9
˾ WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2017
STARTERS
Dangote Emerges Only African on Two-Minute Briefing Bloomberg’s List of 50 Most Influential People NEWS President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote has emerged the only African to make the Bloomberg list of 50 most influential people in the world this year. Bloomberg on Monday announced The Bloomberg 50, a new annual, multi-platform initiative that honours 50 icons and innovators who have changed the global business landscape in measurable ways over the past year. The first Bloomberg 50 honorees were selected by the Bloomberg Businessweek team after months of input from many of Bloomberg’s 2,700 journalists and analysts around the globe, leveraging the resources of the Bloomberg Terminal, and representing the most influential thought leaders in business, finance, technology and science, politics, and entertainment. The executives, entrepreneurs, experts, and entertainers on the Bloomberg 50 all have a quantifiable metric underpinning their inclusion. “What sets The Bloomberg 50 apart from other lists is that each person chosen has demonstrated measurable change over the past year,” said Megan Murphy, editor of Bloomberg Businessweek. “Readers will find many names they recognise, but will also discover new visionaries—people who are impacting the world in significant ways, and are rapidly gaining the attention they deserve.” Other prominent honorees on the Bloomberg 50 include – Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, a primary proponent of an initiative that would allow women to drive, a decision that is forecast to add $90 billion to the economy by 2030; Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies with a market capitalisation of over $50 billion. Elon Musk nurses the ambition
Dangote to establish a human colony on planet Mars by 2022; Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon, the biggest global retailer, with a major interest in sending tourists into space in Blue Origin rockets; Masayoshi Son, Founder, Softbank Groups Corp., who engineered $93 billion, the largest ever technology investment fund, to fund ride-hailing, artificial intelligence, connected devices, satellites, and the integration of computers to humans; Diane Greene, CEO, Google Cloud and the brain behind integrating advances in artificial intelligence and quantum computing to market; and Ken Frazier, CEO, Merck & Co., a leader in drug makers market with an innovative drug for advanced lung cancer treatment. Dangote who only last week inaugurated his $300 million 1.5 mtpa capacity cement plant in Congo Brazzaville, has remained top-notch in various global rankings.
Dangote said: “I am very delighted with this selection and I see the recognition as a call to do more towards youth empowerment, job creation, better health for the people and economic emancipation of the African continent.” As of February 2017, Dangote, according to Forbes magazine, had an estimated net worth of US$12.5 billion. He is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 67th richest person in the world and the richest in Africa and peaked on the list as the 23rd richest person in the world in 2014. Bloomberg is a global information and technology company that connects decision makers to a dynamic network of data, people and ideas – accurately delivering business and financial information, news and insights to customers around the world. Bloomberg, in the preface written by Paul Wallace, synopsized Dangote’s person and business in the following words: “The quiet billionaire for his relatively frugal lifestyle, Dangote fast-tracked plans to help his country of 180 million people import less of what it eats. “Dangote, who made his fortune in the cement industry, is turning his attention to dairy and sugar farming; he’s earmarked $800 million to buy 50,000 cattle in the hope of producing 500 million litres of milk annually by 2019. “He’s also racing to finish a 650,000-barrela-day oil refinery in Lagos, set to be one of the world’s biggest, and says he intends to spend as much as $50 billion in the next decade on renewable energy and petrochemical refineries, including investments in the U.S. and Europe. “Which is all fine, but not quite his grand ambition: buying Arsenal, his favourite soccer team.”
BUHARI, SARAKI, DOGARA MEET TO FAST-TRACK PASSAGE OF 2018 BUDGET the meeting with Buhari was meant to be discussed. A credible source told THISDAY that the rush to pass the budget bill informed the decision of the lawmakers to overlook certain mistakes made by the executive. “The National Assembly just wants to do the executive’s bidding, so that Nigerians would not blame us for the delay. “This is why we went against procedure to even allow the submission of the budget estimates before the MTEF (Medium Term Expenditure Framework) was passed. “As we all know, the approved assumptions of the MTEF are used to prepare the budget estimates, so the current arrangement is procedurally wrong. “We just passed the MTEF today, but the budget estimates are already with us. But would Nigerians understand that? Many just want to hear that the budget has been passed,” the source said. He explained that the National Assembly was eager to avoid a situation that would give room to the executive to heap the blame on it, even though we cannot say this budget bill was submitted early enough. In furtherance of the legislature’s objective to get the budget passed before the end of the year, the National Assembly yesterday suspended plenary for two weeks so that the heads of ministries, departments and agencies could defend their budgets during the period. It also approved the 2018-2020 Medium Term Expenditure Framework/Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) and adopted the recommendation that $47 per barrel be set as the benchmark price for oil for the 2018 fiscal year as opposed to $45 per barrel which was proposed by the executive. However, other assumptions proposed by the executive were approved, including an oil production estimate of 2.3 million barrels per day (mbpd), including condensates, an exchange rate of N305/US$ for 2018, real GDP growth of 3.5 percent and the inflation rate of 12.4 percent. Other approvals for the 2018 fiscal year included: Gross Federally Collectible Revenue of N11.983 trillion; Net Federally Collectable Revenue of N7.545 trillion; Net Oil and Gas Revenue of N6.387 trillion; Net Non-Oil Revenue of N5.279 trillion; FGN Retained Revenue of N5.646 trillion; Proposed Expenditure of N8.612
