Nigeria Content Online

An Abuja High Court
on Monday granted the ICPC “one last leave” to arraign a former
treasurer of Kwali Area Council, Dauda Musa, over his alleged
complicity in a N140 million fraud.

Mr. Musa is
supposed to have been arraigned with the former chairman of the
council, Musa Saleh, since 2009 over their roles in the alleged fraud.

The ICPC had
arraigned Mr. Saleh over allegations that he allegedly perpetrated the
fraud through fictitious contracts, dubious training programmes, abuse
of office, and diversion of public funds into personal use.

Justice Hussein
Baba, in granting the leave, warned that if by March 23 the commission
did not arraign the accused, he would strike out the case.

The judge took this
decision after counsel to ICPC, Edward Okagogo, told the court that the
commission had been unable to track down the accused since the last
five adjourned dates.

“If by March 23 you
are unable to arraign the accused, I will strike out the case from my
list. Whenever you are ready you can come back,” the judge said.

A former employee
of the Intercontinental Bank Plc was on Monday arraigned before an
Igbosere Magistrates Court in Lagos over alleged forgery and theft of
N554, 200.

Twenty-six-year-old
Ajayi Oluwasegun is accused of forging the signature of a bank customer
and withdrawing the sum from his account. Mr. Oluwasegun, who is
standing trial before Magistrate A. A. Famobiwo, pleaded not guilty to
the two-count charge.

The prosecutor,
Haruna Ibrahim, a sergeant, submitted that the accused forged the
signature of one Mr. Kelvin Nwaosisi and withdrew N554,200 from his
account. He said that the alleged theft and forgery occurred between
August 2010 and February 2011 at the Agege branch of the
Intercontinental Bank.

AngloGold Ashanti,
the world’s third largest gold producer, said on Tuesday heavy rains in
Australia have affected output at its Sunrise Dam mine.

The company said in
a statement that while open pit mining has resumed, underground
operations remained suspended for safety reasons.

AngloGold said it
expects that Sunrise Dam, located 56 kilometres (35 miles) south of
Laverton in Western Australia, would achieve normal mining rates in the
June quarter.

“AngloGold Ashanti
is, therefore, expecting that first quarter guidance of 1.04 million
ounces will be negatively impacted by approximately 20,000 ounces with
a consequential impact on unit total cash costs,” the company said.

Africa’s top gold
miner, which has operations across four continents, also said the
group’s full year production guidance of 4.55-4.75 million ounces
remained unchanged.

The National Agency
for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), on Monday, sealed 15
drug stores in Calabar for selling counterfeit, expired, and banned
drugs.

The closure was effected in a surprise raid by a team led by Abisola Adekoya, the agency’s deputy director of Ports Inspection.

Mrs. Adekoya said
she raised six groups to carry out checks against non compliance with
NAFDAC requirements in patent medicine stores and pharmacies in the
city.

She said NAFDAC had
invested some millions of naira to buy anti-counterfeiting devices like
the Truscan machine, to detect fake drugs.

“With the aid of
this newest technology, we were able to detect fake drugs, including
those that were banned and this has led to the sealing of the 15 shops
in Calabar,” Mrs. Adekoya said.

The Nigerian Stock
Exchange (NSE) yesterday officially commissioned a Contact Centre to
improve its interface with capital market investors, as the world
celebrates Consumers’ Rights Day.

Located on the 13th
floor of the NSE’s building, the Contact Centre is a facility that
allows interface of information between the Exchange and investors, as
well as other market operators.

Emmanuel Ikazoboh,
interim administrator of the NSE, said, “Despite the dwindling income
of the Exchange, we have gone this far to improve on the communication
between us and our investors because we know the importance of
information to the growth and development of the market.

“The market, we
know, is information driven; hence, nothing would be spared in our
desire to further bridge information gap between us and the investors
on our Exchange,” Mr. Ikazoboh said.

He said investors
are expected to phone in to make enquires on important issues about the
market as they affect them from 7:45 am to 6:00 pm Monday to Friday on
07002255673. Callers are free to use any of the three major Nigerian
languages of Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba to make enquires or launch
complaints.

