there as a guest, I will get the energy and feeling of what is happening in Lagos.

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BUSINESS DAY

LegalPerspectives

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With

Odunayo Oyasiji

The Nigerian Legal Framework for E-commerce (2) ADETOLA ADELEKE,

Lead Partner Crown Court Attorneys

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Formation of Contract n the formation of contracts, the determination of the moment a contract comes into existence is always a material issue. With specific regard to e-commerce, this determination takes an even more fundamental character.

In traditional contracts, offer is often distinguished from invitation to treat. This distinction is relevant to e-commerce. For example, websites are designed in such a way as to constitute an invitation to make an offer and not situations of real offers by the web owners. However, in sales over the internet, both the display and the actual sale are often fused. This distinction is relevant to ascertain when the contract has been concluded i.e. “accepted”, which would bring about some obligations, including the possibility for the offeror to retract his offer. One position which follows a rule known as the postal rule is to say that the contract is deemed to have been formed once the email has been sent. The other

LOCUS CLASSICUS

Salomon v A Salomon and Co Ltd [1897] AC 22

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rinciple of law established by the case- The case established the principle of separate legal personality. This means that a company is a person and it is different from the people that established it.

Fact of the case- Mr Salomon is into the business of boot making as a sole proprietor. He later established and incorporated Salomon Ltd and transferred his boot making business to the newly incorporated company. The members of the company are Salomon and his family members. The money for the company was paid to Mr Salomon in form of shares and debentures having floating charge on assets of the company.

The company failed and went into liquidation. The interest of Mr Salomon in recovering based on the debenture ranks ahead of the unsecured creditors because of the floating charge on the assets of the company. It therefore seems like other creditors will be left with nothing. To avoid this situation, the liquidator on behalf of other creditors of the company instituted this action alleging that the company was sham and an agent of Mr Salomon. Therefore, Mr Salomon is personally liable for its debt. The Court of Appeal agreed with the reasoning of the liquidator and held in favour of the liquidator. However, the decision was upturned when the matter was appealed to the House of Lords. The House of Lords held that since the company was duly incorporated then it is separate legal person with its right and liability.

The company is therefore different from Mr Salomon and should be responsible for its debt.

rule known as the communication rule which makes receipt of email the touchstone. The second rule in particular gets more complicated because emails travel to a server before being sent onward and could be delayed. Again, would receipt be the time of receipt by the server, the time of delivery from the server to the addressee’s email account or the opening of the email by the

Friday 07 December 2018

addressee. It must be remembered that a sender may be able to retrieve an email sent to a person which mail is yet to be opened by the addressee.

Another challenge is to answer the question whether emails can be categorized as species of contract in writing within the meaning of our Nigerian Statute of Fraud, 1677 or Lagos State Law Reform (Contract) Law and our various statutes on real

property and landed instruments, all of which require certain contracts to be in writing and be duly executed.

The question then is would an electronic mark or sign constitute a valid signature in a contract by emails and be binding?

Furthermore, who will be held liable where a certificate authority who verifies electronic signatures is hacked in an online contract between service providers and consumers?

This is yet another issue to be considered where as we know that execution of a contract is fundamental to its enforceability, where an action for breach arises.

Many of these issues are still not quite settled even in the UK, although some decisions incline favourably towards interpreting electronic signatures or marks in emails as satisfying the traditional requirement of writing and due execution.

For contracts concluded via the internet by consumers, one of the issues is whether online advertisement constitutes an invitation to treat as opposed to an offer. If it is the former, then the offer is made by the consumer who selects the product advertised and seeks to pay for it, and it is accepted by the supplier who delivers/ships the product to the consumer. In that case the term ‘order’ by a consumer

is actually an offer that is made to the supplier who advertised his products online. On the other hand, the issue of a confirmation of an order placed online by a consumer may mean an ‘acceptance’ of the offer made by a supplier. The determination of the nature of such confirmation is guided by the European Union Directive Regulations 2002. This distinction is relevant in determining when the contract is completed and which terms and conditions are applicable when there is a dispute between the parties as to the quality of the product supplied and when the terms on the buyer’s order conflict with the terms of the seller’s delivery notes.

In the case of determining when the contract is completed, this becomes relevant where for instance a consumer ‘accepts’ an ‘offer’ and furnishes consideration but the seller/ service provider declines to perform the contract on the supposition that it does not intend to ‘accept’ the ‘offer.’

Or, where the consumer makes an order online, being an ‘offer’, will the seller/service provider be entitled to suppose that a contract has been formed upon ‘acceptance’ of the order, in which case, a contract is formed. These questions are yet to be tested in Nigerian courts, and the law seem yet uncertain.

The landlord and tenant relationship in Lagos State (part 4) ADETOLA ADELEKE,

Lead Partner Crown Court Attorneys

The length of notice to quit is determined as follows: a) By express agreement: As a general principle, length of notice shall be as expressly agreed by the parties in the tenancy agreement. b) By the nature of the tenure of tenancy: In the absence of any express stipulation, the following periods apply: i.

One week, for tenancy at will and weekly tenancy ii. One month, for a monthly tenancy iii.

Three (3) months for a quarterly tenancy or half-yearly tenancy iv. Six (6) months for a yearly tenancy Validity of Notice to Quit To be valid, the judicial position is that the notice to quit must expire on the last day of the tenancy, or the eve of the anniversary of the current term. An example: a yearly tenancy, which commences on 1 January ends on 31 December.

Therefore, a valid 6 month quit notice should terminate on 31 December, which is the last day of the term or the eve of the anniversary of a new term, if any. The 6 month Notice to Quit should therefore be issued in June to expire 31 December.

However, the Notice to Quit may be issued before June but it must terminate on 31 December

to be valid. Even if the length of notice exceeds the statutory period, it is still valid, provided it terminates on the last day of the current term or the eve of the anniversary of the current term.

However, an exception has been created under the current Lagos State Tenancy Law on the requirement for the notice to quit expiring on the eve of the anniversary of the tenancy.

The law adopts a flexible position and states that the Notice to Quit in respect of quarterly, half-yearly and yearly tenancies ‘need not terminate on the anniversary of the tenancy but may terminate on or after the date of expiration of the ten-

ancy.’ What is critical therefore, from the point of view of the new statute is that the length of Notice must be complied with and whether or not it expires after the expiration of the tenancy does not really count.

Service of Notices There are two Statutory Notices required to be served on the tenant by the landlord. They are the Notice to Quit and The landlord’s intention to proceed to apply to court to recover possession, which should not be less than 7 days.

There are prescribed modes of service that would be adjudged ‘proper service’ of no-

tices on tenants in residential premises. The first mandatory option or the main acceptable mode of service is personal service. Where personal service is not possible, then, any of the following alternative modes may be adopted: a) Delivery to any adult residing at the premises to be recovered; b) By courier, which delivers at the premises to be recovered, where the tenant cannot be found, while the courier shall provide proof of service; or Affixing notice on a prominent part of the premises to be recovered and providing ‘corroborative proof of service’.

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36 BUSINESS DAY Policy

Investments

Market

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Insight

Influencers

Market

Undergrid mini grids can cut 60% loss associated with underserved communities – study ISAAC ANYAOGU

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new study by Rocky Mountain Institute and the Energy Market and Regulator y Consultants have found that for DisCos and mini grid operators, undergrid minigrids could slash financial losses associated with underserved communities by at least 60%.

The report notes that throughout sub-Saharan Africa, hundreds of millions of people live “under the grid.” Such communities are within distribution company (DisCo) territory, but receive unreliable, inconsistent, and/or low-quality power that does not meet their needs—or they receive no power at all. These communities are thus undergrid yet also underserved.

There are about as many undergrid customers as offgrid customers in the world, with roughly 200 million households in each category. They face many of the same electrification challenges, especially around accessing the development benefits of electricity. However, governments and development partners

tend not to focus on undergrid customers because, in theory, they already have at least nominal electricity access.

Therefore the ability to successfully transition just 400 communities to undergrid minigrids could reduce a single DisCo’s annual financial losses by about N1 billion ($3 million), the report says.

“With a distribution usage fee from the minigrid developer, these savings could increase to over N2 billion ($6 million) annually for the DisCo. For minigrid developers, an estimated 40 million rural residents are underserved by the main grid. Of these, close to 35% could be served by over 4,000 commercially viable undergrid minigrid systems.

Nationwide, the revenue opportunity from these minigrids is approximately N400 billion ($1 billion) per year, offering minigrid developers an annual profit on the order of N75 billion ($200 million),” the report said.

For underserved communities and customers, compared to the status quo energy mix of grid and diesel, residential customers would save an average of

Integrating minigrids in undergrid communities

N54 ($0.15) per kWh. Across Nigeria, transitioning residential undergrid customers to minigrid service could yield N60 billion ($170 million) in annual savings.

Me a n w h i l e, u n d e r g r i d minigrid customers benefit from better, more-reliable, cost-effective electricity service, the study finds.

Minigrid operators Beyond just the DisCos, even minigrid operators can seize the momentum provided by serving poorly served communities. The report highlights five main steps to achieve this including: promoting minigrid awareness, developing busi-

ness models, implementing pilot projects, enabling market growth and scaling, and evaluating and ensuring benefits.

“Although this report focuses on Nigeria, the steps and potential opportunity are applicable throughout much of subSaharan Africa for the benefit of millions of

undergrid customers and the DisCos and minigrid developers that serve them,” it said.

The authors of the report see Nigeria as a promising testing ground for undergrid minigrid development.

It said Nigerian utilities have the third-lowest reliability in sub-Saharan Africa, 90% of grid connections are considered unreliable, and outages are longer and more frequent in rural areas.

“Customers often average just two hours per day of unreliable, low-quality electricity service. However, the Nigerian government has demonstrated a commitment to increase both electricity access and reliability in part through significant support for undergrid efforts via regulatory and policy leadership” Even with the challenges of low collection rates, unmetered customers, who are unable to recover revenue for the electricity they provide in rural areas, while still shouldering many costs, could find investments undergrids useful, the report states. Stakeholders would require following through on a careful policy to overcome barriers.

Investments

AfDB backs Nigeria’s rural electrification efforts with $150m

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igeria’s plan to i m p rov e e l e ctricity supply to her rural communities through the Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP) managed by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) has gained a fresh funding support worth $150 million from the African Development Bank (AfDB).

According to the AfDB, its board of directors has approved a $150 million sovereign loan to the federal government of Nigeria to finance the NEP. The new financing, it was learnt will support rural electrification efforts in Nigeria by facilitating private sector development and rollout of off grid solutions, as well as the installation of dedicated

power systems for federal universities.

The AfDB, equally disclosed that Africa Growing Together Fund (AGTF), a $2 billion facility sponsored by the People’s Bank of China and administered by it, has also approved a $50 million loan to the government of Nigeria to co-finance the NEP. According to it, the joint financing from the Bank and AGTF will support Nigeria’s efforts to address her critical energy access deficit, and catalyze achievement of universal energy access by 2030 targets.

It added that the NEP, implemented by the REA, presents an innovative approach to addressing the energy access deficit of Nigeria by channelling private

sector investments into commercially viable mini grid and off grid solutions.

AfDB’s Vice President for Power, Energy, Climate Change and Green Growth, Amadou Hott, reportedly welcomed the board’s approval of NEP, underscoring the importance of projects that leverage private sector investment into energy access solutions.

Hott, was quote d to have said about this that: “Given the limited amount of public financing available, projects that catalyze private sector investment are critical in enabling the Bank and its Regional Member Countries meet their shared objective of electrifying the continent within the next decade.”

The NEP, according to

the AfDB, is aligned with its New Deal on Energy for Africa, the High 5 priorities, as well as its Climate Change Action Plan.

It said the project is further aligned with the government of Nigeria’s Rural Electrification Strategy and Implementation Plan (RESIP), and the Power Sector Recovery Programme whose objective is to increase private investments into the energy sector.

Accordingly, one of the key objectives of NEP is to de-risk and scale up private sector investment in the off-grid sector. AfDB, operating both within the framework of NEP and in the context of its other initiatives in the country’s energy sector, said it will work with public and pri-

Analyst: Isaac Anyaogu, Email: isaac.anyaogu@businessdayonline.com, 07037817378,

vate sector stakeholders to encourage the development of an ecosystem that is conducive to facilitating the rapid, effective and commercially viable electrification of Nigeria’s off grid communities.

Also at the board, the Bank’s Nigeria Country office Director, Ebrima Faal, celebrated the approval in the light of recent reforms undertaken by Nigeria to facilitate private sector development of the off grid sector.

Faal said: “Nigeria has already implemented one of the most comprehensive regulatory frameworks for off grid development in Africa and has attracted preliminary interest from both large international companies and local firms. NEP will provide the spark that

is needed to convert private sector interest into action.”

Equally speaking after the board approval, the Managing Director of REA, Damilola Ogunbiyi, stated: “We are extremely pleased with the African Development Bank’s decision to support NEP. By supporting the electrification of unconnected and underserved communities, NEP will contribute materially to their economic development.”

“Access to reliable, affordable and clean electricity will result in savings for households and businesses, which can be deployed to other uses. NEP will also train and employ thousands of Nigerians with particular focus on women and young people,” Ogunbiyi, added.

Graphics: Joel Samson

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Policy

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Influencers

Company

Renewables offers best opportunity to achieve climate goals – IRENA ISAAC ANYAOGU

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new emissions gap report by the United Nations report says global efforts to curb climate change would need to be ramped up to stave off the worst effects of climate change as the world is failing to meet its 2015 Paris agreement.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental organisation supporting countries in their transition to a sustainable energy future, says renewables are, in combination with energy efficiency, the key to uncoupling economic growth from an increase in emissions.

Similarly, the United Nations in its report said new taxes on fossil fuels, invest-

ment in clean technology and much stronger government policies will like to check the current gap in emissions.

With only 12 years left to keep global temperature rise below 1.5% of pre-industrial levels, the immediate decarbonisation of the energy system must be pursued at every level, the agency said.

The G20 group of countries, whose members represent nearly four-fifths of global energy consumption and a similar share of installed renewable power generation capacity, are well positioned to lead the global energy transformation, the agency said. IRENA analysis estimates that G20 countries hold 75% of the global renewables deployment potential by 2030.

Some of the key measures that are advancing

the energy transformation include large-scale power generation installations are increasingly being supported by auctions with record breaking (low) prices and innovative policy design.

Market

Others are feed-in-tariffs which have been successful in driving the solar PV and onshore wind sector in countries such as China, Indonesia, Germany and Japan. Fiscal and financial

incentives have played a significant role in driving largescale renewable deployment in several G20 countries.

IRENA also said that biofuel mandates (especially in the EU-27) and fiscal in-

centives to advance electric vehicle use in the G20 are supporting an expansion of renewables in the transportation sector.

“Overall, the experience with renewable energy policies in the G20 countries highlights the importance of stability and continuity in instilling investor confidence and attracting investment.

To accelerate progress to levels required to keep global temperature rise below 1.5% of pre-industrial levels, a rapid and sustained increase in investment, backed by supportive policies and regulations, is required.

IRENA said in doing so, the countries of the G20 will have an opportunity to provide global leadership on the energy transformation while ensuring a sustainable future with energy accessible to all.

Mini-grids

Power for All trains 400 state-level policymakers Recent developments in Africa’s clean energy sector e s p i t e A f r i c a Aliyu, 2018). countries. 15% of the South on Decentralized Renewable Energy being well enSeveral developments African population lack elecISAAC ANYAOGU

I

fy Malo, Power For All Nigerian campaign manager during the conference Power for All, a global advocacy campaign for distributed renewable energy (DRE) has concluded its training program for 400-state-level policymakers, faith-based institutions, civil society organizations and trade associations on how to use DRE solutions to accelerate the rate of electrification and end energy poverty in their respective states.

The workshops, tagged DRE101/X-Learning Workshops are part of the Scaling Off Grid Energy (S.O.G.E.) project is designed to work with governments at national and sub-national levels to use DRE to increase electrification rates nationally and within states in order to make the target of the Federal Govern-

ment to achieve an electrification rate of 75% nationally by the 2020 realistic were held in Awka, Anambra State and Kaduna in October 2018.

The Scaling Off-Grid Energy (SOGE) Grand Challenge for Development is funded by the Global Development Lab of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Power Africa, and implemented in Nigeria

by FHI360 and Power for All. The partnership aims to provide 20 million households in Sub-Saharan Africa with access to modern, clean and affordable electricity through distributed solutions.

Ify Malo, country manager of Power for All, said, “Lack of access to electricity is arguably Nigeria’s biggest infrastructural challenge, and has forced people and businesses to resort to inefficient forms of energy and lighting through fossil fuels such as kerosene which comes with a lot of

costs: financial, health, safety and environmental costs.

“As a global campaign, Power for All believes that the fastest way to achieve universal access to clean, modern energy is through the acceleration of DRE which eliminates these costs.

The DRE101 workshops held in Kaduna and Awka were the conclusion of the first phase of the state-level trainings which held in eight states: Kogi, Enugu, Kano, Oyo, Cross River, Abia, Kaduna and Anambra and has increased the knowledge of policy makers on DRE. DRE solutions—which range from pico-solar solutions and stand-alone solar systems to mini-grids and mobile solar farms—have the advantage of being readily available, affordable, and immediately deployable.

The workshops have produced numerous outcomes, which include plans for states to set up regional taskforces to drive DRE in their domains, research on how some states can share power generated, states pledging to adopt DRE policies and plans, collaborating with neighboring states on setting up an industrial park for the assembly of DRE components and starting discussions with developers on DRE investments in their domains.

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dowed with a variety of natural resources, it has been a huge challenge for the continent to provide energy to its people. Sub-Saharan Africa has about 70% of its people without access to a reliable source of energy.

Energy is vital for economic development. The continuous investment and development of the energy sector in Africa will greatly improve the lives of its people.

More jobs are created, more wealth is available, and poverty also reduces. This article discusses the achievements and steps being made in the continent towards improving clean energy access.

Over the years, it has been established that decentralised renewable energy will prove a faster and more viable solution to the energy problems in Africa. It can be located closer to load centre and has little impact on the environment. Also, according to the United Nations, renewable energy should be preferred over the use of fossil fuels in Africa because the continent is most vulnerable to the effects climate change due to rapid population change, human activities among other factors (Source:

Analyst: Isaac Anyaogu, Email: isaac.anyaogu@businessdayonline.com, 07037817378,

have been made in accelerating sustainable energy access around Africa. Precious Ajuebor, Co-Founder of Offgrid Nigeria discussed these achievements with Gridless Africa in our weekly tweet chat. One of these achievements is the Noor Ouarzazate concentrated solar plant in Morocco. 160 of 580 megawatts (MW) of the total plant capacity has been completed and in operation since 2016 with the remaining capacity expected to be completed by the end of 2018. This project will provide electricity to over one million homes and the carbon reductions are estimated at 760,000 tons per year (Source: CNN and World Bank).

Another major development is in South Africa, where solar energy is being sold to consumers for $0.075 per kilowatt-hour (kWh) (Source: IRENA).

This price competes with several around the world such as Chile ($0.065/kWh), France ($0.089/kWh) and UK ($0.093/kWh) (Source: Maxx Solar). Having other African countries following in this line of solar energy cost reduction will be beneficial but also depends on individual factors in the

tricity access.

