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Despite
an installed generating capacity of 5,896 megawatts, Nigeria can barely
evacuate 4,000 megawatts to end users. However, the country currently
subsists on actual generating capacity of about 3,829 megawatts.

Emmanuel
Ezekwere, head, engineering standards and safety division of the
Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), who gave this
insight, said even when Nigeria is able to increase its generation
capacity, much of it would still not get to the end consumers due to
deficient transmission capacity.

He said that is why the sector needs the participation of private investors in order to improve the situation in the sector.

“We
now embark on regular periodic review of policies and regulations in
order to meet expectations of operators in the sector,” Mr. Ezekwere
said.

Mr.
Ezekwere, who represented Imamudeen Talban, NERC administrator, at the
Roundtable on Right to Access Stable Electricity, organised by Social
and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC) yesterday in Lagos, said
Nigeria can achieve steady power supply, but only with proper planning.

According
to him, licences have been granted to 54 firms for independent power
projects across the country for generation of about 8,997 megawatts.

“Reforms
in the power sector will bring investment opportunities in training,
power generation and expansion, investment in transmission, investment
in supply, and manufacture of ancillary materials required in the power
sector. Most of the things we use in the power sector today are
imported. These are opportunities that are coming up,” Mr. Ezekwere
said.

He
further said companies licenced to build power plants across the
country are expected to provide periodic report to the commission on
its operations, while government has put in place some guarantees that
would safeguard their investment.

“We
have gone round the country and found some firms that have not started
building. They are not in the majority. Those companies we are going to
delist them. The process is on. As I talk to you, we are about to
publish some of those that have not been able to comply with the
reporting update,” he said.

Felix
Morka, executive director of SERAC, said electricity is a human rights
issue which is hinged on the universal right to decent living.

He
said Nigerians need to begin to hold government accountable for the
absence of steady power supply, as this can be linked to the poverty
level and poor living standard of the people.

“Government
in Nigeria has, historically and up till the present, failed miserably
to meet expectations on electricity supply. More than this is the
failure of Nigerians to protestthe failure of electricity. Is it enough
to grumble when it goes off and celebrate when it comes on, as if we
are done a favour?” Mr. Morka asked.

According
to him, while it may be desireable to privatise the sector, it was
equally important for Nigerians to demand accountability for the huge
sums that have been expended in the sector since 1999.

He
said there is no one direction that is the proper perspective to the
issue, as all that Nigerians demand is steady power supply.

“When government proclaims privatization, that in itself is dubious,
because implicit in that is a deliberate effort to avoid some of the
fundamental questions which must be asked and answered in order for
that proposition to become viable and reasonable,” he said.

The budget office
of the federation and the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) are
working toward ensuring strong and sustainable economy by 2020.

Bright Okogu,
director general, budget office of the federation, said on Wednesday in
Abuja that recommendations had been made to FRC on what should be done
with Medium Term Expenditure Framework to ensure the attainment of the
goal.

He said the budget office was responsible for the preparation of the annual budget in relation to Vision 20:2020.

“We are to ensure
that all the projects highlighted in the budget are consistent with
what we have in Vision 20:2020 so that available resources are
optimally utilised. This is what we do; and we try to get the National
Planning Commission involved at the stage where the capital projects
are engaged, even at the Medium Term Strategy Sector,’’ Mr. Okogu added.

The transport
minister, Yusuf Suleiman, on Wednesday reiterated Federal Government’s
commitment to the execution of the concept of intermodal transportation.

He told the News
Agency of Nigeria in Singapore that the concept involved a process in
which the various modes of transportation such as rail, road, water,
and air would be interlinked.

“We must have an integrated transport infrastructure that complements one another,” he said.

Mr. Suleiman said
that when a ship berths at the Lagos Port, the movement of the cargoes
should be complemented by both rail and road services. He said that the
final draft of the National Transport Policy, which was all
encompassing, had just been produced.

Copper production
in Zambia, Africa’s largest producer of the metal, increased by 20
percent to 548,326 tonnes from January to August, compared with the
same period last year, the central bank said on Wednesday.

The Bank of Zambia
(BoZ0) said in a fortnightly report that copper exports in the first
eight months of 2010 rose to 541,396 tonnes from 435,460 tonnes in
2009. Production was 456,735 tonnes of copper in the 2009 period.

Frederick
Bantubonse, the general manager of the Chamber of Mines of Zambia,
which represents foreign mining companies, told Reuters the higher
output reflected increasing investment.

“Both copper and cobalt production are rising because mining companies have invested heavily in the mines,” Mr. Bantubonse said.

Niger has announced
it will renew uranium exploration permits, which was largely
unexploited during a period of unrest, and begin an overhaul of its
mining code to boost the sector’s productivity.

