Nigeria Content Online

Kenya will issue a
30-year savings development bond and a 2-year bond to raise a total of
18 billion shillings, the Central Bank said on Thursday.

The 30-year bond is
the first of its kind and the longest dated bond yet. It will come with
a coupon of 12 per cent, paid every six months, the bank said in a
statement.

“Proceeds will be
used towards the development of social and economic infrastructure
including the implementation of the new constitution,” Central Bank
said.

Like other frontier
debt markets, Kenya’s debt market has attracted plenty of local and
foreign investor appetite in the past two years, as investors chased
yields.

Nigeria plans to
auction a total of N109.27 billion ($716 million) in 91-day,182-day and
364-day debt next week, the Central bank said on Thursday.

The regulator said
it will issue N39.27 billion in 91-day bills, 40 billion in 182-day
bills and 30 billion in 364-day bonds next Thursday, using the Dutch
Auction System.The result will be released the following day.

Traders said
liquidity from budgetary allocations last month has thinned out, but
expected the offer to be oversubscribed due to improving yields after
the central bank raised its key interest rate to 6.50 percent from 6.25
percent a week ago.

Nigeria,sub-Saharan Africa’s second-biggest economy, issues treasury
bills regularly as part of monetary control measures to curb inflation
and help banks manage their liquidity.

Work on the N8.3
billion leather and garment cluster in Obingwa in Abia State will
resume in March, Chidibere Ukaegbu, the managing director of the
layout, has said.

Mr. Ukaegbu, who is
the chairman and chief executive of Futuristic Development Ltd., on
Thursday, said that the contractors abandoned the project in the heat
of the kidnapping in the state.

“The project was
not abandoned as being speculated. We and the contractors moved out of
site for safety,” he said, adding that the clearing of the 19.2
hectare-land would continue.

The clearing of the
site, which started in September 2009, was abandoned by the contractors
owing to the level of insecurity in the state, especially in Obingwa.

The Ondo State
House of Assembly has passed a bill establishing the state’s
Agricultural Inputs Supply Agency to enable the company to operate as a
legal entity.

Speaker Samuel
Adesina said at the plenary session of the House on Wednesday in Akure
that the law setting up the agency was long overdue for review.

Mr Adesina
expressed optimism that the new law will facilitate the development of
the agency and make it more productive in every sphere of its
operations.Assemblyman, Idowu Adebusuyi, the Chairman of the House
Committee on Agriculture, said the committee initiated the bill when it
discovered that there was no law backing up the agency’s establishment.

I am a regular face
at a Quick Service Restaurant with a foreign affiliation on a weekly
basis. I am not a fast food freak but my children have made it
compelling for me, as they know the major ones off hand. One major
thing that I found in all the outlets I have visited is the inability
of the employees to live the brand. It gets to a level that if you have
the number of the CEO, you would want to report the damage being done
to a brand that took years of toils and pains to build.

The truth must be
told – our QSRs are nothing to write home about. The way and manner
some of the staff address customers leave much to be desired. They
sound uncultured and very confrontational. The other day, I overheard a
lady chronicling her history that she is a graduate and as a result,
the customer should not look down on her.

There are other
several stories of such but they are not limited to QSRs alone. Our
banks are even worse, even though some of them changed during the
Sanusi Tsunami; but they are gradually descending to the abyss again.

There have been
several instances that cashiers scream at customers and in some cases,
they look at customers with disdain. The situation is embarrassing when
you speak to some company contacts on phone. The so-called customer
care officers sound as if the two of you have been involved in a brawl
prior to that time.

Employees need to
understand their role in the delivery of high standard customer service
and live their organisation’s brands. Their behaviour should
demonstrate their company’s values and should be fully aware of their
role in providing positive experience for clients.

Their behavioural
disposition should support brand principles. Employees play a crucial
role in creating customer satisfaction and their roles in delivering
value should not be underestimated.

Employers should
ensure that employees are well immersed in the brand values as well as
the organisational objectives so that they project it in a positive
light. Brand values should be promoted to the internal publics in order
to ensure that all employees understand the objectives.

For employees to be
worthy brand ambassadors, there should be consistent engagement
sessions with them to ensure that their attitude and disposition
support the company’s values and goals. This creates a differentiation
and advantage competitors cannot replicate.

It has thus become
a critical thing to do to ensure that employees who interface with
clients directly need to be cultured individuals who have all it takes
to retain a customer. They should be well polished in all intents and
they should have the knowhow to handle customer enquiries efficiently.

Customers’ views are important

Organisations
should also listen attentively to what customers say about their
brands. Every conversation about your brand is very crucial to its
survival for it represents the promise made to customers’ about the
products and services.

There should be
sessions to fully engage customers on a regular basis to feel their
pulse and know their views on the brands. It should not be restricted
to virtual approach alone, as this jeopardises getting the raw insights
that can help the brand on a long run.

I remember vividly
a customer perception project undertaken for one of the big banks
several years ago . The bank’s CEO ordered that the findings should be
sent to all the branches for the Heads to take appropriate action. The
project took the employees unawares, as several of the staff were not
living up to expectation. The management took the findings seriously
and this really helped shaped perception of customers about the brand.
The nature of the project was shrouded in secrecy in order to get an
on-the-spot assessment of the performance of employees.

