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Heineken NV, the
world’s third-largest brewer, said it had bid a total of $163 million
for two breweries in Ethiopia, as it expands in the fast-growing
African market.

Heineken has
clinched deals in Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa in recent months,
eyeing rising incomes in Africa’s emerging markets.

“With its large,
growing population, political stability, improving economy and rapidly
growing beer market, Ethiopia is a promising, long-term growth market
for Heineken in Africa,” Heineken said in a statement emailed to
ANP-Reuters.

The Egyptian pound
weakened to a fresh six-year low to the dollar on Wednesday, as the
country’s poor economic outlook and political uncertainty prompted
investors to sell the currency.

It later regained some ground after investors bought pounds to invest in a stock market rally, bankers said.

The pound traded at
5.9640 to the dollar after hitting 5.9765 earlier in the day, a the
lowest since January 2005. It was down 0.29 per cent from Tuesday’s
close.

“The pound has weakened mainly because foreigners are exiting a
market hit by political instability,” said a Cairo-based trader. “Egypt
is getting downgraded, and for foreign investors, this is negative.”

British-based oil
explorer, Tullow Oil, has agreed to sell stakes in its Ugandan
operations to France’s Total and China’s CNOOC for $2.9 billion,
bringing in big partners to develop the oil fields.

Tullow said on
Wednesday it agreed to sell each company a one third interest in fields
around Lake Albert, which Tullow estimates to contain 1 billion barrels
of oil, and potentially as much as 3.5 billion barrels. Tullow will
retain a third share.

The deal leaves
unresolved a massive tax dispute with the government. Uganda’s energy
minister, Hilary Onek, said the country would receive a total of $472
million in taxes from the farm down deal.

Operators in the
oil and gas sector have listed steps that must be taken for the ‘gas
revolution’ project launched by the federal government to make any
meaningful impact. They said the atmosphere for the smooth sail of the
project cannot be laid in the little time the government has left.

President Goodluck
Jonathan had last week launched the project which he said will result
in foreign direct investment of about N410 billion over the next three
years.

According to him,
the full implementation of the entire gas master-plan agenda will
result in about $25 billion worth of investments in gas processing,
transmission, and downstream gas utilisation projects.

Following the
launch, some local companies like Oando have been selected to build
central gas-processing facilities at an estimated cost of beteween $2 –
$3 billion.

However, Dragan
Trajkov, oil and gas sector specialist at Renaissance Capital, an
investment bank, said “While we think it is almost impossible for
anyone to build a $3 billion project by the end of 2012, we understand
that the numbers might be presented optimistically in the light of the
ongoing presidential campaign,” he said in a report published this week.

A few observers
dismissed the launch of the project at the middle of electioneering
campaigns as just another political stunt by the government.

Not so bleak

Despite the
illusions of the revolution, some industry watchers say the
‘revolution’, if well executed, would help stop gas flaring and develop
the nation’s domestic gas market.

“The gas revolution
launched by President Goodluck Jonathan holds the promise of inducing
further development and growth of Nigeria’s domestic gas market,” Fola
Onasanya, oil and gas expert at Ciuci, a consultancy firm, said.

“With the $3
billion Central Gas Processing Facility (CPF) by Nigerian Agip Oil
Company (NAOC) and Oando Nigeria Plc, a huge sink will be created for
storing and utilising natural gas resources which otherwise could have
been flared, thus providing a boost to the economy both in terms of
value generation and job creation,” Mr. Onasanya said.

According to him,
so also will the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Saudi Arabia’s
Xenel Industries Limited to construct a proposed 1.3 million tonnes/p.a
Petrochemical Plant in Warri, Delta State, along with five fertiliser
blending factories by Nagarjuna and Chevron.

“However, for these
moves to deliver their optimal gains and attract foreign investments,
key areas articulated in the Gas Master Plan need to be addressed by
strategic decisions and actions of the government,” Mr. Onasanya
further said.

Mr. Onasanya said
these include the issues relating to the gas pricing policy – which
provides a framework for the minimum price that any purchaser of gas
can be charged.

“This needs to be
tackled in the fair interest of all stakeholders (including the IOCs),
the Domestic Reserves Obligation – which aims to ensure the
availability of gas for domestic consumption in order to stimulate
economic growth – needs to be actualised and the Gas Infrastructure
Blueprint – which provides for the establishment of a network of gas
hubs which would ultimately reduce the cost of supplying gas – should
be implemented in full gear,” he said.

“Overall, the ‘Gas revolution’ is not over-ambitious, provided the government follows through with strategic actions,” he added.

However, a top
official of one of the major oil companies operating in the country,
who would not want to be quoted because he was not authorised to speak,
described the project as rather “ambitious”, adding, “It is a huge
project that would require huge foreign investment because it is
obvious that the government would not be able to do this alone.”

According to him,
there would be need for billions of dollars to cater for professionals
and the investment would be required for the plants that would be
required to carry out the processing and transmission of the gas. This,
he observed, cannot be done in a short term.

Nigeria’s oil
assets have been exploited for more than 50 years. However, while oil
companies have profited from the resource, local communities in the oil
rich but conflict struck areas live with the daily pollution caused by
non-stop gas flaring.

The country has
lost billions of naira on gas flaring, a process of burning off into
the atmosphere, surplus combustible vapours from an oil well, either as
a means of disposal or as a security measure to relieve well pressure.

Inability to solve
the lingering problem has been increasingly recognised as a huge
environmental problem in the Niger Delta region of the nation.