trillion; Fiscal Deficit of N2.005 trillion (1.77%) of GDP; and New Borrowings of N1.699 trillion. Other assumptions that were approved are: Statutory Transfers of N456.46 billion; Debt Service of N2.014 trillion; Sinking Fund of N220 billion; Aggregate Expenditure of N8.612 trillion; Total Recurrent (non debt) of N3.494 trillion; Personnel Cost (MDAs) of N2.122 trillion; Capital Expenditure (inclusive of transfers) of N2.652 trillion; Special Intervention (Recurrent) of N350 billion; and Special Intervention (Capital) of N150 billion. In the Senate, the approval followed the adoption of the recommendations of the Senate Committees on Finance, Appropriation, and National Planning and Economic Affairs while in the House, the approval was a sequel to the adoption of its Committees on Finance, Appropriation, and National Planning and Economic Affairs. The lawmakers further resolved to insert a clause in the 2018 Appropriation Act, making it mandatory to revert to the National Assembly for any expenditure arising from funds in excess of the budget benchmark. In both chambers, the 2018 budget bill also passed the second reading, paving the way for the committees to invite the MDAs to defend their respective budget heads. Plenary would resume December 19, 2017, Saraki and Dogara announced, adding that the report of the Committee on Finance and Appropriation on the 2018 budget was expected to be laid on the same day. “There will be a public hearing on the budget. We are looking at Monday, the 11th of December, however, in the next few days, an announcement will be made – we expect attendance by all senators," the Senate President said. Saraki sounded a note of warning to heads of the MDAs to adhere to and respect invitations and timetables of the committees. “We know that the timetable is very tight and we will be suspending plenary today for us to start the defence of the budget. Committee chairmen and members should please ensure that they keep to the timetable. “This is not a time for excuses by ministers or heads of parastatals to be travelling and not being able to attend defence (sessions). We don’t have the time. It is a very short time that we have and we expect all the MDAs to respect their invitations and be here on time
so that the committees can wrap up and be able to present their reports by the time we come back on Tuesday, the 19th,” Saraki said. In a separate development, the Senate set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the local content elements and cost variations relating to the $16.352 billion Egina oil field project operated by French oil multinational Total and two related deep offshore oil field projects – Bonga Southwest and Zabazaba projects. The committee will be headed by Senator Adeola Olamilekan (Lagos APC). The resolution to investigate the Egina project, which at inception in 2008 was estimated at $6 billion, followed a motion sponsored by Adeola and 18 others, who noted that several contractors involved in the project, had engaged sub-contractors to provide various aspects of the project components. Adeola said the cost components of the project had been reviewed twice while there have been petitions and queries raised about its local content component. He also expressed concern that the government and international oil companies were about to embark on the Bonga Southwest and Zabazaba projects with serious local content implications and sharply differing cost variations. Egina project is located within the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 130 and covers an area of 500 square miles. It is being developed by Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Ltd (24 per cent) in partnership with CNOOC Energy Nigeria Ltd (45 per cent), Petrobras (16 per cent) and Sapetro (15 per cent) and will contribute an estimated 200,000 bpd to Nigeria’s daily output from the planned 2018 commencement date.
Ojukwu Nominated NHRC Boss Meanwhile, President Buhari has written to the Senate seeking the confirmation of Mr. Anthony Okechukwu Ojukwu as the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission. His letter to the Senate dated October 27, 2017 was received by the Office of the Senate President on November 17, 2017. In the letter read by Saraki at plenary, the president also sought expeditious consideration of his request.
Petrol Queues Return, Baru Rushes Back from London Long queues of vehicles waiting to buy petrol from service stations yesterday resurfaced in some parts of the country, forcing Baru to cut short his official trip to London. Page 10
EDITORIAL Before NatioNal theatre is
sold The NationalTheatre is one of the national assets the federal government is planning to sell so as to generate sufficient funds to drive the 2018-2020 Medium Term Expenditure Framework, according to the Director… Page 15
POLITICS Ashiru’s Emergence Unsettless
Kingmakers in Ogun The decision by the people of Ogun n East Senatorial District to pick the e state Commissioner for Commerce ce and Industry, Chief Bimbo Ashiru, astheironly nominee for the Ogun State… Page 18
FEATURES Long Road to Festivities
Nigerians would find it quite difficult to celebrate with their loved ones and families across the country thisYuletide season for the simple reason that the country’s major roads are broken. Chineme Okafor writes Page 20
BUSINESS Q3: Foreign Portfolio
Investments Jump 259% on Renewed Demand for Equitiess Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI)) ird jumped by 259.2 per cent in the third quarter(Q3) ended September 30, 2017 to $2.77 billion, which is a consolidation on the increase recorded in second quarter of 2017 7 (Q2-17). Page 23
CITYSTRINGS Harvest of Criminals in
Anambra Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Garba Umar, has made good his promise to flush out criminal elements from all the nooks and crannies of the state, writes David-Chyddy Eleke Page 36
INTERNATIONAL Trump Still Weighing Whether to Recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s Capital- Kushner U.S. President DonaldTrump has not yet made a decision on whether to formally recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, his adviser and sonin-law Jared Kushner… Page 44
SPORTS Dalung: Nigeria to Spend N3bn on 2018 World Cup The FIFAWorld Cup scheduled to hold next year in Russia will cost Nigeria N3 billion, the Sports Minister, Solomon Dalung, disclosed in Abuja yesterday. Page 54