Nigeria Content Online

Eyo Ekpo, a member
of the Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP), says the high level of
infrastructure decay and wide gap in investment are major impediments
to effective power supply.

Mr Ekpo, Head,
Regulatory and Transactions Monitoring Unit of the task force, said
this on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in
Lagos.

He said that the
nation’s power supply had been hindered for years by limited
generation, transmission capacities, obsolete equipment and unreliable
distribution network.

Mr Ekpo said that
over-bloated and inefficient workforce were also obstacles to meeting
the national power demand approximated at between 10,000 and 15,000MW.
He said that the power generation level had even declined while demand
was on the rise.

“This problem has
apparently trickled down to the transmission and distribution arms of
the sector. The manifestation is the perpetual power failure and
shortage being witnessed across the nation. But in all fairness, I
think this is simply unacceptable if we consider the fact that
countries like South Africa, Egypt and Ghana enjoy better generation
capacities,” Mr Ekpo said.

He added that the
lack of investment in power generation, transmission and distribution
were the major factors inhibiting the growth of the sector.

Farmers in Ekiti
State are to access the N2 billion federal government agricultural
intervention loan, Joseph Ogunjobi, Chairman of the local chapter of
All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN), has said.

Mr Ogunjobi on Wednesday said that the state government had concluded arrangements to ensure that farmers accessed the loan.

He said the money
was still with the Central Bank, and attributed the inability of
farmers to access the loan to the “uncooperative attitude” of the
immediate past leadership of AFAN in the state and the government.

He said, however,
that Segun Oni, the state governor, was doing his best to facilitate
the disbursement of the loan to all registered farmers in the state as
soon as possible. Mr Ogunjobi said the association was also working in
conjunction with the government to ensure that only genuine farmers
benefitted from the loan.

He said the governor had directed both the Ministries of Finance and
Agriculture to liaise with the leadership of AFAN to accelerate the
disbursement of the fund.

On Sunday, the
latest incarnation of the Ubuntu Linux distribution was released.
Coming six months after the last edition, some people are beginning to
feel that Ubuntu’s six month release cycle is too often too soon. Some
even say that there are not enough changes to 10.04 to warrant an
upgrade.

I think they are wrong.

In Ubuntu 10.10,
there are many small improvements that have been made to polish the
distribution even more. For starters, the installer has received a lot
of attention. It is now a lot more attractive, and more importantly,
has been made simpler for novices. Of course, as is usual, there is the
live CD mode so that you can try out the distribution before actually
installing.

One criticism I
have of recent versions of Ubuntu is that you need a solid Internet
connection to get some things actually working. I think this is a
function of the fact that the makers (Canonical) are trying to pack
more and more into a single 700MB CD-ROM. In our environment, that is
not the most practical of things. Aside from that, I have no other
complaints really.

The most important
part of this upgrade is that Gnome has been updated to 2.32 (for KDE
users, the KDE version Kubuntu has KDE4.5). Also, the startup time has
improved even more. There is new wallpaper and the sound indicator now
includes music controls; so you can play music without having to open
your music application. This of course helps in saving memory, although
that will not be a concern for a lot of users.

Ubuntu One is
better integrated than ever. Ubuntu One is Ubuntu’s online file storage
service, which gives you 2GB of online storage for free. This allows
you to share files across multiple Ubuntu computers. Personally, I’ll
stick with Dropbox, but it is great to see Canonical plugging away at
this and attempting to get it right.

Apparently as well,
more people are signing up because the Ubuntu One Music Store has an
even larger selection of music than the last time I checked, but I
still could not find Fisherman’s Koko! As is usual, proprietary codecs
such as Flash did not work out of the box, but it was up and running in
a few minutes. Ubuntu’s default programs for multimedia include Brasero
for CD burning, Movie player, Rhythmbox to play music, and PiTiVi for
video editing. Great programmes, but since I am a KDE person, the only
one that survives on my computer is PiTiVi.

Of course, if you
are not happy with the default selection, just connect your computer to
the Internet and head into the much improved Software Centre.