“Within 24 to 48
hours, you (customers) will be aware that efforts are been made to
respond to their enquiries. We may not have the answer at hand, but at
least you will know that action is been taken,” he added.

When our reporter
put a call to the number yesterday, the call went through, even though
it terminated before much information could be exchanged.

Mr. Ikazoboh said
there are other things that the Exchange is trying to put in place to
win back investors’ confidence. However, he said, “We thought by today
(Tuesday) we are going to have price kickers around the building.
Unfortunately, most of the items are stock in the port. But we’ve been
given a concrete assurance that by the 25th March, it will be
everywhere in the building.

“We are also going
to change the kicker in our trading room to be able to give real-time
online performances of each of the companies that are listed in our
Exchange,” he further said.

No account yet

Asked how much it
cost the NSE to set up the Contact Centre, Mr. Ikazoboh said, “I will
ask the account department because I don’t have the figures with me
now. Once the account department is able to collate everything, I’ll
pass that to the public.”

He, however, assured that his administration was “very prudent” in managing the cost.

At the event,
Arunma Oteh, director general, Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), said, “We are delighted at this initiative. The SEC believes
that there will be no capital market without the investors. It is
therefore, important that we continue to enhance investors’
confidence.”

Ms. Oteh said the
commissioning of the Contact Centre is also significant because “it is
happening on a day that all over the world consumers’ rights are being
celebrated and consumers are being appreciated. We at SEC believe that
if we are able to protect investors, our market will flourish and truly
be transformed for our country.”

Bisi Onipede, one
of the supervisors at the Contact Centre, said several calls have been
made by investors to the Contact Centre since operation began recently.

Ms. Onipede said,
“We’ve had people calling to know whether some stockbroking firms have
been suspended, reinstated, or not. We’ve had people calling to know
about the status of their shares; dividends; branch location of the
NSE; how they can log on to our website; how they can be stockbrokers;
etc.”

She said calls have
been received from Nigerian investors in Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba
languages, adding that people have also been calling from French
speaking countries, South Africa, Europe, and America.

Olu Odejimi, the
spokesperson for stockbrokers, who is also the chief executive officer
of Clearview Investment Limited, a stockbroking firm, said the Contact
Centre is an initiative which will “promote the business of
stockbrokers,” adding that it will help the investing public not to
rely only on stockbrokers to get good information about the market.

Mr. Odejimi, who is
the oldest stockbroker at the NSE with 38 years experience, said
although stockbrokers are currently facing hard times, the initial
suspicion that Ms. Oteh might be operating an undisclosed agenda has
been corrected.

“There is order now in the market,” he said, adding that “change is
the only thing that is permanent,” while charging Ms. Oteh to “go on
and change everything as long as it is for our good.”

The planned
commercialisation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Commission, NNPC,
is expected to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the
corporation.

Some finance
experts believe that the move would aid the corporation, which is
presently a public organisation that manages government’s interests in
the Nigerian oil industry, while also generating funds for the
government.

“The
commercialisation of the NNPC should translate to a reduction in
regulatory controls on the NNPC – thereby opening it up to engage
freely in petroleum business activities,” Fola Onasanya, a petroleum
industry analyst at Ciuci Consulting, a management consulting firm,
said.

According to him,
this move should increase the efficiency and effectiveness of NNPC
operations – which would in turn improve the overall quality of service
it offers to all relevant parties (the federal government,
multinationals, and Nigerians).

“It is also
expected that this would promote the development expansion of the
nation’s oil and gas assets. This is especially in the building of
Greenfield refineries, pipelines, and other downstream infrastructure.

“It would also help
in increasing the value of the NNPC by making it not only
self-financing, but also a revenue generating corporation. According to
the PIB, a commercialised NNPC will pay the government royalties and
taxes like other oil companies,” Mr. Onasanya said.

The Petroleum Industry Bill is a merger of 16 different laws with very stringent guidelines for environmental remediation.