Over in Nigeria, the countries rural electrification agency (REA) is also making strides in energizing rural areas and businesses. REA recently received approval for a $350 million grant from the World Bank for the Nigeria Electrification Project.

This fund will be used to develop new mini grids, solar home systems and to power universities and hospitals.

This will provide electricity to 2.5 million homes and 70,000 small and medium enterprises (Source: REA).

Also, through the agency’s energizing economies initiative, three independent power projects, electrifying 50,000 shops have been completed in three major markets across the country.

Finally, Gridless Africa has discussed with African companies dedicated to offering services ranging from solar mini grid development, energy management, block chain, research to financing and media. It is obvious from these that a lot more growth in the African clean energy field will be seen in the years to come.

Lanre Okanlawon is a co-founder at Gridless Africa

Graphics: Joel Samson

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Fintechs bridge financing gap for smallholder...

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platform, with some offering better returns than others, which is also a function of the particular farm type being put up for sponsorship.

The platforms have so far offered thousands of Nigerians with disposable income and considerable appetite for risk, an alternative investment vehicle, in this case agriculture, which many people are interested in, but often unable to venture into directly.

There are currently five known platforms offering these services, with varying levels of confidence and trustworthiness; Farmcrowdy, Thrive Agric, Growsel, Agropartneships, and Porkmoney.

All were contacted with ques-

tions, but only Farmcrowdy, Thrive Agric, and Growsel responded to validate their businesses.

“I was looking for an investment opportunity as a retired professional, and I found digital farming investment offered good returns over the risk free Fixed Deposits and Treasury Bills,” said Amechi Ebeledike, a retiree in Lagos, who has invested with Farmcrowdy and Thrive Agric.

Ebeledike further said he “had fears and worries because of obvious reasons. Gradually confidence began to grow, but I still have reservations about activities of some outfits (especially those outside Lagos), hence not being able to invest freely but with extreme care and caution.

No doubt I had and still have my fears about sustained success, hence I do close monitoring and continuous

due diligence.”

BusinessDay’s findings revealed farmers are not necessarily handed cash. Instead, these platforms procure farm inputs such as seeds and fertilisers required for any specific farm project, finance the cost of whatever machinery requirements such as land clearing, and the only cash provided is for labour and other small costs that are a small fraction of the overall sum.

This, it was gathered, is done to prevent farmers from using what should have been capital for their farm, to finance other non-agribusiness related activities. The attraction of such platforms to farmers is not hard to discern.

Commercial bank loans not only come at very high interest rates that are not feasible for most agribusinesses (especially farmers), and even getting the loans at all, comes with

Presidential candidate of PDP Atiku Abubakar addressing the crowd at the PDP Southwest zonal rally in Ibadan, Oyo State on Thursday.

Prosperity will return to Nigeria in 2019 says Atiku...

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policy for Nigeria is restructuring and we will do it when we get to government. Don’t believe APC lies again. Within 6 months, we will reposition Nigeria. Don’t sell your vote and don’t sell your PVC. Buhari must go.”

He enjoined Nigerians not to believe in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), again because of the failed promised they made in 2015.

Abubakar insisted that President

Muhammadu Buhari must be defeated 2019 general election because he has failed his campaign promises while he lamented the high level of hunger in Nigeria.

Abubakar said, “Let me tell you that today, I said before you that within 6 months, we shall start the process of restructuring of this country. Ladies and gentlemen, I have lived here, so I am not a stranger.”

He said, “In the next two months, you will be required to choose your next president, please, take your decision carefully. The best democracy we enjoyed in Nigeria was under PDP. In 2015, APC promised 12 million jobs but today, we have not seen the jobs.

At the campaign were: National Chairman of the party, Uche Secondus, Atiku’s running mate, Peter Obi, former governors of Ekiti and Cross

Rivers, Ayodele Fayose and Senator Lyel Imoke, Senate President, Bukola Saraki and governorship candidate of the party in Lagos and Oyo States, Jimi Agbaje and Seyi Makinde.

Others were: Senator Ademola Adeleke, the vice Chairman of the Party in the zone, Eddy Olafeso, former governor of Ogun state, Gbenga Daniel, former governor of Osun state, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, publicity secretary of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan and former Senate whip, Senator Hosea Agboola.

Secondus while speaking said that Buhari is not capable of ruling Nigeria again.

He said, “With what we have seen here today, it is sure that our people in the Southwest want change in government and Atiku is the only candidate who can rescue Nigeria at this time. Buhari is not fit to rule Nigeria again. By the grace of God, in February, we will stand to defend our votes and defeat Buhari. The hunger in the land is too much. There is hunger because Buhari is not aware of anything in government.

His government has collapsed. This is the most corrupt government in the history of Nigeria. Where is our billions of dollars withdrawn from the NNPC account? Corruption has taken another dimension in Nigeria under Buhari. Poverty headquarters has relocated to Nigeria under Buhari. By the grace of God, Atiku is the

next president of Nigeria”.

Saraki in his remarks noted that the ruling APC made some promises but could not fulfil them. He added that, “In 2015, APC promised security but could not do it. They promised to make food abundant but the price of rice is becoming higher daily. The only solution to our challenges is to vote Atiku as president.”

Obi while addressing the audience said Nigerians should elect Abubakar if they want development.

He maintained that, “If you wants job, vote for Atiku. If you want development, vote Atiku. Atiku is the only solution to challenges we are facing Nigeria today.” Fayose who said he was very sure that president Buhari won’t attend the presidential debate said PDP has won this election already.

He said, “The only product we are selling is Atiku. The only candidate that can defeat anybody at debate. I am sure Buhari won’t attend debate.

But let me tell you that you have to defend your votes. By God grace, PDP will be announced winner next year elections.”

Daniel while speaking said “The 2019 election is family affairs. Atiku’s first wife is a Yoruba woman. He grew up and worked in Ibadan. With what we met here, it is obvious that our people have spoken that they will vote for PDP.” Meanwhile, Transparency In-

Friday 07 December 2018

great efforts.

Eugene Nwachukwu, an IT professional with a Bank in Lagos, who is also an investor with both Farmcrowdy and Thrive Agric, said his decision to invest in these platforms was borne out of belief in the people behind them, and “an investment opportunity that surpasses the returns on Treasury bills.”

With personal interests in agriculture, Nwachukwu also described it as an opportunity to learn the process of farming successfully. “You can learn only if you have made some commitment,” he said.

Farmcrowdy in an emailed response to BusinessDay’s enquiries stated that more than $6million (N2.1 billion) has been invested into a combined 8,500 acres of farm cultivation across 10 states in Nigeria and in the process raising over 1.2 million chickens, with 8,000 small scale farmers impacted.

The company said this has been achieved through funding for Rice (Two cycles); Maize (Two cycles); Soya beans (One cycle); Cassava (Two cycles); and Poultry/Broilers (13 cycles).

Thrive Agric on its part, said since inception, it has launched six farm cycles, reaching over 10,000 farmers who have received funding of about $2.5 million (N900 million).

Growsel’s response to BusinessDay did not indicate a cumulative sum, but stated it has been able to raise funds ranging from $500 to $1,200 per farm in 5 different farm cycles covering; rice, soybean, maize, tomato and cassava.

“We are working with over 12,000 smallholder farmers, with about 1.2 million registered smallholder farmers undergoing screening and verification across different locations,” read a portion of Growsel’s response.

Even though these platforms appear to be making considerable impact in agric finance, some res-

ervations have been made on the possible need for regulation.

Nwachukwu expressed the view that “I think they are truly offering an alternate option for investors but lack regulation. At least I am not aware of the form of regulation they are subjected to.”

The view resonates concerns of some people, who are wary of committing their funds to these companies. A contrary school of thought however suggests any attempt at regulation could go “the Nigerian way”, which would stifle them out of operations.

Farmcrowdy and Thrive Agric have especially received a boost in public confidence after Yemi Osinbajo, Nigeria’s Vice President visited both businesses at different times, and reported to have made some investments with at least one of the platforms.

BusinessDay also learnt that most of the platforms secure insurance for their farm projects, but in unforeseen events, only covers the principal.

Either of Leadway Assurance and the Nigerian Agricultural Insurance Corporation are listed on different platforms as the entity offering insurance. Also, there are options for farm visits for those who want to ascertain the reality of investments made.

“Up till this moment, I could not care less if any farm existed or not as long as my money is returned. But now, I know it is actually real,” said a female banker with one of Nigeria’s old generations banks after going on a farm tour.

Two other platforms; Agropartnerships and Porkmoney also claim to play in this space, but little is known about them, and both were unable to give any insights into their operations like their counterparts when BusinessDay reached out. No verifiable investors could also be found to share experiences.

ternational (TI) has endorsed the presidential bid of former minister of education, Oby Ezekwesili.

Peter Eigen, visioner and founder of the group, stated this during his visit to Ezekwesili who is the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) on Wednesday in Lagos.

He hailed her pioneering work and pointed out that she possesses the right qualifications to govern the country.

Eigen noted that Ezekwesili has become a global voice on anti- corruption over the years and also fought and demanded for transparency during the military regime, her

presidential campaign organisation, Hope 2019, said in a statement emailed to the media today.

The Transparency International boss recalled Ezekwesili’s role in the innovation of TI’s Corruption Perception Index and her becoming the organisation’s global voice, putting the work of the group on the word stage.

Speaking during the visit, Ezekwesili noted that one of the challenges confronting Nigeria remains transparent leadership, and described corruption as country’s most visible problem. She assured Nigerians that her party would ensure transparency in governance.

Nigeria records progress ..

and associated high levels of unemployment and under-employment,” says LBS report 2018.

Amongst other challenge which poses challenge to the attainment of about 80 percent financial inclusion target is low digital financial service awareness and utilization according to the report.

The LBS report explained that, “Despite increasing levels of awareness with the under-banked and unbanked, the conversion process to adoption and utility is not deriving significant results.

Thus, increased awareness of mobile money across the underbanked and unbanked segments and adoption-conversion processes are essential.”

Continued from page 2

banked decreased by 0.2 percent to 17.2 percent from 17.4 percent in 2016, while increases in the under-banked and unbanked categories account for 0.1 and 2.2 percent respectively.

This trend is reversed amongst the males where the number of banked increased by 7.5 percent and declines of 5.4 among the unbanked, with the under-banked remaining static.

Also, report revealed higher penetration levels among the banked and under banked customer segments across most financial services products, with savings being the most accessible and insurance the least accessible.

“A possible explanation for this pattern is the 2016 recession

•Continues online at www.businessdayonline.com

Friday 07 December 2018

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Glo powers NNPC to automate operations nationwide ENDURANCE OKAFOR

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otal telecommunications services provider, Globacom, has developed a solution that will enable the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to ultimately automate its operations nationwide.

The solution by Globacom, called Intelligent Wide Area Network (iWAN), will power connectivity across NNPC’s 139 locations across the country.

With the successful launch of the project in Abuja on Tuesday, the corporation’s different departments will be able to carry out their businesses with much more effectiveness in real time and also track their assets and operations all over Nigeria.

Unveiling the solution at the opening of a two-day CS-Connect programme

and exhibition at the Amphitheatre at the NNPC Headquarters in Abuja, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Maikanti Baru, commended Globacom for delivering the project, and urged the corporation’s staff to utilize it to lead the corporation to greater efficiency.

“I implore all of you to make good use of the opportunities of the services of our partners to enhance your services that would lead us to greater efficiency”, he stated.

Also speaking at the unveiling, Isa Inuwa, Chief Operating Officer, Corporate Services, NNPC, thanked Globacom for its support.

He described the company as a reliable and committed partner in its CS-Connect project, which he described as the foundation for the full automation of its operations in the nearest future.

The CS-Connect programme, whose theme was

“Integrate, Automate and Elevate,” availed NNPC the opportunity to exhibit to its staff from across the country “the achievements of the corporation in the areas of Policy Development/Reviews, project conception, execution and implementation,” among other things.

Inuwa said that the CSConnect exhibition was also held as an interactive platform for all the corporation’s partners involved in the project. “It was meant for them to exhibit their products and services, as well as interact with top management of NNPC who hold different portfolios within the corporation,” he stated.

Globacom has since inception been the innovation leader in the telecoms industry, and this commitment has seen the company investing heavily in building first-class telecommunications infrastructure in the countries where it operates.

NNPC, NCDMB to grow Nigerian Content to 70% HARRISON EDEH, Abuja

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he Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) have committed to growing Local Content in the oil and gas industry from the current 40 percent to 70 percent by 2027, as part of strategies to sustain economic development in Nigeria.

NNPC group managing director, Maikanti Baru, made this commitment while delivering a keynote address at the eighth Practical Nigerian Content Conference in Yenogoa, Bayelsa State, saying strategies for implementing the NCDMB Local Content development include closing human capacity gaps, skills acquisition and assets ownership by indigenous companies, among others.

Baru explained that the theme of this year’s conference: “Driving Economic Development and Sustainability” was very relevant to NNPC, the industry and the country at large, given the considerable gains recorded in the nation’s oil and gas landscape.

Baru said in a statement that as early as 2005, despite almost 50 years of a vibrant national oil industry experience, NNPC was concerned at the low level of Nigerian Content in the country and thus called for a fresh approach to domesticating the oil and gas industry spend through the establishment of the Nigeria Content Division (NCD). This is with the aim of identifying and guiding the implementation of key national content initiatives, including promoting local manufacturing of steel plates and pipes, and developing engineering design expertise in the country.

The NNPC chief maintained that by 2010, when the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act was enacted, a National Content Coordination Framework, which incorporated the key stakeholders in achieving increased linkage of the petroleum sectors with other sectors of the economy, was established under NNPC’s Nigeria Content Division, stressing that the Division then metamorphosed into today’s NCDMB. He listed the achievements recorded in the development of Local Content to include ramping up pipe mills from 100,000MT/annum to 420,000MT/annum, representing 40 percent of industry demand, and the sustainable engagement of indigenous service companies and contractors to carry out NPDC’s operations and maintenance activities.

39

UBA Academy gets CIBN accreditation

FIRS parleys banks, mulls new dragnet for non-complying registered companies

HOPE MOSES-ASHIKE

KEHINDE AKINTOLA, Abuja

T L-R: Omoniyi Iyanda, team lead, corporate social responsibility and sustainability, First City Monument Bank (FCMB); Diran Olojo, group head, corporate affairs of the bank, and Adebowale Adeniyi, executive director, Centre for Global Solutions and Sustainable Development, during the FCMB organised Vendors’ Sustainability Forum in Lagos.

BUSINESS DAY

he United Bank for Africa (UBA) Academy has received the accreditation of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), as the bank says it is set to boost human capacity in the banking sector.

Speaking during the presentation of certificate of accreditation at the CIBN office in Lagos, Patricia Aderibigbe, group head, human resources, UBA said the accreditation was only the beginning and an opportunity to keep up with the job.

According to her, “The biggest room is the room for improvement. We know that this is just the beginning and we are already thinking ahead.

The skills of the future is unknown, we have to keep looking ahead. We were the first bank to bring artificial intelligence. So, we have to keep innovating.

“The UBA Academy is an academy that is about developing our people. So, the focus is digital, it is not the normal way. It is business as unusual. Seventy percent of our programmes are in the digital platforms and this will give people the flexibility to learn as they go.

“We also have the classroom traditional training.

We have education, exposure and experience. So, every part of your experience and exposure is quantified into learning, so people can understand how they are growing.”

Aderibigbe assured that the academy was very robust, comprising of the banking school, the specialised school and United Bank for Africa finishing school, which has the soft skills.

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ederal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) has formally written all the financial institutions operating across the country for full disclosure of registered companies within their jurisdiction, in its renewed efforts toward expanding the tax net.

Under the new arrangement, the Service is to formally write all defaulting registered companies as from January 2019, to remit appropriate taxes in line with extant laws and regulations.

Babatunde Fowler, FIRS national chairman, disclosed this in Abuja at the PublicPrivate Dialogue on tax compliance for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) co-organised by National Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME) in collaboration with Oxfam.

Fowler, who was represented by Reuben Ojogbe, SMT/FIRS Abuja, noted that the initiative would commence in the next one month.

While responding to questions from various stakeholders, the FIRS chieftain who allayed fears of undue imposition of sanction, urged MSMEs to key into various programmes such as Voluntary Asset and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS) and other incentives including free Tax Identification Number (TIN), among others.

According to Fowler, registered business, which fails to comply with extant tax regulations are under obligation to pay 10 percent for non-compliance in addition to the statutory returns.

Speaking earlier, ‘Degun Agboade, NASME president, expressed satisfaction over the outcome of Enterprise Development programme held in Lagos and Edo states, harped on the need for government to provide enabling environment for MSMEs to thrive.

Agboade, who doubles as chairman, Tax Advocacy Coalition for MSMEs, explained that the Coalition commissioned a research and is set to present the report to various stakeholders.

“Also included in the package is a research to determine why and how MSMEs did not take good advantage of Voluntary Assets and Income Declaration Scheme (VAIDS). The research will also show why MSMEs still feel reluctant to formalise.

“It is our hope that when the result of the research highlight the reasons why majority of MSMEs are not willing to formalise, policy makers can use the information/findings to reformulate policies that can address issues at stake and develop tax regime that meets government’s objective in generating revenue to government and at the same time are MSMEs friendly that will ensure economic growth,” Agboade urged.

In her remarks, Aisha Abubakar, minister of state for industry, trade and investment, who underscored the contribution of MSMEs to economic growth, reiterated the present administration’s commitment towards formulation and implementation of policies and programmes toward enterprise development across the country.

Court sacks Anambra APC chairman … orders rerun under INEC supervision Emmanuel Ndukuba

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Federal High Court in Awka, Anambra State, on Thursday nullified the election of Emeka Ibeh as chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.

Uzochukwu Onyekwere, a member of the party in the state and a chairmanship aspirant, challenged the May 19, 2018 exercise that produced Ibeh as chairman, citing what he described as “unlawful exclusion.”

Defendants in the suit were Oke Ezea, Kingsley Chinda, a member of the House of Reps and chairman of the APC Congress Committee in Anambra, Emeka Ibe, the acclaimed winner, and Independent National Electoral Commission.

Onyekwere prayed the court that he was a bonafide member of APC and was entitled to aspire for the

office of the party’s chairman in Anambra.

He sought a declaration by the Court that the election of the chairman was not conducted in accordance with the provisions of Section 232 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended and Article 20 of the APC constitution 2017 as amended.

Onyekwere said the aim of those provisions was that all elections would be through democratic voting, and argued that that the exercise fell short of it.

He sought a declaration that he would not be punished after seeking justice through the court and that the May 19, 2018 Anambra APC congress be set aside.

In his over two- hour ruling Hon. Justice Bature Gafai dismissed the counter affidavits of defendants, which contend-

ed that the court did not have jurisdiction over the matter, as it was an internal party affair.

Gafai said the Plaintiff being a bona-fide member of the party and having paid the mandatory nomination fee had the right to fair contest.

He nullified the election into the APC chairmanship position and ordered a rerun, which INEC should supervise.

The judge, who did not grant the damage of N100 million sought by the Plaintiff, however did not give new date for the repeat of the election.

Tagbo Ike, counsel to the petitioner applauded the court for the judgment and speedy dispensation of justice.