One of the great
new features that still has me drooling is the updated Ubuntu Software
Centre and its ‘Featured’ and ‘What’s New views for showcasing
applications. A ‘For Purchase’ software category has also been added so
you can buy that proprietary software that you want.

Operators of domiciliary accounts are lamenting the charges on maintaining such accounts, saying that the arbitrariness of the charges makes them unjustifiable.

Some bank officials, however, say though the charges are steep in some cases, running a domiciliary account is not essential unless it is absolutely necessary.

“Bank charges on domiciliary accounts cannot be fixed,” says a senior staff of Afribank.

“The charges are dictated by the market. This thing is being regulated by the market. There is nothing you can do about it.

“Savings rates, currents account rates are regulated. If you give money to the bank to keep, you know what the banks would give; it can’t go below a certain rate or higher. But in terms of foreign denominated accounts, exchange rates also swing. It’s not stable, it’s always moving. So the rates cannot be static. If they say five percent, for instance, and the rates fall, there would be no basis to hold onto that rate. It’s a matter of supply and demand,” the Afribank official said.

“When you use credit cards, for instance, you know it is foreign currency denominated. When you are to be debited, we are going to look at the rates at that time. Take the Mallam who buys a dollar at N155 today, and a buyer says he wants to buy at N152 today, because that is what he bought a dollar the previous day, it won’t work. He has to look at the rates of that day,” he said.

A domiciliary account is an account in any foreign currency. It can be operated by customers upon fulfilment of all ‘know-your-customer’ requirements by the customer.

No benefit for the charges

But some bank customers argue also that banks are not offering services to justify their charges.

“I personally don’t see any problem in an individual having such an account, because I have one myself,” said Olufemi Ade, a former staff of Bank PHB.

“The only issue is that the charges are not justified and in most cases, one doesn’t get good features with the products,” Mr. Ade added.

Daniel Demilade, a customer of Guaranty Trust Bank, said charges on domiciliary accounts could be better regulated.

“Without prior notification, the bank withdrew about N8000 from my savings account with the bank, for charges related to my domiciliary account,” Mr. Demilade said.

“They said it was for the deduction of a new Dollar master card for my domiciliary account. They said they sent prior messages, but I didn’t see any,” he said.

A source at Spring Bank said that the charges should be regulated, to avoid irregularities and the issue of banks taking advantage of their customers.

“It is supposed to be a fixed amount. One bank is not supposed to be charging higher than others,” he said.

Customer care services of various banks that were visited said that there are no fixed service charges of domiciliary accounts.

“It’s a system charged account, it has random charges, not fixed” a staff of Zenith Bank stated.

At Intercontinental Bank, $20 is usually charged on withdrawals or transactions on domiciliary account, which must have at least $15 dollars in balance.

The Lagos State
government has claimed that there is no multiple taxation in the state
and has urged that tax payers be enlightened to ensure they are not
unduly extorted by touts, in the name of taxes.

Governor Babatunde
Fashola said this at a forum organised by a group, Women In Management
and Business, held at the Lagos City Hall for chief executives of
corporations. The business executives lamented that indiscriminate
charges, poor infrastructural facilities in some areas in the state,
unemployment, multiple taxation, and harassment from state officials,
especially the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA), among
others, are part of the challenges of doing business in Lagos State.
Participants alleged that multiple taxes, a situation where the same
income is subjected to more than one tax treatment; unauthorised and
unclear charges, is fast killing businesses in the country’s major
business district.

Government’s response

“There are no
instances of multiple taxes in Lagos,” said Mr Fashola. “There are
either legal or illegal fees or levies. Multiple taxes don’t exist in
Lagos. We have three levels of government in the country. There can be
multiple taxes only if all three levels of government are charging for
the same thing. Take for instance, taxes for operational results go to
the federal government, advertisement goes to the local government, and
taxes on employees go to the state. Every party have their own distinct
charges.”