The Federal Inland
Revenue Service (FIRS) yesterday said that the project to computerise
the nation’s tax system is billed to take off with the full
implementation of the Unique Taxpayer Identification Number (UTIN)
system in April.

The computerisation
system, which the service has been championing in conjunction with the
Joint Tax Board (JTB) in the last four years, is expected to become
available for taxpayers’ registration at pilot locations in November,
while nationwide operations are billed for April 2012.

Indications are
that the pilot phase of the system would become operational in eight
locations in the six geopolitical zones of the country, including
Lagos, Rivers, Delta, Adamawa, as well as the Federal Capital Territory
(FCT), Abuja.

Indications towards
the planned take off of the new tax system is coming just as the JTB
has renewed the call on the National Assembly to accelerate the process
towards the passage of Personal Income Tax (PIT) Bill as soon as they
reconvene from recess, to facilitate the realisation of the objectives
of the proposed law.

The PIT Amendment
Bill, which has been pending before the National Assembly for the last
three years, finally sailed through legislative deliberations before
the close of the 6th Legislative Assembly.

The call for the
passage of the law, which was amongst eight-point decisions at the
124th Meeting of the Tax Administrators in Abuja, would give some
relief to taxpayers, as it seeks to reduce the current rate from 20 per
cent to 17.5, even as government is convinced that the amendment would
also improve the tax compliance of taxpayers generally.

On the
administration of the existing PITA provisions, the Board urged all
federal, states and local government Ministries, Departments and
Agencies (MDAs) to ensure that the provisions were strictly adhered to
by deducting adequately all Pay-As-You-Earn (PAYE) taxes of their
employees.

Approved taxes

Ifueko
Omoigui-Okauru, FIRS chairman, in a communiqué after the meeting, said
the members also resolved to sustain their ongoing fight against
multiple taxation by increased public awareness campaigns at all levels
of government, including the publication of the list of approved taxes
and levies on a sustainable basis.

Similarly,
discussions on the proposed Enhanced New Drivers Licence scheme ended
with a resolution that adequate awareness about its take off on April
18 this year, even as the Board commended the initiative of the
Students’ Tax Advisory Initiative (STAI), while urging Nigerian youth
to take active interest in taxation as a fiscal policy option for
building a better Nigeria.

With these
resolutions, some of the member states may have shifted position on
their earlier subtle opposition to the proposed amendment of the Bill
in view of what they believe were its likely negative effects on their
Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) profile.

Some governors,
particularly those with High Internally Generated Revenue (IGR)
profiles, had begun moves to ensure that the proposed amendment to the
PITA was considered simultaneously with the proposed amendment of the
Value Added Tax (VAT) law, which they believed would offset some of the
revenue losses their states might suffer as a result of the amendment
of the former Bill.

The PIT is imposed on the income of all Nigerian employees or residents who derive income in Nigeria and outside Nigeria.

The
management of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yesterday suspended
Binos Yaroe, general manager, Listing and Quotation Department.

He
was placed on indefinite suspension over what was described as
“indiscipline act”. However, no further explanation was given as to the
nature of the indiscipline.

Mr. Yaroe, who was suspended on Tuesday, has been asked to stay off work from the following day (yesterday) till further notice.

Wole
Tokede, the NSE’s spokesperson, confirmed the suspension and said the
sanction was “an internal discipline of the Exchange” measured against
the offender.

The
development has been generating various comments from some market
operators. A stockbroker, who spoke to NEXT on the condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said he believed
that Mr. Yaroe’s suspension was not unconnected with plans by the
interim administration of the NSE to “further clear away all the old
members of staff to give Oscar Onyema, the chief executive officer
designate, a fresh start.”

An
official of the NSE, who also pleaded anonymity, said, “His (Mr.
Yaroe’s) suspension was the outcome of the Exchange’s effort to
practice what it preaches on enforcement of good corporate governance.”

However,
Mr. Tokede said, “I know that he (Mr. Yaroe) has been suspended but I
don’t know whether definite or it has a time dimension,” adding that
the suspension was “an internal discipline of the Exchange, as it does
not have anything to do with the insinuation that they (the NSE) are
cleaning the road for the incoming chief executive officer.”

Emmanuel
Ikazoboh, the interim head of the NSE, had sacked 95 staff of the
Exchange few weeks after he assumed office, following the sack of Ndi
Okereke-Onyiuke last August on allegations of financial mismanagement.

Also,
while some of the senior staff with insider knowledge of the system had
to resign because of pressure from some quarters, Mr. Yaroe, one of
those supposedly pencilled down to head the Exchange if Mrs.
Okereke-Onyiuke had retired, remained in the market until his
suspension.

Some
market watchers said that the report on the investigation of the
affairs of the NSE under the leadership of its former director general,
Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke, may indict some of its general managers,
including Mr. Yaroe.

NEXT
had reported that the yet-to-be officially released forensic report
showed that in 2008, the NSE expended a total of N186 million in
purchases of Rolex watches for long serving employees.

In
the mean time, the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, has adjourned judgment
till April 4, on the suit filed by Mrs. Okereke-Onyiuke, challenging
her sack as the director general of the NSE.

Nigeria’s First
City Monument Bank said on Wednesday its pre-tax profit rose to 9.02
billion naira ($58 million) in 2010 from 856.6 million the previous
year, and declared a 0.35 naira dividend per share.

Gross earnings rose
to 62.67 billion naira from 35.79 billion naira in 2009, the bank said
in a filing with the Nigerian Stock Exchange.