Fear of rise in commodity prices

Mr. Onasanya,
however, added that “Worker’s Unions (such as PENGASSAN) fear that the
move may lead to a significant downsizing of the corporation,
increasing unemployment.”

He further said
that there is also a concern that with the commercialisation (and
deregulation), prices of petroleum products (e.g. PMS, diesel and
kerosene) would rise – as they will be entirely determined by market
forces.

Which PIB is being passed?

Recently, workers
in the oil and gas industry, through the organised labour union,
PENGASSAN, called on the Federal Government, especially the National
Assembly, to engage relevant parties again before the passage of the
bill, to forestall industrial crisis in the sector.

Babatunde Ogun, the
spokesperson of the union, said the workers had made several
correspondences to the government and the National Assembly on the need
for further engagement on the PIB before its passage, but that the
legislative arm had bluntly refused to honour any of the letters.

He also raised
concerns that the union would like to know the version of the PIB that
is being passed, as there is every tendency that the original bill may
have been substituted.

“We have written
many letters on the need for the National Assembly to be transparent
and follow due process in the passage of the bill. Conducting just a
public hearing is not enough, more so when there have been so many
insinuations, including the Wikileak’s online reports, that the
National Assembly had substituted the original bill that had inputs of
all stakeholders,” Mr. Ogun said, adding that it is only proper for all
relevant parties in the nation’s oil and gas industry to have a final
look at the PIB.

Diezani
Alison-Madueke, the minister of petroleum resources, stated that the
expected passage of the all important oil industry reform legislation
will change the face of the petroleum industry in Nigeria.

Mrs.
Alison-Madueke, while confirming that the PIB will usher in a new vista
in the oil industry in the country, said she would not be able to
freely talk on the impact of the commercialisation of the NNPC since
the bill was already at the domain of the National Assembly.

She said it was
expected to be run as a normal company, in terms of royalties,
dividends, and taxes, adding that other benefits that would be derived
from the passage of the bill includes the availability of over 300, 000
jobs in the industry, the implementation of corporate social
responsibility, the discontinuing of gas flaring, among others.

Yabawa Wabi,
minister of state for finance, has advised the West African Insurance
Companies Association (WAICA) to ensure adequate capitalisation of the
WAICA Reinsurance Corporation.

Mr. Wabi, who was
represented by Fola Daniel, commissioner for insurance, at the National
Insurance Commission (NAICOM), gave the advice at the 2011 WAICA
Educational Conference in Lagos on Monday. The theme of the conference
was ‘Partnership for Growth and Prosperity: the Roadmap for Regional
Integration in West Africa’.

According to her,
the establishment of the WAICA Reinsurance Corporation will bring
immense benefits to the practice of insurance in the sub-region.

“With adequate
initial take-off capitalisation, it is expected that the corporation
will contribute greatly to the insurance companies in the sub region
than the pool. It is critically important that the corporation from
inception be adequately capitalised and directed by an informed board
and management.

“A deliberate
selection criteria, particularly for its management team, based on
maturity, experience, qualification, and goodwill, will be helpful in
addition to a sizeable capitalisation beyond the statutory minimum
capital,” Mrs. Daniel said.

She further said
that it was obvious that WAICA Reinsurance Corporation would come into
intense competitive environment based on her knowledge of the insurance
industry in the sub region.

According to her,
the emerging risks in the oil and aviation sectors required high-level
of technical support both for the corporation and the insurance
industry.

Mrs. Wabi said it
was necessary for WAICA Reinsurance to seek for competent technical
partners to help it in the development of technical competences.

She also said there
was the need to collate quality information relating to insurance and
re-insurance matters in the sub region and make them available to
members of WAICA and the government. This would help to make informed
decisions and opinions on insurance matters, she said.

William Agbenyega,
president of WAICA, said that the association had made history with the
establishment of WAICA Reinsurance Corporation. According to him, the
corporation will strengthen bilateral business relationships among
members, as they would continue to cede businesses to it. He said that
WAICA Reinsurance would have its headquarters in Freetown, Sierra
Leone, and country offices in member countries.

NAN