Though the origin
of ‘multiple taxation’ is not clear, complaints as regards the menace
became more prominent and rampant in the 1980’s. Experts say the
declining rate of disbursable funds by the federal government might
have led the state and local governments to seek alternative sources of
internally generated revenue. Multiple taxes confront the manufacturers
and private sector under different umbrellas through import duties,
export and excise duties, sales and VAT, withholdings and income taxes,
mobile advertising and billboard levies, educational levies, social
responsibility charges among others, which the participants say is
telling on the state’s business environment.

Drawing the battle line

The governor said
that there are levies imposed on business men and women by touts, which
must be addressed by the individuals themselves, because the aim of the
state government is to maximise revenue without imposing a burden on
the people. Mr Fashola, who gave phone numbers to be called in an event
of unclear taxes, urged the business community in the state to take
their destiny in their own hands and address illegal levies. “Engage
that system more vigorously,” he said. “We have come up with the list
of things that can be taxed, which is available. We have also urged
officials to stop collecting cash, the instruction is that you pay into
the bank.”

Participants at the event urged the governor to create more
institutional structure to be able to engage in interactive sessions
regularly, where people are given the opportunities to factor in their
own opinions on the state policies before and during implementation.
“We need institutional structures where we would be able to factor in
our own perspective, as regards the state policies,” said Segun
Oshinowo, a participant at the event. “We shouldn’t have a situation
where the meal has been prepared and we are being forced to eat only to
discover that there isn’t salt in the middle or key ingredients are
missing.”

Egypt’s Housing and
Development Bank (HDB) and state-owned Egyptian Arab Land Bank (EALB)
are being restructured with an eye toward a possible merger within the
two next years, the head of the two banks said.

Chairman Fathy
El-Sebai completed a capital increase at HDB earlier this year that
reduced the government’s stake to between 62 and 64 percent and is in
the final stages of restructuring EALB, Egypt’s fourth-biggest state
bank by assets.

“I have a strong
feeling there is the viability for them to merge and add more value to
the two institutions,” Sebai told Reuters in an interview.

However, the ultimate decision whether to merge them was the government’s and not his, he added.

A combined entity would be Egypt’s sixth or seventh biggest commercial bank in both the state and private sector.

Sebai is among a
group of bankers brought in by the government from the private sector
in the early part of the decade to reform state banks.

These include Bank
of Alexandria, which was sold in late 2006 to Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo,
and Banque du Caire, whose planned privatisation in June 2008 was
aborted after offers did not meet the government’s minimum price.

At the time of the
Banque du Caire offering, many Egyptians criticised the government’s
privatisation programme, saying assets were being sold off too cheaply,
and since then the government has not tried to sell any other major
state assets.

Free float

HDB’s 450 million
Egyptian pound capital increase boosted the bank’s free float to
between 36 and 37 percent from 10 percent, Sebai said.

“This was the idea, to make a kind of a privatisation, not for an anchor investor, but for the public, for everybody.” The bank,

whose capital is
now 1.15 billion pounds, will use the new funds to install an advanced
IT system and expand its branch network to 100 by the end of 2013 from
57, he added.

Sebai said EALB’s
restructuring had been more complicated because much of its lending had
been to tourism and residential projects that stalled when an Egyptian
real estate bubble ended early in the decade.

“The owners didn’t want to put more money in the tourist projects and the banks also stopped funding,” he said.

EALB shareholders
agreed in 2005 to delay plans for merging with HDB until EALB’s
finances could be straightened out. Sebai plans to finish the bank’s
restructuring by June 2012.

“The target is to have the bank ready for the merger, which can be done at any minute by the shareholders,” he said.

“But my plan is to
finish the restructure process and finish all the problems in the bank
to be ready now, either to continue to stand alone or to merge.” Sebai
said rising property values meant HDB’s loans, mainly in mortgages and
credit to individuals,

have been profitable despite a slow judicial process to gain control of homes when borrowers default.

HDB’s assets were 17.85 billion pounds at the end of December, while EALB’s assets were about 20 billion at end-June.