Ike, who described the election as a sham, said it was sad that a few people stakeholders sat and produced their stooges as consensus and harmonised candidates and forced them on the people.

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Sports

Friday 07 December 2018

NFF promises better programmes for Super Falcons for 2019 World Cup …As Pinnick hails Super Falcons AWCON victory Stories by Anthony Nlebem

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resident of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick, has again congratulated the Super Falcons for winning the just –concluded Total Women Africa Cup of Nations in Ghana, describing them as one of the most accomplished teams in world football.

“I want to congratulate and also thank you once again for what you did on Saturday, making us all proud. You see, you displayed the quintessential Nigerian Spirit.

You showed that the Nigerian flag strengthened you and that is why, even during the extra time, you were not tired,” he said when he visited the team at their Starview Hotel, Abuja in the company with the NFF General Secretary, Sanusi Mohammed and Head of Women Football, Ruth David.

Pinnick, who on Saturday, minutes after the triumph dedicated the trophy to President Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR), said: “We can’t thank our father, President Buhari

enough for his immense support to Nigerian Football. The President is really happy for what you have done which has never been done by any women national team. Germany and America have dominated their respective confederation championships, winning eight titles each, but no country has ever won nine

times. That is why the President wants to meet you as soon as possible.”

The NFF President and First Vice President of the Confederation of African Football, CAF, also hinted that a good number of the Federation’s partners and sponsors, as well as some State

Governors also want to host the champions, but are waiting for Mr. President to have the first honour. He said “Already our sponsors are lining up to host and honour you for your achievement, as well as some State Governors who have indicated their interest in hosting you, but all that will

be after the President hosts you”.

He further promised that the Federation will support the programme of Super Falcons’ Coach Thomas Dennerby to ensure that the team is well prepared for the 2019 World Cup in France.

“We are already working with the coach who has submitted his plans for the World Cup to us.

Also, I am talking to some European Federation presidents and the President of European Union Football Association, Aleksander Ceferin to secure friendly matches for the team in preparation for the World Cup”.

The General Secretary, Sanusi Mohammed also commended the ladies, revealing that they were the focus at a seminar on Monday in Abuja held as preview to the National Sports Festival. “Honestly, I was very happy on Saturday. I am proud of what you have done. You know, at the preview of the National Sports Festival, all the resource persons focused on you, the Super Falcons”. Captains, Rita Chikwelu and Onome Ebi, in their vote of thanks pledged that the team will give their best at the World Cup.

National Institute for Sports rolls out plans to celebrate silver jubilee

Abuja 2018: Gov. Okowa promises Team Delta N1m per gold

T

Francis Sadhere, Warri

he National Institute of Sports (NIS), a leading sports training institution in Nigeria has rolled out plans to celebrate its Silver Jubilee anniversary even as it planned to organize the convocation for no fewer than one thousand five hundred graduates who had completed their training programme some years ago.

Some of the plans on the card to mark the Silver Jubilee celebration of the institute are: Anniversary Lecture/Gala & Dinner, NIS Awards of Sporting Excellence, Convocation/ Lecture and Investiture of Honorary Fellows of the Institute as well as Recognition Awards for Sports Journalism.

A statement by the Director General of NIS, Dr. Kingdom Chukwudi Eke revealed that the Silver Jubilee celebration is being organized in

line with NIS vision “to be a first class institute transforming Nigeria and sustaining it as a world leader in sports”, adding that this initiative will no doubt make a clearer and loud statement about NIS resolve before all its stakeholders.

The Director General further disclosed that the institute has in the past years of existent being consistent and committed to delivering on its statutory mandate as it has produced over 15,000 manpower in sports who have continued to place Nigeria on the global sports arena winning medals, laurels and awards.

“NIS graduates are prominently engaged in services at National, State and local government levels as well as clubs” noting that a sizeable number are in ECOWAS sub-regions and other parts of Africa coaching and managing talents who are breaking

barriers in global sports events. ” “We have produced graduates who have attained their career peak and hauled laurels, awards and medals for their distinguished and outstanding sporting feats”, the Director General hinted.

Consequently, he said, “in a patriotic effort to take stock and celebrate the past 25 years; we have put together a number of very exciting programmes and events to mark this epoch and document for posterity”.

Continuing, he said, “these includes but not limited to training, workshop and exhibition which will hold on Thursday, January 17th, 2019, a combined convocation (2006 – 2018) ceremony which holds Friday, January 18th, 2019 with Fellowships and Awards to selected and deserving personalities and organisations at a Gala night on Saturday, 19th January next year”.

He said that the event, which is also aimed at repositioning and rebranding NIS, is intended to resonate throughout the length and breadth of the country and beyond, adding that it will evoke a memory that stakeholders will live with for a long time to come.

NIS is a statutory agency of the federal government set up for the sports research, training and development of sports personnel in Nigeria. Though established in 1972, the institute was only upgraded to a fullfledged parastatal through the 1992 decree. Since then, the institute has been at the vanguard of sports training, research and developments.

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elta State Governor, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, on Tuesday promised to doll out the sum of N1 million to Team Delta for every gold to be won at the ongoing National Sports Festival holding in Abuja.

The governor made the promise at the Stephen Keshi Stadium while addressing the state contingent shortly before their departure for Abuja.

“You have worked very hard in the last three weeks, it is time to harvest the medals; you are Team Delta, remember that there is no team that will be like Team Delta and I believe your coaches have been doing very well; for every gold, you will get N1 Million, so, if you are not prepared for gold, work harder to get gold; for every Silver medalist N500, 000 while every Bronze medalist will get N250, 000.”

“We are the defending champion and the hands of God will bring back this trophy because, you are going to Abuja in the name of God and as you go forth, the Lord will not disappoint you, you must first believe in Him and I expect you, knowing that you are the defending champion to return victorious. Be prayerful and confident,” Governor Okowa said.

Earlier, Chairman of Delta State

Sports Commission, Tonobok Okowa who presented the team to the governor, had said, “the National Sports Festival which has not been hosted for a long time will take place in Abuja from December 6th.”

“We invited governor Okowa to talk to us as we depart for the championship; the trophy you are seeing here is what we are going to contest for, we are the defending champion and by the grace of God, we will bring it back, we are prepared, the team have been in camp for the past three weeks, we have world champions among us and we are going to Abuja 2018 not only as champions but, to come back as champions.” the Delta state sport commission chairman said.

BUSINESS DAY

Friday 07 December 2018

Harvard Business Review

41

ManagementDigest

Should dual-class shares be banned?

VIJAY GOVINDARAJAN, SHIVARAM RAJGOPAL, AND ANUP SRIVASTAVA

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ual-class shares violate the principles of corporate democracy and the precept of “one share one vote.” The 50-member Investor Stewardship Group, overseeing $22 trillion in assets, demands a total elimination of dual-class stock. The Council of Institutional Investors, representing managers of $25 trillion in assets, recently demanded limiting any company’s dual-class share structure to seven years. Yet this year, Hong Kong and Singapore stock exchanges, which initially barred the listing of dualclass shares, went the opposite way, by allowing their listing.

Who’s right? Should dual-class stock be totally eliminated or, at least, have a mandatory sunset clause?

Here’s a quick primer. Companies with dual-class shares have two designations of common stock, typically A shares and B shares, with one class having more powerful voting rights than the other. Holding the more powerful shares allows a group of shareholders — often the founders — to control boardroom decisions even as economic interest in the firm is dispersed more widely. Some of the largest companies of recent times by market capitalization, such as Facebook, Alphabet and Alibaba, carry dual class-shares.

So do some older, family-controlled firms, such as Ford Motor Co. and The New York Times Co. Their use of dual shares has been growing: One-fifth of companies listed on U.S. stock exchanges last year had dual-class shares.

Curiously, Warren Buffett strongly demands the elimination of dualclass shares, but Berkshire Hathaway continues to maintain two classes of voting stock. While most dual-class companies have Class B shares, which provide 10 times more voting power than Class A shares, other companies such as Alphabet, Under Armour and Snapchat have taken this practice to an extreme by offering common shares with zero voting rights. Yet investors price Alphabet’s Class C stock, which carries no voting rights, almost no differently than

Alphabet’s Class B stock. Investors’ continued clamor for inferior-voting shares, even those with no voting rights, suggests there must be an economic reason for their existence.

Academic research remains divided on the merits of dual-class shares. Some studies find lower stock returns for dual-class firms as compared with single-class firms, lower trading prices compared to fundamentals and higher management entrenchment, executive compensation and value-destroying acquisitions. Other studies, however, show that dual-class structure might be optimal in certain scenarios. Firms with growth opportunities as well as a need for external equity financing often convert to dual-class shares. Aggressive-growth and family-controlled dual-class companies display higher long-term shareholder returns. MSCI’s recent analysis shows that unequal voting stocks outperformed the market over the period from November 2007 to August 2017.

Media companies, such as Comcast, DISH Network, AMC holdings, Liberty Media, News Corporation and Viacom, have traditionally had dual-class shares, arguably to maintain news independence. Today, adoption of dual-class structure by technology companies is widespread.

Almost 50% of recent technology

listings have a dual-class status.

We explored reasons in an HBS case study among technology companies. Our nickel summary attributes their growing popularity to the increasing importance of intangible investments, the rise of activist investors and the decline of other protection mechanisms available to existing management such as staggered boards and poison pills. A dual-class structure, offering immunity against proxy contests initiated by short-term investors, could be optimal if it enables foundermanagers to ignore pressures from the capital markets and avoid myopic actions such as cutting research and development and delaying corporate restructuring.

So, in our view, a ban on dualclass shares would not be costless.

For example, one principal reason for decline in the number of initial public offerings is the increasing reluctance of technology companies to list their stock, which is largely caused by rising shareholder activism. At the margin, a ban on dual-class stock would encourage more technology companies to remain private, or motivate listed technology companies to go private, eliminating common investors’ chance to buy even the inferior voting stock.

This growing possibility is likely why Hong Kong and Singapore stock exchanges have reversed their earlier stance and allowed

dual-class shares.

But how can one argue against a mandatory sunset clause? This clause automatically converts a superior voting share to a lowvote class at a fixed time after an initial public offering. For example, Groupon’s and Texas Roadhouse’s shares converted after five years of listing, and Fitbit, Kayak and Yelp carry clauses for automatic conversions. This permits a dual-class structure for a defined period early in a company’s life to allow founders to pursue risky initiatives without subjecting themselves to pressures from short-term investors.

Research shows that the benefits of dual-class structure dissipate over time. The costs of letting management entrench itself eventually outweigh the benefits of shielding the company from short-term investors. This argument is supported by the decline in the valuation premium of dual-class companies over comparable single-class companies as firms grow older.

In our view, a sunset clause would be ideal if there exists a fixed, predetermined time after which all companies become mature enough to need no further changes in their business models.

However, we cannot completely endorse this idea for two reasons. First, the firm age at which sunset clause should kick in is far from clear. We calculated the

2017 Harvard Business School Publishing Corp. Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate

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years after IPO when a growth company becomes mature in its life cycle for the stocks listed on U.S. stock exchanges. In the late 1980s, we estimate it was 10 years.

It declined to five years in the 21st century. The period to maturity differs based on the firm’s technology and business model. So, a one-size-fits-all policy would not work.

Second, we are unsure whether any of today’s companies can bask in their established business models forever, given the increasing pace of creative destruction and the emerging competition from digital companies. Wellestablished companies, such as Ford, Walmart, Boeing, General Electric and Thompson Reuters, are facing disruptions that require a complete overhaul of their business models. Many large and mature companies, such as Amazon and Apple, have had to reinvent themselves many times over. To the extent that a dual-class structure facilitates a company’s transformation, the assumption that a company predictably reaches a permanent business-model stage, and therefore does not need further transformation, would be detrimental to the nation’s innovation and shareholder value.

Instead of recommending a total ban on dual-class shares, or even a mandatory sunset clause, we recommend a more flexible shareholding structure. Companies with dual-class structures could be required, after a period of predetermined years, to gain approval from a majority of all shareholders to continue the dual-class structure. Furthermore, single-class firms should be given an option to convert to dual-class shares through a shareholder vote, to carry out significant transformations, instead of having to completely delist to achieve that goal.

Vijay Govindarajan is a professor of management at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

Shivaram Rajgopal is a professor of accounting and auditing and vice dean of research at Columbia Business School. Anup Srivastava is an associate professor at Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, where Luminita Enache is an assistant professor.

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Friday 07 December 2018

Friday 07 December 2018

FT

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FINANCIAL TIMES

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World Business Newspaper

Canada arrests Huawei CFO after US extradition request Daughter of telecoms group founder detained as part of US probe into alleged Iran sanction violations EDWARD WHITE, LOUISE LUCAS AND DEMETRI SEVASTOPULO

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uawei’s chief financial officer has been arrested in Canada as part of a US probe into alleged violation of sanctions against Iran, reigniting tensions between Washington and Beijing just days after Donald Trump and Xi Jinping tried to resolve their trade conflict at the G20 summit.

Canadian officials on Wednesday said the US was seeking to extradite Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Ren Zhengfei, founder of the Chinese telecoms group, after her arrest on Saturday in Vancouver.

Ms Meng, who became one of Huawei’s four deputy chairpersons this year, will face a bail hearing on Friday.

Several diplomatic and government sources briefed on the case said the US was pursuing Ms Meng in a criminal probe related to attempts by Huawei to sell US-made equipment to Iran, a move that could be in violation of sanctions against the country.

The US justice department declined to comment.

Beijing immediately called on the US and Canada to release Ms Meng. The Chinese embassy in Ottawa said China “firmly opposes and strongly protests over such kind of actions which seriously harmed the human rights of the victim”.

Her arrest, which comes after recent moves by western allies to curtail Huawei’s commercial activities on security grounds, added to investor concerns over heightened trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

In China, the benchmark CSI 300 index of stocks dropped 2.2 per cent while in Europe, key market indices were sharply lower. The Euro Stoxx 50 index was down 2.2 per cent in

morning trading while the FTSE 100 was 2.7 per cent lower. Futures market trading indicated that on Wall Street, the S&P 500 was expected to open about 1.7 per cent down and Nasdaq 2.2 per cent weaker.

People close to Huawei, who declined to be identified because they were not authorised to speak about its operations, acknowledged the company had sold telecoms equipment to Iran that contained a significant proportion of US-made components. But they added such sales had stopped after UN sanctions on Iran were imposed.

The extent of Huawei’s full business in Iran remains unclear, but in addition to selling smartphones, those with knowledge of the industry said the company has also signed deals to lay fibre optic cables to Iranian homes to help speed up the country’s internet access.

The Shenzhen-based group, whose founder Mr Ren was once an officer in the People’s Liberation Army, has long been a lightning rod for concern about corporate espionage and cyber security.

Western intelligence officials worry that reliance on Huawei by other countries could allow China to penetrate foreign telecom networks, and many have urged their domestic operators to shun the group when upgrading services to new, fifth-generation technologies.

Huawei has repeatedly denied any connection to the Chinese security services or military, insisting it is a privately owned company.

But it has struggled to erase doubts because of Mr Ren’s service in the PLA. Huawei has long been in the sights of US security agencies, and the latest move comes amid a ratcheting up of the Trump administration’s pressure on Beijing. In a speech in October, Mike Pence,

Meng Wanzhou has been detained by Canadian officials and faces a bail hearing on Friday © Alamy

the US vice-president, put China on notice that Mr Trump was prepared to take a harder stance than his predecessors.

U S telecoms networks are banned from using Huawei equipment. Australia and New Zealand — members of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing network with the US, UK and Canada — have also blocked Huawei and other Chinese suppliers on security grounds.

The Financial Times reported that the UK government issued warnings to British telecoms companies last month about the security of their suppliers, which was followed by more public alarms about Huawei last week.

The FT has also reported that BT planned to remove equipment from Huawei from its core 4G network in the UK and exclude it from bidding for contracts to supply its core 5G network.

Western security chiefs have been unusually vocal in recent days to highlight concerns over Chinese technology groups. Alex Younger, head of MI6, the British intelligence service, said the UK faced a tough decision over whether to allow Huawei to supply technology for its 5G network.

David Vigneault, head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, also warned that his agency had seen a “trend of state-sponsored espionage” targeting Canada’s advanced technology, including 5G networks.

Huawei said Ms Meng — also known as Sabrina Meng — was detained by Canadian authorities on behalf of the US, which sought her extradition over “unspecified charges” in the Eastern District of New York, the federal prosecutors’ office based in Brooklyn.

“The company has been provid-

ed very little information regarding the charges and is not aware of any wrongdoing by Ms Meng,” a Huawei spokesperson said, adding that it “complies with all applicable laws and regulations where it operates, including applicable export control and sanction laws and regulations of the UN, US and EU”.

In 2017, ZTE, a rival Chinese telecoms equipment supplier, was fined $1.2bn for violating sanctions on Iran and North Korea. It was almost forced out of business this year when Washington banned US companies from selling hardware and software to the group for seven years. That ban was later lifted following pressure from Mr Trump.

When ZTE was first charged with busting sanctions, it fingered another culprit dubbed “F7”, which ZTE said was a reference to Huawei.

A ZTE document said: “F7 found a big IT company serving as its agent

Hedge funds call in top lawyer Google mistakenly floods internet with dummy ads Employee hit wrong key during training exercise, with error expected to cost $10m to restructure Sudanese debt Sovereign debt specialist Buchheit to help unlock former pariah state’s unpaid loans

ROBERT SMITH AND TOM WILSON

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group of hedge funds has hired one of the world’s most prominent sovereign debt lawyers in the hope of restructuring up to $8bn in Sudanese debt if the former pariah state’s relations with the US continue to improve.

Lee Buchheit, a senior partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb, has been brought on board to advise a clutch of London-based funds who are owners of unpaid debt that has been racking up interest since the 1980s. His reputation for antipathy towards so-called vulture funds has made him a key pick for clients keen to signal that they are seeking a fair deal.

Sudan has spent more than two decades in the geopolitical wilderness. Frozen out of global capital markets by US sanctions, the government has missed out on booming

demand for African sovereign bonds in the past 10 years. Its presence on a US list of state sponsors of terrorism alongside Iran, Iraq, Syria and North Korea has added to the financial pain, disqualifying Sudan from potential debt relief.

As the country’s relations with the US begin to thaw, Mr Buchheit hopes Sudan will be able to borrow from international capital markets once more, but says the government must first deal with its old debts. “One of the things [Sudan] will have to do first is clear the Augean stables of these old claims,” he told the Financial Times.

While he has represented creditors before, Mr Buchheit is better known for aiding debtor countries in financial distress, having acted for Greece, Russia, Argentina and others in some of the most highprofile restructurings of the past Continues on page 44

RICHARD WATERS, ANNA NICOLAOU AND IZABELLA KAMINSKA

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Google worker with a fat finger has committed a classic mistake in fast-moving electronic markets: hitting the wrong key during a training exercise, in the process injecting a dummy advert into a huge number of web pages and apps.

The error, which happened late on Tuesday California time, saw the fake advert — a blank yellow rectangle — appear on many websites and in apps viewed in the US and Australia for a period of about 45 minutes.

The failure to prevent such a basic human error is a black eye for Google, which has led the automation of online ad placement and is widely recognised as the leader in applying artificial intelligence to how such markets work.