Most organisations
need to improve on their employees and introduce schemes and
initiatives that will make them become good brand ambassadors. If this
is not given utmost priority, the brands will die slowly until its
final demise. The truth is also that some brands are already dying, but
the signs are not yet ominous for the organisations to take urgent
measures to address the situation.

The next time you are treated badly, tell the person: Please live the brand!

Ayopo, a communication strategist and public relations specialist, is the ceo of Shortlist ltd

The
Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) yesterday said it exceeded its
projected 2010 tax collection targets by about 13 per cent, and almost
30 percent above the figure for the previous year.

The
Executive Chairman, Ifueko Omoigui-Okauru, said the agency recorded
over N2.83 trillion in tax revenue receipts, against a target of N2.5
trillion projected for the year and a total of N2.197 trillion realised
in 2009.

Though
Mrs. Omoigui-Okauru said that last year was a very uncertain period for
the country, particularly in the wake of the global economic crisis and
the reforms in the banking sector, she said the achievement recorded
vindicated the FIRS’ management resolve to remain optimistic against
all odds.

The
agency boss revealed this at the 2011 enlarged management meeting of
the service, an annual forum for its top managers to review and analyse
the agency’s performance in the past year in line with set objectives
at the beginning of the year as well as identify the agenda and
expectations for the new year.The service was unable to persuade the
National Assembly to pass several tax bills currently pending before
them, particularly constitutional amendments on tax issues.“This year,
we must focus on the big picture and be dedicated to the task of
nation-building. We must implement processes and programmes to make the
system faster, implement self-assessment, voluntary compliance,
integration of informal sector, induce presumptive tax regime,
automation of tax filling processes, multiple taxation and reduction of
overall tax burden on taxpayers,” she said.

New Tax Policy

The Finance minister, Olusegun Aganga, said the problems of
multiplicity of taxes and other fiscal burdens by tax payers will be
removed soon as the National Tax Policy (NTP) is to be launched within
the next few weeks to boost efficiency in the country’s tax
administration as well as improve the climate for business operations.

Mr.
Aganga said the NTP will stipulate guidelines and rules to regulate the
country’s tax system as well as provide a basis for tax legislation and
administration, adding that the ministry would continue to work with
the FIRS to enable it play its role in developing and initiating tax
policy.

“The
National Tax Policy will soon be formally launched and the ministry
will ensure strict implementation of government policy objectives as
spelt out in the policy document. The FIRS must continue to be at the
forefront of the challenge and come up with strategies that will
broaden our revenue base to include the informal sector, as the country
cannot afford to rely on oil revenue forever”,Mr Aganga added.

To enhance tax administration and tax compliance, the minister said
the Federal Executive Council, at its last meeting in 2010, considered
and endorsed tax compliance requirement before approval for all
contracts.

The federal
government will integrate all activities in the country’s mining and
steel sectors into the mainstream of the national economic framework,
as part of efforts to diversify the country’s revenue base from oil.

Musa Sada, the
minister of mines and steel development, said in Abuja during a meeting
with the World Bank Task Team Leader, Ekaterina Mikhaylova, that the
ministry is currently working with the ministry of finance and the
national planning commission to achieve this objective.

“The nation’s
mining sector, if well developed, would assist the country to diversify
its mono economic base on crude oil and create a second line of
economic resource for the country,” Mr. Sada said.

The minister
identified appropriate operational framework as one of the areas that
would attract private investors to the sector, pointing out that the
intervention of the World Bank in the country’s mining sector through
the provision of a legal and regulatory framework for sector operations
has inspired confidence in both local and foreign investors.

To create more
awareness on the sector, the minister said copies of the Draft Minerals
and Mining Regulations produced during the recent Stakeholders’ Forum
on the review of the document would be taken to the forthcoming
International Fora in South Africa and Canada for investors’ inputs, to
give international mining operators confidence on the operational
guidelines in Nigeria.

He commended the
successes recorded so far from the World Bank grants for the nation’s
mining sector, noting that there was a remarkable improvement between
the achievements recorded before and after the World Bank intervention.

While urging the
World Bank to extend the proposed additional financing for the mining
sector to cover the steel sub-sector, he was optimistic that it will go
a long way to facilitate the development of the sector, particularly in
the area of industrialisation.

Earlier, Mrs.
Mikhaylova, a senior mining specialist to the World Bank, said she was
in Nigeria to finalise the appraisal for the additional $80 million
World Bank financing credit for the Sustainable Management of Mineral
Resources Project. The funding would be released between June and July
this year.

The additional
financing project meant to ensure the sustainability of the progress
made so far in the project, she explained, was a continuation from the
first phase, which was meant to help collect geo-data of the nation’s
mineral resources, finalise activities, as well as provide equipment to
artisanal and small scale miners (ASMs), and host communities as well
as capacity building.

Though Mrs.
Mikhaylova assured the mines and steel minister that the steel
sub-sector would be accommodated by the additional funding scheme, she
said the ministries of finance and justice would be involved in the
negotiations to finalise all technical issues, considering that some
legal regulatory adjustments and capacity building would have to be
addressed.

Mrs. Mikhaylova
implored the federal government to continue its collaboration with the
World Bank to achieve a sustainable development of the nation’s mining
industry.