Google confirmed the mistake on Wednesday and said it would “honour payments to publishers for any ads purchased”. It would not

comment on the scale of the problem, but one ad industry source put the potential cost at $10m.

The mistake happened when a group of Google advertising trainees were being shown how to use the electronic system, said one person familiar with the error. One of the trainees went further than intended and actually submitted a “buy” order. The mistake was not noticed by anyone at Google for three-quarters of an hour, a lifetime in online auction markets, despite the wide reach that the advert was given.

The Google trainee placed orders at as much as 10 times the normal market price for the adverts, said two people familiar with the error. The orders were for more than $25 per CPM, or cost per thousand impressions — far higher than the $2-$4 market price of the ad space.

The vulnerability to a such a basic human mistake shows how trading foibles familiar on Wall Street are creeping into the highly automated

advertising business, where large volumes of inventory are bought and sold in real-time with the click of a button.

The advert was placed through Google’s AdX, a so-called programmatic system for buying space in a real-time auction across thousands of websites and apps. The ad was also placed through several exchanges run by other companies.

However, it did not find its way into all online ad exchanges — something that would have made it pervasive on the internet during the fateful three-quarters of an hour.

“An advertiser training exercise led to an error where actual spend happened on publisher sites for approximately 45 minutes,” Google said. “As soon as we were made aware of this honest mistake we worked quickly to stop the campaigns running.”

The company said it was looking at putting safeguards in place to make sure the mistake could not happen again.

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Hedge funds call in top lawyer to restructure...

Chinese investments in Africa go off the rails

Continued from page 43

three decades.

The US government lifted its 20-year-old sanctions on Sudan last year, following improved cooperation on counter-terrorism and other US priorities. Last month, the two countries agreed to begin negotiations to remove Sudan from the US terror list, in what should be the final step in Sudan’s geopolitical rehabilitation.

If successful, the hedge funds believe the negotiations will unlock a global debt-relief agreement that has stalled for decades, clearing the way for them to make a return on their investment. The funds hold more than a third of a SFr1.6bn ($1.6bn) bank loan, which they say has ballooned to about SFr8bn due to decades of unpaid interest.

Many foreign banks that lent to Sudan have sold on their loans to other investors over time, often at a heavy discount.

Sudan has about $50bn of external debt. It is eligible for debt relief under the IMF and World Bank’s Highly Indebted Poor Countries initiative but cannot complete the programme while it remains on the US terror list.

To date, 36 countries have written down their external debts under the 20-year-old HIPC initiative. Many African countries have since become frequent visitors to the international bond market. Ghana was able to raise $2bn of funding in May, even as this year’s sell-off in emerging market assets began in earnest. Sudan is one of only three eligible countries not yet to benefit from debt relief.

“We want our debt relief to be a reality like all countries in the world,” Mohamed Ahmed Al-Dirdiri, Sudan’s foreign minister, told the FT in an interview in Khartoum last month.

If Sudan can reach an HIPC deal between its government and multilateral lenders, which hold the bulk of its external debt, it can then pursue a similar restructuring with its private creditors. Any deal with private creditors could see the latter group — often referred to as the “London club” — take as much as a 90 per cent write down on its claims.

The creditor group represented

by Cleary wants the amount of debt then left to be converted into a bond, so that it can more easily be traded and sold on to other investors.

“That’s what I believe will happen,” said Cleary’s Mr Buchheit.

“Now if you ask me when it will happen, well that depends very much on the politics and the extent of your belief in the efficacy of prayer.”

The creditor group said it hoped to engage with the Sudanese government as early as possible to prepare the groundwork, by taking steps such as reconciling the amount it believes it is owed in deferred interest.

“We’ve participated in 40-plus consensual sovereign debt restructuring agreements and we’re there to play our part in the debt relief,” said Julian Adams, chief executive officer of Adelante Asset Management, a member of the creditor group. “Engagement sooner rather than later would be in everyone’s interest, as there are all these housekeeping issues you can sort ahead to speed the process along,” he added.

Sudan’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Friday 07 December 2018

Beijing signals new approach as concern grows over misguided ‘vanity projects’ DAVID PILLING AND EMILY FENG

N Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid al-Falih said Opec and allies were working towards a deal by Friday © FT montage; Getty Images

Oil falls nearly 5% on concern over size of Opec output cut Energy minister says Saudi Arabia prefers ‘not overly large’ reduction ANJLI RAVAL AND DAVID SHEPPARD

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il prices fell as much as 5 per cent on Thursday after Saudi Arabia said Opec and its allies were working towards a smaller production cut than many traders were anticipating, raising fears the cartel is struggling to respond to a renewed supply glut.

Khalid al-Falih, the kingdom’s energy minister, told reporters ahead of a meeting of oil ministers in Vienna that Opec and allies, including Russia, were still working towards a deal by Friday to arrest the 30 per cent slide in oil prices since October.

But he said the preference for Saudi Arabia, Opec’s de facto leader and the country facing the most pressure from US president Donald Trump to keep prices low, was for a “sufficient cut but not overly large” reduction. He added that removing 1m barrels a day between Opec and non-Opec countries “would be adequate”.

This comes even as oil analysts say at least 1.3m to 1.5m b/d would

be needed to balance the market and bolster oil prices next year.

Brent crude fell as much as 5 per cent to about $58, before stabilising just above $60 a barrel.

“With the market looking for a big production cut number, there’s a little disappointment,” said Giovanni Serio, global head of research at Vitol, the world’s largest independent oil trader, who is attending the meeting in Vienna.

Saudi Arabia said it was calling for contributions from all countries, including Russia as well as those that were exempt from previous deals such as Libya and Nigeria, saying the deal should be “fair and equitable”.

When asked if a deal might not be reached, Mr Falih said all options were on the table, but added that Russia — the largest exporter outside of the cartel, and seen as crucial to reaching a deal — has “made a promise” to cut.

As the meeting progressed one delegate told the Financial Times that a broad agreement had been reached between Opec members to cut output, but deliberations over

the exact size of the reduction were ongoing.

There is still uncertainty over how far Russia is prepared to go.

Energy minister Alexander Novak has warned severe winter weather hindered the country’s ability to curb output in Siberia until later in 2019. “For us it is much more difficult to cut,” he told Russian state news agency Interfax on Thursday.

Brent crude has fallen more than 30 per cent since October as the US issued sanctions waivers to big buyers of Iranian oil, while output from global producers, including US shale companies, has surged.

The planned output cuts come despite pressure from Mr Donald Trump, who has advocated for continued high levels of production, describing lower oil prices as a “tax cut” for consumers.

At the last meeting of oil ministers in June, Saudi Arabia pledged to relax oil curbs that had been in place since January 2017, to compensate for a drop in Iranian exports as US sanctions kicked in, taking its output to record levels above 11m b/d.

Ex-Hong Kong official convicted in US on Africa bribery charges Guilty verdict shows US not deterred from taking sensitive Chinese cases to court DON WEINLAND AND PETER WELLS

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former Hong Kong official has been found guilty in the US of scheming to pay millions of dollars in bribes to senior government officials in Uganda and Chad to win favour for a Chinese energy conglomerate.

Patrick Ho Chi-ping, Hong Kong’s home secretary from 2002 to 2007, was on Wednesday convicted of international money laundering, conspiracy and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. At the time of his arrest last year in New York, Mr Ho led a Hong Kong-based non-governmental organisation that advocated for China’s overseas construction and development work. The group, called the China Energy Fund Committee, was funded by conglomerate CEFC China Energy and held special consultative status with the UN. The conviction in Manhattan federal court on seven of the eight counts against Mr Ho suggested that US prosecutors were willing to take on high-profile cases that

could potentially embarrass the Chinese government.

Mr Ho, 69, faces a jail sentence of between five and 20 years for each count and is scheduled to be sentenced on March 14. A lawyer for Mr Ho declined to comment.

In one scheme for which Mr Ho was convicted, the businessmen offered $2m in cash bribes “hidden within gift boxes” to Idriss Déby, the president of Chad, in the hope of gaining oil rights in the country, according to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office in the southern district of New York.

In a second scheme, Mr Ho attempted to pay $500,000 in cash bribes to Yoweri Museveni, the president of Uganda, and facilitating a $500,000 bribe to be paid via New York wire transfers to an account designated by Sam Kutesa, Uganda’s minister of foreign affairs. At the time, Mr Kutesa had just completed a term as the president of the UN General Assembly.

In recent years, CEFC emerged as an aggressive acquirer of overseas assets, striking a $9bn deal last year to buy a stake in Russian oil and gas producer Rosneft. Ye

Jianming, CEFC chairman, can be spotted in photos alongside Chinese president Xi Jinping during a state visit to the Czech Republic in 2015. Around that time CEFC became an active buyer in the central European nation.

But the company’s fortunes shifted at the start of 2018. The Rosneft deal collapsed and Mr Ye vanished early in the year, just months after the charges against Mr Ho were revealed. Many other assets the company acquired overseas have been sold or put up for sale.

The US case against Mr Ho followed several other cases in which the US had taken action against Chinese activities it deemed illicit or in violation of sanctions.

“The big picture is that the government is prepared to go the long haul and take these cases to trial,” said Clay Porter, the former head of the US Department of Justice’s banking integrity unit and current head of investigations for management consulting firm Navigant. “The US government is not afraid to touch the Chinese government’s third rail.”

ot long ago, Chinese engineers were putting the finishing touches to two expensive rail projects in east Africa, one linking Djibouti on the Red Sea to landlocked Ethiopia and the other running from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to the capital, Nairobi.

But less than 18 months after both lines were inaugurated with grandiose talk of Chinese-led east African integration, doubts are emerging about their economic viability. The $4.5bn Djibouti-Addis Ababa line, the first fully electrified cross-border railway in Africa, has run into financial and operational difficulties, while the $3.2bn Kenya route is losing money and has been plagued by scandal.

Push-back over the viability of these and other projects is driving a change in Beijing’s approach to investment in Africa. After nearly 20 years of pouring money into infrastructure projects across the continent, China’s president Xi Jinping said in September that “vanity projects” must be shunned in favour of more carefully conceived initiatives that address proven economic bottlenecks.

The following month The People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist party’s mouthpiece, warned that Beijing should “pay more attention to how projects connect with the development and basic interests of relevant countries”.

Railways in east Africa have a long history of problems. The original Mombasa-Nairobi line, built by the British in the late 19th century, was so costly in both money and lives that it became known as the “Lunatic Express”.

Beijing’s reputation is not all that is at stake: Chinese sponsors are losing money. Wang Wen, chief economist at Sinosure, said the Chinese state-owned insurer had been forced to write off $1bn in losses on the Djibouti-Addis Ababa link. Due diligence on the 718km railway had been “downright inadequate”, he said.

Mr Wen’s comments came after Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, in September negotiated easier terms with China on $4bn of railway loans, extending the repayment period from 10 to 30 years. The move followed a foreign exchange crisis that hit Ethiopia’s ability to maintain the railroad and repay its debts to Chinese state creditors, analysts said.

Meanwhile, criticism of the Mombasa-Nairobi line, Kenya’s biggest infrastructure project since it gained independence in 1963, has increased. Three Chinese nationals working for the China Road and Bridge Corporation were last month charged in Kenya with attempting to bribe local officials investigating an alleged ticketing scam that was said to be depriving the railway of $10,000 a day in revenue.

The rail line had failed to achieve its goal of cutting congestion on the parallel highway by shifting freight from trucks to trains, said John Githongo, a Kenyan anti-corruption campaigner. The highway was as busy as ever, he added. Bechtel, a US construction company, even planned to build a $3bn road along the same route, he said.

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COMPANIES & MARKETS

@ FINANCIAL TIMES LIMITED

Deutsche Bank processed additional €31bn of funds for Danske German lender said to have handled 1m transactions from Estonia branch at heart of scandal OLAF STORBECK AND CAROLINE

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eutsche Bank processed an additional €31bn of questionable funds for Danske Bank than previously thought, increasing its exposure to the world’s biggest money-laundering scandal.

In addition to the $150bn (€132bn) that Deutsche Bank cleared for Danske’s tiny Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015, the German bank also processed another €31bn, according to people familiar with the matter.

This means that in total, Deutsche Bank processed four-fifths of the €200bn Danske has identified as flowing through its Estonian branch from clients from Russia and other former Soviet countries. About 1m transactions were processed by Deutsche Bank over the eight-year period, according to the people.

The revelation heaps more pressure on Deutsche Bank, which is facing scrutiny from authorities on both sides of the Atlantic on a number of fronts, from investigations stemming from the Panama Papers scandal, to an unresolved issue with US prosecutors over its own role in helping Russian clients to move large amounts of money out of the country.

The bank has already been asked for information by the US Department of Justice over its role as a correspondent bank for Danske’s Estonian branch. A senior Deutsche Bank source said the company was co-operating with “inquiries from a number of authorities” over the Danske transactions.

Howard Wilkinson, the former Danske executive who warned managers in Copenhagen about the suspicious fund flows in 2013 and 2014, told Denmark’s parliament last month that of the $230bn of potential dirty money that flowed through its Estonian branch, $150bn went through the “US subsidiary of a European bank”.

Danske’s Estonian branch offered

non-resident clients accounts in various currencies, including dollars, euros and Swiss francs, according to people familiar with the situation.

Deutsche Bank quit its role clearing dollars for the branch in 2015 after the German lender’s internal controls started to flag a rising amount of suspicious transactions, which the bank reported to authorities.

Deutsche Bank told Danske that year that despite a reduction in payments from Estonia in the previous two years, there had been an increase in the proportion of suspect cases the German lender was having to investigate from the small branch.

It told the Danish bank that in only three months, it had flagged 16 cases linked to narcotics and identity theft, according to a memo seen by the Financial Times.

In total, Deutsche Bank filed hundreds of so-called suspicious activity reports about the branch to supervisors, according to people familiar with the situation.

Even though it stepped away from dollar clearing, it still processed euro payments for Danske, with total volumes between October 2015 and October 2018 totalling €225m.

Eurozone banks such as Deutsche Bank are legally obliged to process standard cross-border money transfers within Europe for Danske Estonia, because both Germany and Estonia are part of what is known as the Single Euro Payments Area.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment. Danske did not immediately return a request seeking comment.

Deutsche Bank is already vulnerable to action from the DoJ, which is still investigating its role in the mirrortrade scandal. The controversial strategy, which Danske also undertook for Russian clients, involved buying securities in roubles then selling identical ones for foreign currencies such as US dollars. Deutsche Bank paid $630m to US and UK authorities in 2017 but the DoJ’s investigation is continuing.

US trade deficit at widest level in 10 years Data shows fall in exports to China

MATTHEW ROCCO

T

he US trade deficit hit its widest level in a decade in October as the nation registered a record amount of imports and a decline in exports to China.

The Department of Commerce said Thursday the gap between US imports and exports grew 1.7 per cent month-over-month to $55.5bn, the most since October 2008 and the fifth straight month of deficit expansion. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters anticipated a smaller deficit of $55bn.

For September, the US trade deficit was revised to $54.6bn from $54bn.

America’s goods trade deficit with China, which has come under a microscope amid a trade spat between the world’s two largest economies, jumped 7.1 per cent to $43.1bn.

In a back-and-forth exchange of new tariffs, the US has levied import duties on $250bn of Chinese goods in a bid by President Donald Trump to convince Beijing to make economic

reforms. Mr Trump has also deployed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminium. China has retaliated with tariffs on politically sensitive goods such as soyabeans, vehicles and orange juice.

Mr Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping reached a 90-day truce last weekend that called for the two sides to restart negotiations. Under the deal, the US will hold off on carrying out a threat to impose additional tariffs, and China agreed to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers.

US soyabean exports fell by $0.8bn in October, while exports of civilian aircraft and foods, feeds and beverages also declined. Industrial supplies and materials exports rose $0.3bn. Exports of services were up $0.1bn, driven by financial and other business services.

Vehicles, pharmaceutical preparations and travel services lifted imports by 0.2 per cent to $266.5bn, the highest on record.

Adjusted for inflation, the October trade deficit was $87.9bn, up from $87.2bn in the prior month.

Deutsche Bank is facing scrutiny from authorities on both sides of the Atlantic on a number of fronts © Getty

China’s Anta Sports closes in on €5.6bn takeover of Finland’s Amer Deal would be largest outbound deal into Europe by Chinese company in 2018 DON WEINLAND AND ARASH MASSOUDI

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consortium led by China’s Anta Sports Products is closing in on a €5.6bn takeover of Finland’s Amer Sports in what would amount to the largest outbound deal into Europe by a Chinese company this year.

If successful, Anta, one of China’s best known homegrown sportswear brands, would acquire Amer’s portfolio that includes Atomic skis, Salomon mountain sports gear, Louisville Slugger baseball bats and Wilson tennis rackets. By doing so, the Chinese group will bolster its offering ahead of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

The deal would mark the culmination of a multi-month negotiation which has seen the Finnish owner of a hodgepodge of sporting equipment brands resist the overtures of its Chinese suitor.

The group is offering to pay €40 per share, valuing Amer’s equity at €4.6bn. The company also has about a €1bn in net debt. Two people close

to the process said a deal was imminent but one of these people cautioned that there was still a chance that talks collapse due to the Finnish group’s resistance to a transaction.

One person close to the situation previously told the FT that Anta had been pursuing Amer Sports for months before its interest became public in September of this year. This person said that the Finnish group had been trying to resist previous offers from Anta and preferred to stay independent.

The consortium has brought together a wide range of investors, including Hong Kong-based private equity group FountainVest, which is led by Goldman Sachs and Temasek veteran Frank Tang, and Chip Wilson, the Canadian businessman the behind Lululemon yoga brand. Tencent plans to enter the deal through a FountainVest fund. Bloomberg and Reuters earlier reported on the deal.

Shares in Amer have traded in a tight range since a report in September revealed Anta’s approach. Amer shares were up 0.2 per cent to €35.20.

Hong Kong-listed shares in Anta were down 3 per cent to 37 HKD, giving the company a valuation of 99.3bn HKD ($12.7bn).

Anta is working with Citigroup, while Amer is being advised by Goldman Sachs. Anta declined to comment, while Amer did not respond a request for comment.

If completed, the deal would be the largest Chinese investments into Europe this year at a time when companies in the country find it increasingly difficult to pull of major, private sector-led acquisitions, according to data from Dealogic. Utility provider China Three Gorges has been pursuing a larger takeover of Portugal’s EDP but that deal has yet to be agreed and has run into roadblocks.

Anta is a well-known Chinese sportswear company but has little experience overseas. The Fujianbased company is run by Ding Shizhong, who holds a fortune of about Rmb21.5bn ($3.1bn), according the Hurun Report, which compiles data on wealthy Chinese families.

US trade deficit at widest level in 10 years Data shows fall in exports to China MATTHEW ROCCO

T

he US trade deficit hit its widest level in a decade in October as the nation registered a record amount of imports and a decline in exports to China.

The Department of Commerce said Thursday the gap between US imports and exports grew 1.7 per cent month-over-month to $55.5bn, the most since October 2008 and the fifth straight month of deficit expansion. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters anticipated a smaller deficit of $55bn.

For September, the US trade deficit was revised to $54.6bn from $54bn.

America’s goods trade deficit with China, which has come under a microscope amid a trade spat between the world’s two largest economies, jumped 7.1 per cent to $43.1bn.

In a back-and-forth exchange of new tariffs, the US has levied import duties on $250bn of Chinese goods in a bid by President Donald Trump to convince Beijing to make economic reforms. Mr Trump has also deployed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminium.

China has retaliated with tariffs on politically sensitive goods such as soyabeans, vehicles and orange juice.

Mr Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping reached a 90-day truce last weekend that called for the two sides to restart negotiations. Under the deal,

the US will hold off on carrying out a threat to impose additional tariffs, and China agreed to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers.

US soyabean exports fell by $0.8bn in October, while exports of civilian aircraft and foods, feeds and beverages also declined. Industrial supplies and materials exports rose $0.3bn.

Exports of services were up $0.1bn, driven by financial and other business services.

Vehicles, pharmaceutical preparations and travel services lifted imports by 0.2 per cent to $266.5bn, the highest on record.

Adjusted for inflation, the October trade deficit was $87.9bn, up from $87.2bn in the prior month.

Sears chairman Lampert reveals plan to buy the bankrupt Billionaire says offer worth $4.6bn, including writing off debt ALISTAIR GRAY

E

ddie Lampert, the billionaire behind Sears, has put forward plans to buy out of bankruptcy “substantially all” the assets of the collapsed department store chain through his hedge fund ESL. ESL said the bid valued the assets at $4.6bn, of which $1.8bn compris-

es a so-called credit bid, in which the hedge fund would forgo claims on Sears debt. The retailer filed for Chapter 11 protection in October.

The rest of the bid would be funded from other sources including cash and new lending facilities, for which ESL has yet to secure backing.

Sears has until December 15 to name a stalking horse bidder for

its assets. Its plan will ultimately be subject to approval from a bankruptcy court.

ESL is being advised by Moelis.

ESL said: “We believe that our strategy will enable Sears to prosper in an integrated consumer and retail landscape and view a going concern transaction as essential to providing optimal value to stakeholders.”

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Friday 07 December 2018

ANALYSIS Theresa May dismisses talk of delay to Brexit vote UK government faces revolt from many Tory MPs and DUP over EU withdrawal deal JIM PICKARD AND ALEX BARKER

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The trade truce between US president Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping is looking fragile

Wall Street joins global stocks fall after Huawei arrest Detention of Chinese company’s CFO raises fears for Washington-Beijing trade truce ADAM SAMSON AND HUDSON LOCKETT

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S stocks tumbled at the open on Wall Street on Thursday, after the arrest in Canada of a top executive at Chinese telecoms group Huawei fanned concern over the ability of Washington and Beijing to make their trade truce permanent.

An almost 2 per cent drop in the S&P 500 saw the benchmark index erase its gains for the year, as the Nasdaq weakened 2.2 per cent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average also fell.

The main US stock market indices, which suffered sharp declines on Tuesday before shutting on Wednesday for a day of mourning for former president George HW Bush, joined the global equity weakness on Thursday that was amplified by a tumbling oil price.

Declines across European bourses had accelerated earlier after Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid alFalih indicated that Opec producers meeting in Vienna were working towards a deal to cut output that could fall short of traders’ expectations.

That sent Brent crude, the international benchmark, falling more than 4 per cent, hitting shares of oil companies such as BP and pinning European and UK equities at their lowest level in two years.

Chinese equities dropped, with the benchmark CSI closing down 2.2 per cent following the arrest in Vancouver

of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer and the daughter of its founder, after an extradition request from the US. The high-profile detention comes as doubts were already growing over whether the ceasefire in tariffs that presidents Donald Trump of the US and Xi Jinping of China agreed at the G20 summit in Argentina will lead to a deal that repairs relations between the world’s two largest economies.

“While China may stomach fines, investigations and market restrictions against its national champion, we do not believe it will tolerate the arrest of a CFO,” said Laban Yu, equities strategist at investment bank Jefferies.

If the US did not change course, “trade negotiations are in serious jeopardy”.

Western governments have stepped up pressure on Huawei, whose founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, is a former People’s Liberation Army officer. The company, which has been the focus of concern over corporate espionage and cyber security, has denied having connections to China’s security services or the military.

Deepening anxiety over trade comes at a difficult juncture for investors, with most big asset classes in negative territory and a sharp rally in US government bonds over the past month sending an early warning signal about a slowdown in the US economy next year.

The yield on the benchmark 10year Treasury, which moves in the

opposite direction to the bond’s price, was down 3 basis points at 2.88 per cent, extending its steep decline over the past month. European government bonds also rallied.

The Hang Seng China Enterprises index of large-cap Chinese companies listed in Hong Kong dropped 2.6 per cent. Shares of ZTE, a rival Chinese telecoms equipment maker, tumbled more than 5.7 per cent.

In Europe, Germany’s Dax dropped 2.5 per cent and the FTSE 100, London’s benchmark of blue-chip stocks, fell by a similar amount.

S&P 500 futures were briefly paused when the market opened late on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported, citing the CME. The S&P 500 shed 3.2 per cent in a turbulent trading day on Tuesday.

Rising concern over trade also ricocheted into the foreign exchange market, hitting China’s currency.

The renminbi, traded within China’s domestic markets, was recently down 0.5 per cent at Rmb6.8869 against the US dollar, weakening from this week’s highs of Rmb6.8308. It had earlier this week posted its biggest two-day rally in more than a decade.

US media reported that the extradition request on Ms Meng was related to Iran sanctions, but the US justice department declined to comment.

Following the arrest, “investors immediately priced in a deterioration in trade relations”, said Paul Flood, portfolio manager of the Newton Multi-Asset Income Fund.

What is the yield curve and why has it spooked investors?

Measure could be the best indicator investors have of an oncoming recession JOE RENNISON AND ROBIN WIGGLESWORTH

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hat if there was a way to know when the next recession was close? What if there was a market measure that could clearly communicate economic trouble ahead, without fail?

Well, there isn’t. But some analysts and investors say there is something that gets close — the US yield curve.

What is the yield curve?

The yield curve is created by plotting US government bond yields of different maturities on a single graph, with the Federal Reserve’s overnight interest rate at one end and the 30year “long” Treasury bond at the other.

Typically, it should cost less to borrow money for one day than one year or a decade, and 30 years should be the priciest. This is in part because a

lot of things can happen to an investment over time — such as inflation that would erode the fixed returns of a bond — which means investors tend to want compensation for taking on that risk.

Therefore, shorter-dated Treasury bonds, which are inclined to hew closely to the Fed’s interest rates, usually have a lower yield than longerdated ones. That means the shape of the yield curve tends to slope upwards on a chart over time, from left to right.

What does it tell us?

The different yields demanded by bond investors say a lot about what they think about how the US economy is doing today and where it is heading.

If there is a big difference between short- and long-term Treasury yields — that is, if there is a steep upward curve — then it suggests that investors expect inflation and interest

rates to rise markedly in the future.

The curve can be particularly steep as the US economy is pulling out of a recession.

But as that difference declines — as the curve flattens, as it is doing now — it indicates that investors expect slower inflation and more tepid economic growth in the future.

Initially, this may not be a terrible thing. The Fed typically raises interest rates when the economy is doing well and inflation is rising.

By increasing short-term yields, the premium for investing in longerdated yields declines.

What investors do not want to see is a negative, or “inverted”, yield curve — one that, on a graph, has a downward kink. That suggests that an economic slowdown may be approaching, one in which inflation will fall and the Fed will have to cut rates.

owning Street has dismissed speculation that next Tuesday’s Brexit vote could be scrapped, insisting that “it is happening” according to schedule.

Theresa May refused earlier on Thursday to rule out the idea of postponing the date to try to win over Tory rebels or attempt a renegotiation with Brussels.

The UK prime minister, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, was asked about reports that some cabinet ministers want her to push the pause button on next week’s vote.

The government appears to be on track for a defeat of huge proportions, with scores of Tory MPs and the DUP planning to vote against the “withdrawal agreement” with Brussels.

Pressed repeatedly on the idea of a postponement, Mrs May did not rule it out altogether, saying instead: “I am leading up to a vote

the unanimous approval of remaining member states.

Mrs May, who has been engaged in a frenetic bout of activity designed to win over a sceptical public and rebel Tory MPs, insisted on Thursday morning that the agreement was a “good deal for the UK”. She recognised colleagues’ concerns about the “backstop” designed to prevent a hard border in Ireland but said that “any” other alternative arrangement — whether the Norway or Canada model — would also involve a backstop.

Downing Street has told rebels that parliament already has a potential veto over the backstop through the parliamentary vote that will take place when the transition period ends. Officials are trying to rebrand that vote as a “lock” over the backstop — because it gives MPs the option of extending the transition period for another year or two.

However, Eurosceptic MPs are so far unconvinced by that olive branch, not least because the transition period could only be extended

Theresa May has been trying to win over a sceptical public and rebel Tory MPs © AP

on Tuesday.”

However, a Number 10 aide later insisted there was no chance of the plan changing. “The vote takes place on Tuesday. The vote is taking place on Tuesday, that’s where we are. It’s happening next Tuesday,” he said.

Senior figures including Gavin Williamson, defence secretary, and Brandon Lewis, chair of the Conservative party, have tried to persuade Mrs May to postpone the vote. One aide told the FT that Downing St had been thinking about a delay: “It has been under serious consideration in Number 10,” he said.

However, some aides believe that a delay would be problematic because it would require authorisation through a separate vote in the House of Commons.

Adding to the drama of next week, the European Court of Justice said it would issue a crucial ruling on Britain’s right to withdraw its Brexit notification on the eve of the House of Commons vote. The ruling on Monday will be one of the fastest issued by Europe’s highest court. Earlier this week an adviser to the court backed arguments of anti-Brexit campaigners, saying Britain could revoke Brexit without

until the end of 2022 at the very latest — at which point the UK would end up locked in the backstop after all.

Mrs May said that staying for longer in the transition period would mean further payments to the EU and the continuation of freedom of movement. “There are pros and cons of both sides of that,” she said.

The prime minister also expressed frustration with Remain MPs who this week backed an amendment from former attorneygeneral Dominic Grieve that in effect gives the Commons a veto over a no-deal Brexit. “It is clear there are those in the House of Commons who want to frustrate Brexit,” she said.

Some MPs wanted a second referendum because they hoped for a different answer, she said. “It isn’t anything to do with this deal, it’s about trying to frustrate Brexit,” she added. “This is a point in time when everyone should be thinking about the national interest, which is to leave the EU.” Privy counsellors have been invited to attend a briefing by the Civil Contingency Secretariat on no-deal planning at lunchtime on Thursday at the Cabinet Office in the latest attempt to win over potential rebels.

Friday 07 December 2018

BUSINESS DAY

47

48

BUSINESS DAY

Friday 07 December 2018

Live @ the Stock exchange Prices for Securities Traded as of Thursday 06 December 2018 Company

Market cap(nm)

PRICES FOR MAIN BOARD SECURITIES (Equities)

Price (N)

Change

Trades

Volume

Company

Market cap(nm)

Price (N)

Change

Trades

Volume

49

BUSINESS DAY

Friday 07 December 2018

Live @ The Exchanges Top Gainers/Losers as at Thursday 06 December 2018 GAINERS Company

Market Statistics as at Thursday 06 December 2018

LOSERS Opening

Closing

Change

UACN

N9.5

N10

0.5

CCNN

N16.25

N16.5

0.25

OANDO

N4.95

N5.15

CUSTODIAN

N4.95

CUTIX

N1.82

Company DANGCEM

Opening

Closing

Change

N190

N185

-5

NESTLE

N1485

N1480

-5

0.2

OKOMUOIL

N75.5

N72

-3.5

N5.1

0.15

GUINNESS

N74

N73

-1

N1.97

0.15

UNILEVER

N39.5

N38.9

-0.6

ASI (Points)

30,819.10

DEALS (Numbers)

3,030.00

VOLUME (Numbers)

280,939,009.00

VALUE (N billion)

2.490

MARKET CAP (N Trn

11.251

Dangote Cement, 18 others lift stock market by N52bn Stories by Iheanyi Nwachukwu

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igerian listed equities gained approxim a t e l y N52billion on Wednesday December 5, 2018 as investors rushed to buy the shares of Dangote Cement Plc and other value counters.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) All Share Index (ASI) increased by 0.47 percent from 31,007.25 points to 31,151.68 points. The value of listed equities –the market capitalisation increased to N11.372trillion from preceding day level of N11.320trillion.

Nineteen (19) stocks gained against 18 losers.

The stock market’s yearto-date (YTD) returns currently stands at -18.54per-

cent.

In 2,845 deals stock dealers exchanged 198,637,464 units valued at N2.309billion.

FBN Holdings Plc, Access Bank Plc, Diamond Bank Plc, FCMB Group Plc, and GTBank Plc were

actively traded stocks.

Dangote Cement Plc recorded the highest price gain from N185 to N190,

up by N5 or 2.70percent.

Stanbic IBTC Holdings Plc followed from N46.55 to N47.5, adding 95kobo or

L – R: Nerina Visser, CFA, chairperson of the ASISA ETF Standing Committee; Oscar N. Onyema, OON, chief executive officer, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and Deborah A. Fuhr, managing partner & founder, ETFGI during the 2018 NSE Annual ETPs Conference tagged “Exchange Traded Products: Evolving investment themes, Accessing New Markets and Enhancing Portfolio Alpha”, held in Lagos.

2.04percent.

Flourmills Nigeria Plc stock price advanced from N20.15 to N21, up 85kobo or 4.22percent; PZ Cussons Nigeria Plc from N10.3 to N10.9, up 60kobo or 5.83percent; while Oando Plc share price gained 25kobo from N4.7 to N4.95, up by 5.32percent.

Seplat stock recorded the highest value decline from N614 to N598.9, down by 15.1 or 2.46percent. Cement Company of Northern Nigeria Plc followed after its share price dropped from N18 to N16.25, down N1.75 or 9.72percent.

International Breweries Plc recorded decline of N1.3 from N30.75 to N29.45, down by 4.23percent. GTBank Plc lost 65kobo or 1.81percent, from N35.95 to N35.3; while UAC of Nigeria Plc dipped from N10 to N9.5, losing 50kobo or 5percent.

Lafarge Africa to raise N89.21bn by way of Rights Issue

Nigeria’s Exchange Traded Products space records growth

…at N12 per share, 6 new shares for every 7 held

… Nine ETPs listed on NSE

L

afarge Africa Plc has notified the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) of the decision of the Board of Directors at the meeting held on December 3 2018 in respect of the proposed Rights Issue.

Following the resolution of the company’s shareholders passed at the Extra-Ordinary General Meeting (EGM) held on September 25, 2018, the Board of Directors have approved the terms of the Rights Issue.

Lafarge Africa Plc will raise N89.21billion by way of a Rights Issue at N12.00 per share, by issuing 6 new shares for every 7 shares held by shareholders at the Qualification Date, which will be announced.

The Rights Price represents a circa 10.45percent

discount on Lafarge Africa’s traded closing price of N13.4kobo as at Monday December 3, 2018.

The regulatory approval process for the Rights Issue is ongoing, according to the notice signed by Adewunmi Alode, Company Secretary, Lafarge Africa Plc. Lafarge Africa Plc is a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, a world leader

in building materials. The company has operations in Nigeria - Ewekoro and Sagamu plants in Ogun State, Ashakacem in Gombe State, Mfamosing in Cross Rivers State, Atlas cement in Rivers State and Ready-Mix Nigeria and varied operations in South Africa and Ghana with total group capacity of around 14 million Metric Tonnes.

N

igeria’s Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) space has grown steadily by a cumulative average growth rate of 8 percent over the last 4 years, said Oscar Onyema, Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

Onyema said the crosslisting of ABSA’s Newgold Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in December 2011 opened up the ETPs market.

Currently, there are nine (9) ETPs listed on the Exchange – 2 thematic ETFs providing access to Pensioncompliant and Shariahcompliant stocks, 2 broad equity market ETFs tracking the NSE 30 Index, 3 sector based ETFs, 1 commodity ETF, and 1 bond ETF tracking exposure to benchmark FGN Sovereign Bonds.

The NSE CEO disclosed all these on Wednesday December 5 in Lagos at the 2018 Exchange Traded

Products conference where he said that the introduction of ETPs is one of the Exchange’s strategy to enhance diversification “as well as broaden the options available in the capital market to support the efficient implementation of investment strategies across diverse asset classes and instruments”.

The theme of the ETPs conference is “Exchange Traded Products: Evolving investment themes, Accessing New Markets and Enhancing Portfolio Alpha”.

In the last 15 years, investors’ demand for ETPs (both retail and institutional) has grown remarkably, which in turn has led to a greater variety of products offered by ETP sponsors, he noted.

Globally, ETPs have grown remarkably this year recording net flows of approximately $358billion as at October 2018. According to ETFGI, the Global ETP industry had close to 15,000 ETPs listings on 71 exchang-

es with assets of about $5trillion cutting across 392 providers at the end of October 2018.

“It is interesting to note that equity-based ETPs make up 76.7percent of global ETP listings whilst Fixed Income based ETPs represent 16.7percent of listings, similar to the asset split in Nigeria”, Onyema added.

The NSE CEO used the medium to encourage ETP product issuers and intermediaries to expand their footprint by broadening distribution channels, introducing other asset classes/ strategies, entering new markets, leveraging technology and data analytics to understand the market and demand.

“This year, in collaboration with issuers, we have focused on diversifying the ETPs space by supporting new product development and thus expect the launch of new ETPs in the short term”, he added.

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Friday 07 December 2018

BUSINESS DAY

CITYFile

Amosun disburses N72m for community projects in Ogun RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta

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overnor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun has disbursed cheques of N72 million to some communities as grants to cover expenses incurred on self-help projects embarked upon by the communities.

The projects include community roads, boreholes, construction of mini bridges, electrification, and security, among others.

Speaking during the presentation of the cheques to about 349 communities across the state, at the World Community Development Day celebration organised by the ministry of community development and cooperatives, Amosun said that the fund was to support their self-help efforts.

The governor, who acknowledged the role of Community Development Associations (CDAs) in the development of the state, said: “The capacity building initiative of the CDAs towards having good leadership in our communities has also helped in maintaining the peaceful atmosphere that is prevalent in our dear State.”

The commissioner for community for community development and cooperatives, Gbenga Adenmosun, said while 349 CDAs benefitted from the grants, subventions would go to 220 Area Community Development Committees (ACDCs) in the state.

Adenmosun, who pledged continued support to the growth and development of communities in the state, requested CDAs to do more, saying that the celebration was to appreciate their voluntary and selfless contributions to the growth and development of the state.

L-R: Akin Oyebode, executive secretary, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF); Sanai Oyewole Bolanle Agunbiade, majority leader, Lagos State House of Assembly; Monzor Olowosago, publisher, Oriwu Sun Newspaper, and Aina Olukoya, governor of the Lagos State Council of Tradesmen and Artisans (LASCOTA), Ikorodu Division, during the LSETF’s stakeholders community engagement in Ikorodu recently.

Four injured, houses burnt in C’River communal clash MIKE ABANG, Calabar he police have confirmed four persons injured and some houses burnt in a communal clash between Urugbam and Abanwa communities in Biase local government area of Cross River State.

Spokesperson of the state police command, Irene Ugbo, who confirmed the incident on Tuesday, however, described as false, reports that five persons were killed in the clash. He said that the police

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had deployed another team of personnel to the communities to maintain law and order.

“The command wishes to state that four persons were injured and some houses burnt during a communal clash that ensued between Urugbam and Abanwa communities in Biase local government. The online report that five persons were killed is false.

“The information is not just fake and misleading but a compendium of lies and calculated attempt to perpetually put

the people of this extraction in total fear, confusion and restlessness.

“The command, therefore, urges the public to go about their lawful businesses as efforts are ongoing by the state government, police and stakeholders to put lasting peace to the prolonged crises between the two communities,’’ she said.

Ugbo advised members of the public to always cross-check or authenticate facts and figures before publicising same, to avoid spreading fake and unconfirmed news.

Police move to halt kidnapping, cultism in Abia Pastor charged with defrauding members of N1.5m

GODFREY OFURUM, Aba

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he police in Abia State have established an ‘Anti-Kidnapping Squad’ with the aim to rid the state of kidnapping and other violent crimes.

The Commissioner of Police (CP) in charge of the state, who briefed journalists in Umuahia, said the command was out to stop the activities of hoodlums and create an atmosphere conducive for the residents and businesses.

Ezike observed that the rate at which cultism has penetrated secondary schools, markets and streets, calls for the establishment of an anti-cultism outfit that will combine carrot and stick approach.

He promised that the outfit would be established before the yuletide season and appealed to citizens of the State, to help in making the dream of a crime free Abia, a reality.

“To stem the challenges of kidnapping and abductions in Aba area of Abia State and coordinate and consolidate our efforts, as well as promote the use of technology in tackling the menace, I have with immediate effect established the Abia State Command Anti Kidnapping Squad with jurisdiction to cover all parts of the state.

“A Superintendent of Police has also been appointed as the squad leader and in the coming days their impact will be felt in

mitigating the challenges of kidnapping.

“Cultism in Abia State may assume a worrisome dimension, if drastic measures are not put in place to check the activities of these sons and daughters of evil.

“The trend is indicative of the fact that it has penetrated our secondary schools, streets, markets and social clusters. The command has commissioned an operational-psycho-social study that will inform our response in the immediacy.

“But most likely-an anti-cultism outfit that will combine carrot and stick approach may be rolled out by the command before Christmas. The task ahead of us is daunting, but not impossible. I therefore appeal to all the good citizens of Abia State to partner with us and make the dream a reality.”

Speaking on the behavior and attitude of his men in ensuring that they do the right things, the Abia new CP said: “In furtherance of our resolve to ensure accountability policing, I have established the command monitoring unit and appointed a Chief Superintendent of Police, as the officer in charge.

“They are to ensure that police activities are done in conformity with rules, regulations, the law and best practices. This unit shall also speedily resolve all cases of excessive use of force, abuse of human rights and corruption/corrupt practice, reported against police officers”.

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ichael Udom, a 52-year-old pastor at Pinnacle of Praise Church, Lagos, has been charged before an Ikeja Magistrate Court for allegedly defrauding his church members of N1.5 million on the pretext of coordinating a monthly contribution.

Udom is facing a three-count charge of conspiracy, fraud and stealing.

The prosecution alleged the accused obtained a sum of N1.5 million from one Sylvia Nnamdi and Alfred Olugbenga, under the pretences of being a pastor and coordinator of an Ajor Thrift Association, a representation he knew to be false.

Michael Unah, the police prosecutor told the court on Tuesday that the accused committed the offences with other two still at large sometimes in May at Fadeyi in Lagos.

He said the accused, who portrayed himself as a pastor and the coordinator of the Ajor Thrift Association to the complainants, convinced them to join the contribution but converted the sum

of N1.5 million to his own personal use.

Unah said that the accused refused to give the complainants the money when it was their turn to collect.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The chief magistrate, A. A. Fashola, admitted the accused to bail in the sum of N200,000 with two sureties in like sum.

Fashola ordered that the sureties must be gainfully employed with an evidence of three years tax payment to the Lagos State government and have their addresses verified by the court.

He also ordered that the sureties must be blood relations of the accused and also reside within the court’s jurisdiction.

The offences contravened Sections 287, 314 and 411 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015, (Revised).

Section 314 prescribes a 15-year jail term for false pretenses while section 287 provides seven years for stealing. The magistrate adjourned the case until January 22 for mention. NAN

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Accidents claim 12 lives in Osun – FRSC

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he Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) in Osun says no fewer than 12 lives were lost in various road accidents in November 2018.

The sector commander, Peter Oke, stated this in Osogbo. According to him, most of the accidents were as a result of speed, impatient and wrongful overtaking by motorists.

He said: “The number of road accidents within the month of November was 21, which led to the death of 12 persons.

“The command apprehended 587 offenders and educated 219 persons with thorough warning against traffic offences.’’

Oke said the command issued about 1,112 driver’s licences to motorists and also embarked on some awareness programmes to sensitise the public on roadrelated matters.

“We did 13 radio programmes, nine television programmes to educate and inform the public about the activities of the FRSC; and the dangers associated with Road Traffic Accidents (RTA), ‘’ he said.

Oke, however, called on motorists to obey traffic laws, saying that the command would not hesitate to deal with anyone that violated the laws.

Street Sweepers protest at Alausa, Lagos.

Street sweepers’ protest may FCTA begins yellow fever worsen Lagos’ waste situation vaccination

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he Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has begun yellow fever preventive mass vaccination campaign in Abuja.

Secretary, Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS), FCT, Adamu Bappah, who monitored the exercise at some of the vaccination points within Nyanya, Karu, Jikwoyi and Karshi axis, said it has so far been successful.

Bappah said that the exercise was well conducted with large turnout of people, which he described as ‘encouraging’.

According to him, there is an urgent need to eradicate Yellow fever epidemic, adding that three confirmed cases had been reported so far in the FCT. “The vaccination will cover duration of two streams, which the first stream was from November 24 to November 29, covering 35 wards in the territory.

“The second stream is from November 30 to December 7 covering 27 wards,” he said.

He noted that school premises, places of worship and hospitals were centres used for the mass vaccination.

The yellow fever preventive mass vaccination campaign had recently taken place at Dangaza village under the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC).

JOSHUA BASSEY

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mid piling heaps of refuse in some parts of Lagos metropolis, street sweepers engaged under the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI), are showing willingness to drop their working tools, citing delay in the payment of their monthly salaries, a development capable of deepening the already worse waste management situation in the state.

Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital and ‘centre of excellence’ with an estimated population of over 21 million people, generates about 13,000 tonnes of waste. For almost two years now, the state has been battling with indiscriminate refuse disposal, as Visionscape Sanitation Solutions Limited, a municipal waste management firm contracted by the government in 2017 is still unable to rid the streets of heaps of refuse.

The state government upon the introduction of Visionscape, had stopped existing Private Sector Participants (PSP) in waste management, as well as publicly-owned Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) from direct collection of domestic waste, leading to piles of refuse across the state. The disastrous consequence of the government’s decision, eventually forced the state to rescind its decision, as it recently invited the PSP operators back to business. However, about two months after the PSP returned to work, Lagos is yet to recover from the menacing waste situation.

There are fears that unless the complaints of

delayed salaries by the sweepers are urgently addressed, the state could sink deeper into the waste menace.

The workers on Wednesday took their protest to the Government House, Alausa, and barricaded the entrance to the Governor’s Office.

One of the aggrieved workers, Kehinde Egbetola, said that it was unfortunate that their salaries were always delayed.

“We don’t have tools to work with; our colleagues are dying; we don’t have health insurance, pensions and so many other things that could have been of benefit to us.

“We are not illiterates, some of us are graduates. We are paid salaries after 20 days of the following month. So, when the month ends, we will start begging for money.

“I took this job because of unemployment to keep body and soul together but the suffering is too much,” he lamented.

“Also, we don’t want to be merged with LAWMA. We were employed by the state government under the Cleaner Lagos Initiative. We are appealing to the government to regularise our appointment.

“At least, we are government workers, we should be given our Oracle numbers and ID cards to show that we are members of staff of the government,” he said.

Bose Osinowo, another protester, claimed that several workers had been killed by vehicles, while working on the roadside, without any help from the government, saying that their salaries were usually delayed.

Osinowo said: “Please, tell the government

Gully erosion: Communities laud Obaseki’s reclamation projects IDRIS UMAR MOMOH, Benin

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ommunities affected by gully erosion in Ewu and Ibore in Esan Central local government area of Edo State have lauded Governor Godwin Obaseki’s efforts at reclaiming gully erosion sites in the areas.

Obaseki recently secured commitment from the Federal Government, the World Bank and the European Investment Bank to rescue gully erosion threatening areas of the state, as part of the Nigerian Erosion and Watershed Management Project

(NEWMAP). Some of the gully sites were over 25 years old and posed environmental danger to the communities.

The project Engineer, Edwin Ero, said: “We carried out topographical survey and were able to ascertain where the flood water should flow to and our design was able to capture that. What we are doing in Ibore is similar to what is going on in Ewu. The difference is the length. The gully in Ibore is bigger than Ewu. We are using the same engineering principle at both sites.”

Spokesman for the community, Richard Diagie said, “I thank the Edo State

government and NEWMAP for the job being carried out in Ewu. For the past 25 years, we have been living with the problem. The distance between Eguare and Ehane ought to be between two to three minutes walk. But for the past 25 years, if you are coming to Ehane, you have to go through the express, through Iduwanle and Ewulu before coming down to Ehane. This is a distance that should not take you two minutes.”

“Before the project was awarded, over six houses had been submerged by the gully.

Things are now taking a new shape,” he added.

that we don’t want LAWMA. We were told to drop our green overall uniform for the pink uniform of LAWMA before we will be paid.

“We don’t want to work on Sundays, we also want to observe all public holidays. We want to be staffed. We want our money increased from N18, 500 rather than the proposed reduction to N12,000 by LAWMA.’’ Another protester, Kudirat Agboola said that the initial intention of the workers was to protest the death of one of the staff who was killed last month by a hit-and-run driver.

“We want the government to take care of the six children the deceased worker left behind.

We don’t want LAWMA,’’ Agboola said.

Ibrahim Kajola, who noted that the workload of the few employed staff was much, lamented that LAWMA neglected workers, who protested the death of two cleaners who died recently while on duty.

Oluwatobiloba Olatunji alleged that LAWMA was planning to reduce their salaries from N18,500 to N12,000. She also claimed that LAWMA had the habit of deducting their salaries anytime anyone was absent from work even for genuine reasons.

“We prefer our working conditions under Visionscape. We have really been suffering since LAWMA inherited us; unlike what used to happen in the past,’’ she said.

The protesters unanimously demanded for an increase rather than reduction in salaries and revealed that LAWMA had concluded plans to reduce the number of workers employed under the scheme.

Another resident of Ewu and chairman, community association, Ewu Kingdom, Sufianu Ojeifo said, “We thank God who has made it possible. What we thought was impossible is now possible.”

On his part, Odionwere of Ikekeala community, Ibore, Omokhegbe Kumal, said: “We like what the Obaseki-led government is doing with the project. We are happy with it. The gully has claimed lives in the past. It was so deep, and we appreciate the government’s effort.

Woman leader in Ibore, Esther Inegbenose, described the ongoing project as commendable. “Before the intervention, the site was so scary but now one can easily pass through the site either with a vehicle or by foot.”

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Akwa Ibom denies alleged indictment by EFCC ANIEFIOK UDONQUAK, Uyo

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he Akwa Ibom State government has denied news report of its purported indictment by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over the alleged withdrawal of N1.7billion from the state coffers, describing it as baseless and a malicious allegation tainted with political undertone.

In statement made available to BusinessDay and signed by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Charles Udoh, it noted that the allegation was a another facesaving attempt by the commission to justify the several illegalities it has allowed itself to be used to perpetrate against the government and the good people of a peaceful state by the opposition party.

According to him, it is instructive to note that the EFCC is restating this line of skewed narrative in media for the umpteenth time, a flagrant act of impunity against the judicial process, adding that the state government had instituted a legal proceeding against

Charles Udoh

the commission at the Federal High Court in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital.

Maintaining that the constitution and the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria only authorise the state House of Assembly and

the state auditor-general to pry into the financial dealings of the state government, it stated that in the last three-and-a-half years, Akwa Ibom State has been one of the few states, if not the only state that publishes its annual audited financial statements

Ex-Oyo governor, Ladoja, dumps ADC for Zenith Labour Party Akinremi Feyisipo, Ibadan

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fter weeks of speculation, former governor of Oyo State, Rasidi Adewolu Ladoja on Thursday officially announced his defection from African Democratic Congress (ADC) to Zenith Labour Party (ZLP).

Ladoja had last weekend allegedly instructed his loyalists to dump the ADC and join Zenith Labour Party.

But addressing journalists in Ibadan yesterday at his Ibadan Ondo Street residence Thursday morning, Ladoja made his official defection announcement to Zenith Labour Party.

The former governor, while addressing the journalists, said the way ADC was going, it may not be able to win the gubernatorial election in 2019 and the fact that most of the decision makers in ADC “were invisible” made him to leave ADC. Flanked by the gubernatorial can-

Ladoja

didate of the Zenith Labour Party in the state, Sharafadeen Abiodun Alli and scores of his supporters who thronged his house as early as 7:00 a.m, he further said that the way the ADC was going, its leaders would not be responsible for the decision they made because “those who are making decision in ADC are invisible”.

According to him, “the inability of the leaders of ADC to carry along all the major towns, groups and zones in the state such as the people of Ibarapa zone, Kajola, Itesiwaju and Iwajowa along is another reason responsible for our defection from ADC to Zenith Labour Party.

“Most people who are making decisions in ADC are invisible, they are not visible. You can’t see them.

That means that they will not be responsible for the decisions they make,” he said.

“I told you that my apprehension, my apprehension was that the way we are going we might not be able to win the elections because there are some areas that were not catered for. I told you about some areas in Ibarapa that were not catered for and we have been talking, so on the last day, the Zenith Labour Party, they decided that look, they can’t bear it anymore and they decided that they are going to field Barrister Sharafadeen Abiodun Alli as the gubernatorial candidate of the party. They sought my consent.

“We are formally in ADC; I am now in Zenith Labour Party. We have been on it for the past three months. The crisis in ADC was

unwarranted. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the choice of the deputy. When I got the information in the social media, I called Femi Lanlehin and he said he did not know anything about how the deputy was picked.

I called Babalaje, Chief Koleoso, are you aware? He said he was not consulted. And I said this cannot hold. It is just courtesy that if you are going to work with me I should be involved in your things,” he said.

Ladoja, who said that he chose his deputy, Adebayo Alao-Akala, in 2003 and not that he (Alao-Akala) was imposed on him, said it would be wrong to choose a deputy for a governor-to-be, stressing that if a deputy was picked for a governorto-be, they would run a parallel government because they would be representing two interests at the detriment of the people.

“I chose Otunba Alao-Akala myself. So he was not imposed on me. I said the way we were going, if we are not very careful, we are going to run parallel government when we get there because your deputy emerged without your consent. So, he will say I am representing my group, you are representing your group; so that is not good for governance.”

While assuring that the Zenith Labour Party remains the party to beat even though it is coming few months to the elections, he said: “By the grace of God, we will win; you know that the candidate himself is not sleeping; you have the candidate and people’s goodwill in the state. I still believe that by the grace of God, we will still win in this party”.

which it said underscores the state government’s commitment to transparency, accountability and integrity in governance.

The statement read in part: “The alleged indictment by the EFCC is a baseless and malicious allegation, tainted with political undertone to malign the integrity of the current Government of Akwa Ibom State.

“It is another face-saving attempt by the EFCC to justify the several illegalities it has allowed itself to be used to perpetrate against the government and good people of a peaceful state by the opposition party.

“These antics of the EFCC have continued to attract widespread condemnation from within and outside the country.

“It is instructive to note that the EFCC is regurgitating this line of skewed narrative in the media for the umpteenth time in a flagrant act of impunity against the judicial process.

“In the last three-and-a-half years, Akwa Ibom State has been one of the few states, if not the only state that publishes its annual audited financial statements. This underscores the state

government’s commitment to transparency, accountability and integrity in governance.”

According to the commissioner, “Copies of the state’s annual audited financial statements are available in the public domain.

“It is mockery of the rule of law for the EFCC to allow itself to degenerate into a tool for character assassination, political mudslinging and witchhunting by the opposition in Akwa Ibom State.

“Nigerians and indeed members of the international community are watching the unfolding EFCC drama with keen interest.”

“For the records, the current Government of Akwa Ibom State is led by a consummate professional with over two decades of proven track record of integrity and performance in financial management, which transcends the boarders of Nigeria.

“The Akwa Ibom State Government will not be distracted by this poorly-scripted drama by the EFCC and will continue to do all within the ambits of the law to protect the integrity of governance in the state,” he further said.

2019: Usani flays moves

by Cross River CAN to endorse Ayade …Says, ‘it’s an aberration’ MIKE ABANG,Calabar

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he Director-G eneral of Usani Uguru Usani Campaign Organisation, Ekpeyong Cobham, has frowned at moves to endorse Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State for a second term by the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) Cross River State chapter, describing it as strange and an aberration.

Cobham in a press statement signed by himself and made available to newsmen in Calabar on Thursday said there is no justification whatsoever for the leadership of CAN to endorse the governor for a second term in office.

“He question is, how do you endorse a man whose performance in government is everything short of expectations of a practising Christian?”

“CAN is an umbrella body of all Christian denominations; they are supposed to be neutral, impartial to all candidates and not engaging in political matters as it concerns 2019 general election,” the campaign group said.

Cobham said doing so would

amount to greed and selfishness, for a man who in three years allegedly refused to grant audience to the leadership of the Christian body in the state.

He advised that the leadership of CAN in the state should toe the part of honour by practising the virtues s of Jesus Christ who came and died for all instead of meddling in the murky waters of politics.

“CAN Cross River State Chapter should not become a political party to those in government by engaging in political endorsement of candidates,” it further said.

In a related development, the DG has commended the ingenuity of the pragmatic Leaders Forum led by Elizerbert Usani in organising an interactive forum with the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs Usani Uguru Usani and royal fathers in the state. The event is slated for 14 December 2018.

“The initiative is unprecedented in the history of our state as the royal fathers will be given first hand information on the activities of the Ministry of Niger Delta as it concerns the state and Niger Delta region,” THE GROUP FURTHER SAID.

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Nigeria needs a president with clear blueprint on solving Apapa jigsaw ODINAKA ANUDU

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s the 2019 general elections draw nearer, presidential candidates of various political parties must present blueprints on solving the big challenge of Apapa gridlock.

About 5,000 trucks seek access to Apapa and Tin Can ports in Lagos every day, according to a latest maritime report released on Tuesday by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI).

These trucks have continued to plunder Apapa and Tin Can despite that access roads and the two ports were originally meant to accommodate only 1,500 trucks.

According to the LCCI report, Nigeria loses N600 billion in customs revenue, $10 billion (N3.6trn) in nonoil export sector and N2.5 trillion in corporate earnings across various sectors on annual basis due to the poor state of Nigerian ports.

The report notes that 25 percent of cashew nuts exported from Lagos to Vietnam in 2017 went bad or were downgraded owing to delays at Lagos ports. Similarly, only 10 percent of cargoes are cleared within the set

timeline of 48 hours now while the majority of cargoes take between five and 14 days to clear. Again, cargoes take as many as 20 days to be cleared at the ports.

Nigeria realises N4 billion to N7 billion from both Apapa and Tin Can ports every day. Yet, government after government does not have an answer

for the logjam.

More so, the number of government agencies at the ports is now 12 rather than eight, with each demanding inspection and associated fees.

“There is a need to extend reform action plans of Presidential Enabling Business Environment Council

(PEBEC) to Eastern ports, air and land ports,” Babatunde Paul Ruwase, president of the LCCI, said at a press conference in Lagos.

“The concessioning of Onitsha seaport should be finalised, while government should improve the security situation along and within the Warri port in order to ward off militants and touts. Stakeholders request that government should approve and publicise a bouquet of incentives to importers and exports that patronise ports outside Lagos,” Ruwase said.

The state of Apapa and Tin Can access roads has led to economic losses and slowdown in human and vehicular movements in Lagos.

An exporter shipping out 1,700 tons of commodities per day under normal circumstances when Apapa road was in good condition now manages to only ship between 100 and 250 tons, Tola Faseru, president of the National Cashew Association of Nigeria, told BusinessDay last year.

Manufacturing companies are bleeding because imported raw materials take many days to get to factories. Nigeria needs dollars to survive but exporters are facing challenges at ports, with non-oil exports falling

below $1.6 billion today, from $3 billion in 2013, going by data from the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC). The National Action Plan 2.0 (NAP 2.0), PEBEC, in 2017, unveiled clear-cut plans to reform the ports, with government proposing joint examination of import cargo in Lagos led by the Nigeria Customs Service, as well as compliance with 48-hour SLA for automated scheduling process by pre-shipment inspection agents. But this is not happening.

Ruwase recommended enforcement of Executive Order on Single Examination, digitalising export process, reduction of enforcement agencies from 12 to eight, use of National Data Centre and passage of Enabling Port Reforms Bills by the National Assembly.

“Our desire is for Nigeria to get to the point where it can move containers and other items to and from ports by rail across the country,” he said.

“Let those in Apapa give presidential candidates that condition: No solution, no vote. You can lock down Apapa just because you do not know what to do with the ports in Onne, Warri and other parts of the country,” a businessman, who preferred anonymity, said.

Freedom, democracy: What Agbaje promises Lagos CHUKS OLUIGBO

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he political campaign poster of Jimi Agbaje, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Lagos State, which has flooded many parts of the state since Saturday, December 1, has a bold inscription above his picture placed side by side with that of his running mate, Halimat Oluwayemisi Busari. It says: “Freedom, Democracy, Lagos”.

The import of these words is not lost on keen observers of Lagos politics. It is, indeed, generally believed that since he left office in 2007, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State (1999-2007) and now national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has dominated the politics of Lagos and has been the sole determinant of who gets what in the state, including elective and appointive positions. And there are allegations that Tinubu has a big (some say final) say in how Lagos’ enormous resources are allocated.

In simple terms, therefore, Agbaje’s message is that Lagos and Lagosians are under bondage, true democracy has eluded the state, and so he is coming to bring back these elements to the state.

This was his message on December 1 when he flagged off his campaign in Lagos. Optimistic of victory at the polls next year, Agbaje promised to restore the lost glory of

Lagos and deliver it from the hold of one man. He described the 2019 poll as a contest between people’s Lagos and one-man Lagos, saying he was on the side of people’s Lagos.

“These people have been in government in Lagos State for 20 years, what do we have to show for it? Lagosians between the ages of 18 and 50 do not see the future in the Lagos of today,” Agbaje said.

“Many residents of Lagos State want to relocate abroad, where there are good schools, constant electricity, and other amenities of life. The ruling party in the state has spent about N6 trillion or $35 billion in 20 years and they have nothing to show for it,” he said.

But in a quick counter, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the APC governorship candidate, said Lagosians were free citizens and not in bondage and that the state had achieved accelerated prosperity since 1999 under APC-led government.

“Some have started talking about freedom and insinuated that Lagos is in bondage. Unfortunately, we cannot begin to talk about freedom in the 21st century. This is insulting to humanity and the people of Lagos especially because slavery and bondage were abolished in Badagry several decades ago.

“When they talk about freedom, we ask them, freedom from what?

We have had our freedom and everyone in Lagos is free. We have since

moved away from the era of slavery, to era of prosperity with deep-seated aspiration for greater Lagos,” SanwoOlu said.

But Agbaje, like a man who knows what he is talking about, has taken the same message everywhere he has been since then.

While on a programme on Silverbird Television in Lagos, Tuesday, Agbaje alleged that no Lagos State governor in recent times has had executive authority because such authority has been relinquished to one man who gives the orders and his orders must be followed accordingly.

Agbaje also, in a statement, accused the APC government of emasculating the local governments in the state and promised to grant the local governments free rein to administer their budgets and allocations and manage their funds to enable them

Agbaje

build drainage, markets, and primary healthcare so the citizens could feel the impact of government at the grassroots.

“We also intend to fully liberate the local governments to mind their own business. Today we have a situation where, in order to continue unbridled corruption and mismanagement, the ruling clique deliberately emasculated the local governments to make them lack the wherewithal to tackle their primary functions constitutionally placed within their purview,” he said.

In a Facebook post in October, Agbaje had said the 2019 governorship race in Lagos State was a battle between forces that want Lagos to continually remain in slavery and those that want to ensure prosperity for all.

“This election is not just another popularity contest; rather, it is a clear choice between two ideologies: one that enslaves and puts the interest of one man over many or another that, at its core, seeks to meet the yearnings of the greater good of the people of Lagos,” he had said.

Many Lagosians agree that godfatherism is the bane greatest factor militating against development in Lagos. Only a few months ago, a certain message circulated on social media.

It was the image of Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his wife, Oluremi, with the inscription, “If you live in Lagos, these are your parents.”

Tinubu’s influence in Lagos has never been in question. It is everywhere. Babatunde Raji Fashola, who came to office on May 29, 2007, was clearly Tinubu’s choice. Fashola nearly lost his second-term bid because of a misunderstanding he allegedly had with Fashola.

And so, when in 2014 Akinwunmi Ambode, a former state accountantgeneral, was picked by the APC to succeed Fashola, there were concerns that Ambode would just be a puppet for Tinubu and not be his own man and, according to Opeyemi Agbaje, Lagos-based public affairs analyst, in a 2015 article ‘The contest for Lagos (2)’, Ambode needed to “project himself as a credible candidate and not one hiding behind Fashola, APC, Yemi Osinbajo and Tinubu”.

On the other hand, Jimi Agbaje, Ambode’s closest rival in 2015, had anchored his campaign on trust, integrity, visionary ideas and a Lagos that serves the interests of everyone rather than “vested interests”. He was clearly speaking of the Tinubu connection.

Agbaje lost the 2015 race to Ambode, but Ambode lost his secondterm bid to Sanwo-Olu, Tinubu’s choice for the 2019 Lagos governorship seat. Ambode’s loss in the APC primaries is a testament to Tinubu’s overwhelming influence. It is this influence that Agbaje is promising to liberate Lagos and Lagosians from.

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2019: Why Transparency International endorsed Ezekwesili …As Lagos APC attacks defecting Commissioner The Transparency International boss remembered Ezekwesili’s role in the innovation of TI’s Corruption Perception Index and her becoming the organisation’s global voice, putting the work of the group on the word stage.

Speaking during the visit, Ezekwesili, noted that one of the challenges confronting Nigeria remains transparent leadership, described corruption as Nigeria’s most visible problem, and assured Nigerians that her party would ensure transparency in governance.

Meanwhile, the Lagos State chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has mocked Wednesday’s resignation of the Commissioner of Energy and Mineral Resources in the state, Olawale Oluwo, stating that his resignation was not new to the party because he had engaged in several anti-party activities in recent time and the party was aware of his plans.

Iniobong Iwok

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he Transparency International (TI) has endorsed the presidential bid of former minister of education, Oby Eze-

kwesili.

Peter Eigen, visioner and founder of the group, stated this during his visit to Ezekwesili who is the presidential candidate of the Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN) on Wednesday in Lagos, hailing her pioneering work, while stressing that she possesses the right qualification to govern the country.

In a statement to the media by Ezekwesili’s presidential campaign organisation, Hope 2019, Eigen further stated that Ezekwesili had become a global voice against anticorruption over the years, fought and demanded for transparency during the military regime.

Ezekwesili

In a statement signed by Publicity Secretary of the party in the state, Joe Igbokwe, APC described the former Commissioner as a member of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who was planted to destabilise the APC. “It has been necessary to put this in true context so as to dismiss the false and capricious insinuation that his resignation was in principled objection to the party’s last primaries. Far from it, he was only playing true to type, seeking as he had done in 2007 to reap from the primaries.

“He has further shown that he has been a mole of the PDP and has been working to undermine the APC. His exit is a signal to other like-minds who may wish to follow his trail. The party machinery knows everyone and their inclination. We encourage all genuine APC members to remain firm and committed to greater ideals of taking Lagos to a higher level of excellence,” Igbokwe said.

What Atiku, Secondus, Saraki told Kwara people Wednesday SIKIRAT SHEHU, Ilorin

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iger ians have be en warned to guide against the plans by APC to buy permanent voters cards from people, describing it as a way of perpetrating electoral fraud.

The People’s Democratic Party (PDP), presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar who stated this in Ilorin on Wednesday at the party’s campaign, lamented that the nation has gone worse under the APC; hence the need to provide an alternative administration that can make things work in the nation again.

Atiku said: “They promised us security, job and to improve the economy but in each of these they failed. It is time for our people to return PDP to power, because Nigeria was good when PDP was in power.

“Today in terms of economy, Nigeria is the poorest in the world.

These are facts from international organisations. The security situation has become terribly bad. We promise to lead Nigeria and return it to the path of glory and buoyant economy.

He therefore, enjoined Nigerians to vote right by allowing PDP to take over power come 2019 so as to make their future and that of their children better.

In his own speech, the PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus while appreciating the large turnout of the people for the rally, noted that Nigerians have been suffering since APC took over

power in 2015.

He said: “Look at the genocide in Benue and Plateau states and no arrest was made. APC is a government of propaganda.

“INEC will only cause crisis in Nigeria if they attempted to rig the 2019 election. The election must be transparent. Nigeria will not allow election rigging again. Nigerians must be the soldiers and policemen on duty in Election Day to protect their votes. We have the best candidate who will win.

“One of the APC strategies is to cause crisis and postpone election, so that they can rig as they did in

Atiku

Osun. We will not accept any election rigged or postponement.”

The Director General of the Atiku/Obi Campaign Organisation and President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki who said the APC-led government has failed in all facets of governance.

Asking Nigerians to vote President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC out of power in next year’s general election, Saraki lamented that the APC had failed to deliver on all its 2015 campaign promises.

Saraki said: “APC promised Nigeria a lot of things. They promised us security. Then we had security

Secondus

problem only in the North East but now it has extended to North Central and even the North West.

APC has failed because security has worsened.

“People are dying of hunger because economy has gone terribly bad.

They have also failed in fighting corruption. The hunger is serious in the country today. Nigeria is today world’s poverty capital. We need a president that will fix the economy, create jobs and unite Nigerians.

“This APC government must go because events of the past

three years had shown that they don’t have solutions to all these problems. We must vote this government out and elect Atiku as our next president. My people of Kwara and North central, we must vote out Buhari. Atiku is solution to Nigeria’s problem.”

He added that, “Atiku is a man no one can bribe. Buhari has brought doom to Nigeria and the only man that will bring peace to Nigeria is Atiku. Atiku will bring food, security to Nigeria.

Similarly, the chairman of the organising committee for the rally who doubles as Kwara State PDP secretary, Rasaq Lawal thanked the people of the state for turning out in large number to honour their illustrious son, Bukola Saraki.

Describing the rally as a huge success, Lawal asked the people of the state to repeat the fit during the 2019 elections by voting massively for all the PDP’s candidates across board.

PDP flags were presented to the gubernatorial candidate of the party in Kwara, Razak Atunwa and his counterparts from the north Central zone that were present at the rally.

The need to replace the All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government as a means of ending the nation’s multifarious problems was the highlight of the north central zonal rally of the PDP presidential campaign in Ilorin, Kwara State.

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Illegal migration from Edo declines on state’s effort - EU

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uropean Union (EU) Ambassador to Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Ketil Karlsen, says efforts by the Edo State government to stem human trafficking have resulted in the state dropping from first to sixth position, among originating sources of illegal migrants to Europe.

Commending the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led government’s approach to addressing the menace, the ambassador said: “They are a model as well as a strategic place to work in, as Nigeria tackles the scourge.”

Karlsen said this after an inspection tour to different locations in Benin City, the state capital, where migrant returnees would be sheltered and trained.

The Obaseki-led government had sustained a mix of strategies, ranging from institutional, sensitisation campaign, reintegration of returnees and empowerment programmes, amongst others, in tackling the menace.

The ambassador said

it was encouraging to see many activities geared towards addressing irregular migration taking place in the state, adding, “This is my third visit to Edo State and it will not be the last because, for us, Edo is a strategic place to work in. I must say; this is a model for engagement, where we build on local and state government’s leadership.

“We will bring together all the partners of the international communities to support them; we are working with the World Bank and other development partners to make sure we support the vision that the Edo government is pursuing,” he said.

He noted that the EU was committed to seeing that the migrant returnees were well integrated into the country as well as ensuring that the root causes of the menace are tackled.

According to him, “Seeing what is being done through the leadership of the Edo State government and talking with the returnees and young people in the state, we have gotten insight into how we can support

them better now and even in the future.”

The EU ambassador was accompanied on the tour by programme manager, Managing Migration through Development Programme, (MMDP), May Ikeora, and senior special assistant to Governor Godwin Obaseki on Job Creation and Skills Development, Ukinebo Dare.

Managing director, LAPO Microfinance Bank, Godwin Ehigiamusoe, said the returnees need empowerment to be fully be integrated into the society.

He said LAPO had in the last 15 years engaged in returnees’ reintegration programme by collaborating with different development partners.

He said, “We believe that we should be a part of the returnees’ programme by empowering them with skills so that they can make better lives for themselves.”

The sites visited include the Edo State government’s proposed shelter site for migrant returnees, LAPO institute, where migrant returnees are being trained on business opportunities and the Edo Innovation Hub.

Homeland Integrated expresses commitment to community development as CEO gets new award FRANK UZUEGBUNAM

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n indigenous company, Homeland Integrated Offshore Services Limited, has expressed commitment towards the development of its host communities.

Louis Ekere, CEO of the company, disclosed this while receiving a Doctorate Degree presented to him by the Trinity International University of Ambassadors, Atlanta Georgia, USA, recently.

In a statement sent to Businessday, the company stated

that in his resolve to ensure Nigerians across every spectrum enjoy quality healthcare services, Ekere has opened the multi-billion naira WellMed Healthcare, an indigenous healthcare company in Lagos that offers one-stop diagnostic solution services with stateof-the-art medical equipment, including 1.5 Tesla MRI, 64-slice CT Scan, 4D Ultrasonography, fully digital X-ray, 3D Echocardiography, Resting and Exercise ECG and fully automated pathology laboratory with a menu of over 3,000 tests.

It stated: “Apart from this, Ekere is also involved in sever-

al philanthropic activities, the recent being the free medical testing on world Hepatitis Day, free medical outreach at Ajah, Lagos, and environs, where residents were screened for chronic lifestyle diseases including diabetes, hypertension and obesity.

“He has offered free high-end radiologic and pathology investigations including MRI and CT scan, hitherto unaffordable, to indigent patients of public hospitals including Massey Street Children’s Hospital, General Hospital, Lagos and Epe General Hospital.

Experts introduce innovations to tackle feeding challenge in Nigeria IFEOMA OKEKE

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xperts in the food value chain have introduced new innovations to help address food challenges in Nigeria.

This development is one that was discussed recently at the Food Innovation Cluster Workshop held in Lagos.

These innovations are coming at a time when Nigerians’ life expectancy has dropped as a result of low quality of food we take.

Speaking at the event, Jean Marc Ricca, country cluster head, West Africa, BASF, said,

“I think we need to bring together all those stakeholders, private sectors, regulators and the government. My experience shows that going micro on small pilot projects, teaming up with one community is the right way to go because I don’t see food security as a kind of one size fits all solution. It starts really by enabling the farmers”.

Ricca also said innovations in the industry such as food fortification had come a long way in enhancing the quality of food we end up with.

“Without vitamin A, you have no food fortification, so we enable this and after that, there is

a subsequent impact that you measure in terms of money, in terms of impact on society and the least impact on environment as possible.”

Speaking at the event, Emmanuel Ijewere, chairman, Best Foods, noted that the food value chain in the country was moving in the right direction, hence a need for a closer look at what to do to improve the food challenges Nigeria currently faced.

There is a lot of avoidable waste along the value chain of which solutions such as a proper rail system should come into play to help avoid such waste, Ijewere said.

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Nigeria plagued by absence Elemide becomes of good governance - NECA UAC’s Group CEO JOSHUA BASSEY

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he Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) says Nigeria is plagued by absence of good governance with the leaders having no clear idea of how to positively impact the citizens and lift them out of poverty.

Olusegun Oshinowo, director-general of NECA, in a session with select journalists, in Lagos, spoke against the background of the recent emergence of Nigeria as a country with the highest number of extremely poor people.

Oshinowo said unlike other countries where governance was targeted at the welfare of the people, Nigerian leaders had vague understanding of why they were in government.

According to Oshinowo, the best barometer to judge how good a government has done is to look at how the citizens have fared. He said: “Any government with no evidence of taking people out of poverty has no business being in government.”

Oshinowo, who is retiring from NECA this December, lamented the existence of a

yawning gap between the welfare of the people and government, part of which he said was caused by policy somersaults and poor implementation of programmes.

Recall that Nigeria in June this year, according to a report by Brookings Institution, emerged as country with the highest number of extremely poor people in the world. Before then, India held the position with a population of 1.324 billion people as against Nigeria’s 200 million. According to the report, the number of Nigerians in extreme poverty increases by six people every minute.

The report reads: “According to our projections, Nigeria has already overtaken India as the country with the largest number of extremely poor in early 2018, and the Democratic Republic of Congo could soon take over the number 2 spot.

“At the end of May 2018, our trajectories suggest that Nigeria had about 87 million people in extreme poverty, compared with India’s 73 million. What is more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall.

as Bello retires

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ith effect from January 1, 2019, Omolara Elemide, the current executive director, Corporate Services, will be the acting Group CEO of UAC Nigeria plc. Elemide will be replacing Abdul Bello who will be proceeding on retirement from January 1, 2019.

The board of the conglomerate has, through its chairman, Dan Agbor, commended Bello for his dedicated service, wishing him the very best in his future endeavours.

Elemide, who joined UACN Board in January 2018, is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN). She joined UAC in October 1983 and has worked in various capacities within the UAC Group including Group Audit Manager, Finance Director of UACN Property Development Company (UPDC).

It was from UPDC that Elemide joined the Board of CAP plc as Finance Director/ Company Secretary in February 2005. She was appointed the Managing Director of CAP in May 2009, a position she held until December 2017.

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Nigeria faces tough options as OPEC+ meet STEPHEN ONYEKWELU and Dipo Oladehinde

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igeria faces tough options as it attends OPEC+ meeting Thursday and Friday where oil production cuts count among the strongest cards to help the oil cartel stabilise global crude market.

Agreeing to join in the production cut will further impact already falling government revenues, prompt the Central Bank of Nigeria to use foreign reserves to defend the naira, which is officially pegged at $306, and may exacerbate concerns and fears over the implementation of the 2019 budget, which pegged oil at $60 per barrel.

Nigeria was exempted from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) deal signed in November 2016, thanks to

domestic risk factors. “With the security situation in Nigeria still fragile, growth slowly picking up momentum and diversification plans in the process, this may not be the best of times for the nation to limit production,” Lukman Otunuga, analyst at FXTM forex trading company, said in a note to clients.

The current environment presents a strong argument for OPEC+ to take action in a bid to stop oil prices sinking into 2019. While a cut is on the cards, “the question on the minds of many investors will be how much will be cut and how it will be split among OPEC+ members. Markets are projecting OPEC to cut production by roughly over one million barrels per day from November’s level,” Otunuga noted, saying, “A cut that is in line with market expectations will be supportive of oil prices.”

Oil prices were down on Wednesday, as OPEC had failed to give the market a clear signal that it will cut production, and that Russia would be on board with a production cut as well; one be implemented.

“This is a business cycle Nigeria will have to manage carefully. The first hit will be the exchange rate because of our reliance on the import of refined petroleum products. So, the naira will take a beating because we do not have enough foreign reserve to defend it. This is one of the low hanging fruits the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill would have addressed,” Wumi Iledare, professor of petroleum economics, said.

Brent crude was trading down -3.80 percent at 4:14pm GMT Thursday, at $59.51 and WTI was down by -3.52 percent at $51.03.

Nigeria’s gross foreign reserves have been falling

from $47.25 billion in July to $45.90 in August; down to $44.45 billion in September and $42.13 billion in October and $41.52 billion in November but inched up in December to $42.49.

The current dip is the longest falling streak since futures trading began in 1983. But OPEC has remained optimistic about its forecast for the oil market. In its World Oil Outlook (WOO) 2018 released November 14, OPEC said that the world’s primary energy demand will surge by 33 percent from 2015 levels to 365 million barrels of oil a day (boed) in 2040 with developing economies accounting for nearly 95 percent of this growth.

It also said that India and China were forecast to be the most important contributors to energy demand. But the US-Sino trade war had inadvertently disappointed expectations of global oil demand.

L-R: Pierre-Louis de Guillebon, chief executive officer, Orange International Carriers; Funke Opeke, chief executive officer, MainOne and Jean-Luc Vuillemin, senior vice president, International Networks, Infrastructures and Services, Orange, during the Orange SAWAS Africa-Middle East event this week. Orange and MainOne recently signed an agreement allowing for a major investment by Orange in MainOne’s submarine cable system with joint investments in new landing stations in Senegal and Cote D’Ivoire.

Keystone Bank restates commitment to supporting entrepreneurs, sponsors ‘Chief Daddy’ Movie

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eystone Bank Limited partners EbonyLife Films to premiere the movie, ‘Chief Daddy.’

The event, which held at Oriental Hotel, Lagos, on December 2, was graced by a long guest list of dignitaries, celebrities, and members of the diplomatic corps, business heavyweights, socialites, politicians and lovers of arts.

Speaking at the event, Obeahon Ohiwerei, group managing director/CEO of Keystone Bank Limited, said, “The bank will explore every good platform to deepen its strength in the retail and youth segment. He reiterated that the bank’s sponsorship of the movie aligns with its corporate objectives of supporting SMEs and empowering enterprising entrepreneurs.

“By partnering this movie,

Keystone Bank is actively promoting the culture of personal fiscal responsibility by encouraging everyone, young and old to take advantage of the bank’s expertise to learn about and set up financial instruments that will give them and their loved ones an assurance while they are here and long after.” Ohiwerei further disclosed that the bank, which recently signed up popular Nollywood actor, Funke Akindele Bello, popularly known as ‘Jenifa’ as its official brand ambassador, prides itself in its ability to hand-hold different sectors of the economy in order to nurture them and help them to grow.

While commending the producer of the movie, he said, “I salute Ebony Life TV for their innovation and Mo’ Abudu their CEO for her entrepreneurial drive. These

values resonate with our culture at Keystone Bank. It is remarkable projects like these that have served to place the Nigerian Movie industry on the global market.”

Commenting on the movie that will be in cinemas from December 14th, EbonyLife Films CEO, Mo’ Abudu explained that the movie, ‘Chief Daddy’ centred on the life of an extravagant and largerthan-life billionaire industrialist, Chief Beecroft, known to be a pillar of the society. All seems well in the Beecroft household until Chief Daddy passes away and suddenly the ‘wheels begin to turn’ and things go awry.

The film stars Nollywood veterans and new faces including, Nkem Owoh, Bisola Aiyeola, Ini Edo, Joke Silva, Dakore Akande, Richard Mofe-Damijo, Folarin Falana and Patience Ozokwo.

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SON abolishes use of product registration document for cargo clearance at ports … seizes fake, substandard products worth over N22.7bn in 2018 AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE

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s part of its effort to reduce the rate of imported fake and substandard products into Nigerian market, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) said in Lagos on Thursday that the use of product registration document would no longer be a requirement for cargo clearance at ports.

By implication, an imported product not only needs to be duly registered by the importer with SON, but it must also be certified by the Organisation to have come in with the requisite quality assurance document, especially SONCAP certificate.

Osita Aboloma, director-general of the SON, who disclosed this at the sensitisation workshop for maritime sector stakeholder held in Lagos on Thursday, said the SON Product Registration scheme was no longer a requirement for import clearance but rather requirement for the imported products to be in Nigerian markets.

Aboloma, who advised the importers, freight forwarders, clearing agents and other members of the public to desist from bringing in substandard goods, also said the Organisation had impounded products valued at over N22.7 billion in the past one year.

These substandard goods, he said, endanger both the nation’s economy and the lives of Nigerians, who ignorantly make use of them. He listed the products, some have been destroyed while others are awaiting destruction, to include tyres; electric cables;

LPG cylinders; lubricants; communication cables; unfortified sugar, among others.

“We need to disabuse the minds of those who think that SON is out to shut down their businesses by insisting on the enforcement of quality and standards requirements. We are only protecting compliant businesses and Nigerians at large from the hazards associated with substandard products. This is our key mandate and primary responsibility,” Aboloma said.

He said the essence of the workshop themed, ‘Collaboration as a Tool for Zero Substandard Imports,’ was to interact with maritime players, discuss import/export businesses, with the objective of getting people deeply committed to doing the right things, especially concerning import processes and procedures.

Also speaking, Obiora Manafa, director, Inspectorate and Compliance Directorate (ICD) of SON, who said the Organisation had many seized items awaiting court order before they would be destroyed, noted that people spend billions of naira on importation of substandard goods.

“Destroying these goods creates huge losses to the nation’s economy while the destruction through burning items not only pollute the environment but also cost SON huge sum to destroy,” he said.

He however urged importers and their agents to do the right thing by adhering to the rule guiding quality assurance for product importation.

Security architecture: Edo mobilises stakeholders, others to back plan

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s the Edo State governor, Godwin Obaseki, fine tunes plans for the launch of the state’s Security Architecture later in the month, private companies in the state are upbeat about the prospect of having a robust security support structure that will further boost the ease of doing business in the state.

Special adviser to the governor on media and communication strategy, Crusoe Osagie, told journalists in Benin City, the state capital, that feedbacks from the engagements between the governor and private companies in the state, on the security architecture, had been encouraging.

Edo State is host to several companies, namely: Dangote Cement, BUA Cement,

Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), Pan Ocean Oil Corporation, Seplat Petroleum Development Company, Okomu Oil plc, Presco plc, Rubber Estates Nigeria Limited, hotels, steel and ceramic companies, among others.

“We are delighted to receive heart-warming response from our development partners who are corporate citizens of the state.

As you are aware, security is everybody’s business. Governor Obaseki has set aside N2 billion in the proposed 2019 budget for this initiative and the companies in Benin are queuing behind the governor to ensure that the state is rid of all forms of crimes,” Osagie said.

“The engagement is ongoing and we are reaching out to everyone so that we

can bring everyone on board, in the fight against crimes in the state. Our dear state is the most peaceful in the Niger Delta region, but we want to raise the bar, considering our huge investment in the development of an industrial park, a modular refinery and a seaport and the attendant human traffic that these investments will pull to the state,” he said.

According to the governor’s aide, “Already procured for unveiling by the state government are three Armoured Personnel Carriers (APCs); 90 patrol vehicles; 50 patrol cars and 40 pick-up patrol vans; 30 motorcycles and three ambulances.

“They are all fitted with digital communication equipment for real time information sharing among the various security agencies.”

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news you can trust I FRIDAY 07 DECEMBER 2018

Opinion The dismal science and the prosperity of nations

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conomics has been described as “the dismal science”. I do not quite know who came up with that description. One of the prime suspects might be the conservative Anglo-Irish political philosopher Edmund Burke.

He once lamented that the rampant use of statistics in the modern age signals “the end of chivalry”. Economic science has made humungous intellectual strides in the twentieth century. It began as a branch of moral philosophy in the eighteenth century with Adam Smith’s influential The Wealth of Nations. The era of classical political economy continued up to the twenties, with such influential thinkers as Karl Marx, Thorsten Veblen and Alfred Marshall.

One of the greatest paradigmatic revolutions came with John Maynard Keynes’s 1930s work, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. Keynes single-handedly laid the intellectual foundations of modern economics as a practical science. Keynesianism became associated with counter-cyclical interventionism by governments to stem the tide of business cycles, recessions and economic depression.

The so-called neoclassical counter-revolution began

with Milton Friedman and the Chicago School in the seventies. The new neoclassical economics is anchored on the market as the foundation of social and economic progress – of liberty itself. Monetarism and neo-liberalism have been its offshoots. That paradigm has dominated the field and has shaped the contours of national economic policies and international economic relations. After the financial meltdown associated with the Wall Street subprime crisis of 2007-2008 and the ensuing Great Moderation, the primacy of neoclassical economics came increasingly into question. Things have never ever been quite the same.

On Wednesday 5 September 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Britain was at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) to commission its New Academic Building. She surprised her audience by asking the question: “If these things related to the global financial crisis were so large, how everyone missed them?” Nobody had a ready response for Her Majesty’s query. She herself was reported to have lost more than UK£$25 million from her estimated fortune of UK£320 million during the financial crisis. It took almost a whole year for a team of leading LSE

economists to come up with a reply to the monarch. In a memo dated 22 July 2009, they tried to offer an explanation for their collective failure: “…Your Majesty, the failure to foresee the timing, extent and severity of the crisis and to head it off, while it had many causes, was principally a failure of the collective imagination of many bright people, both in this

‘

The collective wisdom of the last couple of decades makes it clear that while central bank independence is good for price stability as well financial soundness, growth and employment; every country needs to shape its monetary regime to ensure accountability and responsible behavior on the part of its central bankers

,

HumanAngle Femi olugbile

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Physician, psycho-profiler and essayist

ome news has recently come out of the Democratic Republic of Congo. For a change it is not about disease, although ebola is still wreaking havoc among the people. It is not about terrible leaders, of which the country has had more than its fair share – from Mobutu Sese Seko to Kabila Senior to Kabila fils – who even now sits in his palace in Kinshasa, surrounded by armed guards as he plays computer games on his Sony PlayStation. Of course, it is not about King Leopold II of Belgium, the overlord of ‘Congo Free State’ and later ‘Belgian Congo’ whose ‘Force Publique’ worked the Congolese to the bone producing rubber for him, killing off millions of the hapless Africans through overwork and disease at the end of the nineteenth century, going into the twentieth.

Perhaps no other African country has had such a colourful and sordid past as the Congo has had, and experienced the leadership of such a succession of unscrupulous scoundrels who ranged from bible thumping colonialists who believed ardently in the civilizing mission of the white man and his God-given right to other people’s land and minerals, to local warlords in the service of various ‘businessmen’ and foreign companies, latterly mostly

country and internationally, to understand the risks to the system as a whole.”

Before the financial crisis, economists suffered from an unbelievable level of intellectual hubris. Ever since, they have had to eat humble pie.

Dani Rodrik of the Kennedy School of Government and other leading economists has been preaching a new gospel anchored on revisiting the very foundations of academic economics. It is a welcome revival that provides a fresh approach to doing economics in a manner that takes account of context and relevance for human livelihoods and the lifechances of billions of people on our planet. It has been said that when a doctor makes a mistake, one patient could die; but when an economist makes a mistake, millions could perish.

One of the people that I have considered a great mentor of mine has been the distinguished Indian economist Asuri Vasudevan. A retired Executive Director of the Reserve Bank of India and former senior official of the IMF, he sent me a book that he recently co-authored with a colleague of his, Partha Ray. Vasudevan served for several years as a Senior Adviser to the Governor of the CBN. Both he and his wife the distinguished political scientist Prema Vas-

udevan know our country very well. They are both passionate about Nigeria and Africa.

Vasudevan and Ray have written a splendid book, Macroeconomic Policies for Emerging and Developing Economies (Sage 2018). It is an intense work of 220 pages, with seven chapters covering topics such as development strategy, fiscal and monetary policy, exchange rate and financial stability. What the authors have done is to ask a set of fresh questions about macroeconomics and the policies needed to engender growth and structural transformation in emerging and developing economies. They take their bearings from the evolution of economic theory and the historical experience of various nations; from the defunct Soviet Union and its state planning to China’s post-Mao modernization and the development planning experience of India. It is a work of great erudition that is also moderated by intellectual humility.

Several important insights can be gleaned from this work.

First, they make the important point that development strategy has to be the bedrock of macroeconomic policy. They review several of such strategies, from the

down the path of a bizarre ‘authenticity’ program in which he changed his name and the name of the nation even as he stole the country blind, buying mansions in Belgium and stashing millions in Swiss banks. The rest, as they say, is history.

After his overthrow in 1997 following the First Congo war – a war that played into the ethnic

and children.

After Kabila’s assassination in 2001, he was succeeded by his son Joseph. Joseph, charming, elegant, ever smartly dressed in the best designer suits, has sat over the country to the present day. He has ‘won’ rigged elections, but now even the rigged ‘constitution’ says it is time for him to go. Elections, long delayed, are in imminent prospect in the ‘republic’. Colourful charismatic ‘opposition leaders’ – themselves millionaires and scoundrels no better than the younger Kabila, are jostling to take over power and continue where the Kabilas left off. It is a fine mess.

The common thread in all of the sick drama is the relentless murder and rape of Congolese citizens, at the hands of various militias, and at the hands also of the so-called ‘Congolese National Army’.

Which brings us to the item in the news – to wit that a Congolese citizen, a doctor, has won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2018.

It is so much of an unaccustomed honour for the citizens of the ‘Democratic Republic’ that it has left the hapless Congolese blinking in the glare of positive world attention, despite the fact that the news carries a sweet and sour taste.

Dr Denis Mukwenge is a Gynaecologist who runs Panzi Hospital in Bukavu Province of the Congo. He works eighteenhour days treating women who have been raped and sexually brutalized. He has treated thousands of women, in the process becoming the world’s leading expert on the surgical treatment of women who have been brutally, repeatedly raped. Sometimes he does more than ten surgeries

The Nobel peace laureate, an endless war, and the women of the Congo Chinese, out to mine precious minerals, who casually slaughtered their fellow citizens and raped women as trophies of a war without end.

For a brief spell, long ago, the Congo appeared to be an African nation destined for greatness, on account of its great natural wealth, which had attracted the Belgians and other Europeans to the land in the first place, despite the ravages of local diseases that were endemic in the jungle, which all too often threatened to decimate the ranks of European adventurers. After the savage horrors of Belgian colonialism, a local man named Patrice Lumumba, mouthing socialist rhetoric, appeared truly to believe in the possibilities of the republic. He became Prime Minister.

But true to the African story, crisis immediately arose among the politicians, with personal ambitions stoking the embers of ethnic tensions.

The province of Katanga under Moise Tshombe and South Kasai attempted to secede.

Recently de-classified documents in the USA con-

firm what had been previously widely speculated – that the inner circles of American power, in collusion with the Belgians, decided that this ‘leftist’ stirring up socialist sentiments in the jungles of the Congo and seeking alliance with the Soviet Union in an emerging country that was potentially the richest in Africa was an existential threat to ‘Western’ interests.

‘Regime change’ – a bye-word for political assassination, was ordered. The pliable ‘President’ peremptorily deposed his activist Prime Minister. Patrice Lumumba was executed by local soldiers on the 17th of January 1961. He had been in office for barely three months before his deposition, and barely a half year before his execution.

As the ‘Western’ plot unfolded, the Army Chief of Staff, a greedy barely literate military officer by the name of ‘Joseph Mobutu’ who suited the ‘anticommunist strong man’ book of the ‘West’ formally assumed power in a coup d’état in 1965.

He would wreak untold systematic havoc on an already ravaged people in the ensuing two decades, leading them

fault lines of a polyglot state, Laurent Kabila, a Tutsi militia leader, became President.

There would still be no peace for the Congolese. Within a year, the Second Congolese war would be unleashed, which would involve not only ethnic Congolese but eight

African countries with ethnic affiliations and geo-political interests in the area. The killing of Congolese citizens, as usual, took place on an industrial scale. Five and a half million Congolese would lose their lives in the war. Most of them would be non-combatants, and a lot of them would be women

THE NEW WEALTH OF NATIONS

Obadiah Mailafia Dr. Mailafia is a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a development economist and public finance expert with a DPhil from Oxford obmailafia@gmail.com; 08036590990 (text messages only)

policy of Soviet socialism in the defunct Soviet Union to agrarian collectivization in China, import-substitution industrialization in India and export-led industrialization in South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore. Articulating a development strategy is by no means easy. It is not just a technical process.

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in one day.

Nothing illustrates the plight of the people of Africa’s richest country, currently 176 among 187 nations in the Human Development Index, than the nature of the distinction achieved by this great African man, which is an enforced response to the living horror that is the everyday life of his countrymen and women.

Africans should celebrate the Nobel peace prize of Dr Mukwenge. After all he could have joined the ‘brain drain’ that has afflicted doctors and other highly skilled citizens of several African nations, including Nigeria. He could have gone for a more prosperous, safer, less strenuous career in France or Belgium. His staying, apart from everything else, exposes him to the daily danger of being shot dead by the militias, or by the so-called ‘national’ army.

Sometimes he must despair at what impact his efforts are achieving. For every rape victim he patches up and rehabilitates successfully, there are hundreds of others who cannot reach help. And he is just one citizen, trying vainly to clear the mess of a failing society. He cannot end the wars, he cannot make the young men stop joining the militias, and he cannot make the country’s government, or its army behave better than they have always done.

Perhaps the real impact of Dr Mukwenge’s Nobel Prize will be that it will serve as a call to action for patriotic citizens, especially the elite, of any and every one of Africa’s several failing states, including Nigeria, a sense of shame and horror, mingled with a renewed determination, and crystallizing in a new slogan – ‘We can do better than this, surely!’

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