The top uranium
supplier to France’s nuclear industry has attracted billions of dollars
in investments, but development has slowed in recent years due to
political instability, simmering rebellion, and an uptick in al
Qaeda-linked kidnappings in the lawless Sahel part of West Africa.

Tuareg militants
waged a low-level insurgency from 2007 to 2009 in the country’s
northern desert, leading Niger’s government to declare a state of
emergency in the zone where foreign firms held more than 100 3-year
exploration permits, hindering mining activity.

South Africa’s
Treasury said on Wednesday it would relax exchange controls further,
with individuals being allowed to take more money abroad in the latest
government attempt to weaken the rand.

At a briefing,
central bank governor, Gill Marcus, said she would give details next
week, but could not estimate how much money would leave South Africa
due to the easing of controls.

“The question of the amount that would flow out depends on what people want to do.

“By the end of next week, circulars will go out,” she said.

The market
capitalisation of equities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), on
Tuesday, hit N7.960 trillion following the listing by introduction of
15.494 billion ordinary shares of Dangote Cement.

As a result, the
capitalisation recorded an increase of 29.6 per cent yesterday, from
Monday’s figures of N6.141 trillion. However, the NSE All-Share Index,
on Tuesday, plunged marginally by 0.003 per cent.

History is made

Emmanuel Ikazoboh,
the interim administrator of the NSE, said the President of Dangote
Group, Aliko Dangote, who was at the listing, made history in the
country. “We have for the first time a N2.1 trillion ordinary share
listing on the floor of our Exchange,” he said. “I want to use this
opportunity to thank Mr Dangote for making Nigeria proud and for
showing the world that we as Nigerians can develop our own country and
our capital market.” He also announced that the new quoted company
topped as the most traded stock on Tuesday with 196.169 million volumes
of shares.

Dipo Williams, the
spokesperson for market dealers and Chief Executive Officer of Support
Services Limited, a stock brokerage firm, said Mr Dangote’s effort to
make history as the largest stock to be listed on the Stock Exchange is
commendable. Mr Williams, who is also the immediate past president of
the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, said, “I am sure that the
introduction of Dangote Cement will bring life into the market.”

Encourage others

Responding, Mr
Dangote expressed appreciation to the stockbrokers for their supports.
“I can assure you that you have not advised your clients wrongly,” he
said. “It is the best advice you’ve given to them. We will try as much
as possible to improve our corporate governance.”

He also urged other
companies in the telecom and oil industries to come and list their
companies on the market. “They should not be making money here in
Nigeria and be listing elsewhere,” he said, adding that the listing of
a company is beneficial to everybody because the profits will be shared
with shareholders while the government also gets its benefit through
tax.

Open to media

Meanwhile, Mr
Ikazoboh, yesterday, denied that the NSE has barred journalists from
covering live trading activities in the market. He was responding to
publications in some national dailies, which he said was untrue. “That
information is not correct,” he said. “We are open to the press and we
have nothing to hide. Please ignore that story.”

However, the NSE has deployed Sola Oni, its former spokesperson, to
the Market Operation/IT Directorate Department; while Wole Tokede, the
most senior officer of the Communications Department, now acts as the
new spokesperson.

A growing African
food sector can yield private sector returns on the back of government
support, said a report on Tuesday, which also said that a global grain
reserve may be needed to protect consumers from price spikes.

Local initiatives
aiming for an African equivalent of the Green Revolution, which swept
developing countries in the 1970s and 1980s, needed coordination, the
report added.

For example, an
African Union (AU) strategy aimed to drive economic development through
investment in agriculture at a tenth of national budgets, given new
impetus by a 2008 food crisis, which prompted $20 billion aid for
agriculture.

“It’s a focus on
the great and proven potential of African agriculture,” said Imperial
College London’s Gordon Conway, chair of a panel of authors of the
report titled ‘Africa and Europe: Partnerships for Agricultural
Development’.

“We can continue to
parachute in sacks of grain, but it’s much better to focus on making
sure the seeds and fertilisers are present in the hands of the dealers
in the villages. We are in a period of optimism about the prospects for
Africa and African agriculture,” the report concluded.

The Green
Revolution in Mexico, India, and elsewhere met large increases in
yields through steps such as investment in irrigation, fertilisers, and
high yielding crops.

In Africa, cereal
yields were as little as one third those in developed countries, said
Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, another author, but she pointed to successes,
for example, in Nigerian cassava and of the adoption of higher yielding
rice varieties.

“Africa is now organised and ready for business,” she said.

The AU initiative
aim to achieve 6 percent annual growth in farm output by 2015, compared
with 3 percent annually over the past decade. Tuesday’s report cited
estimates that the sector may be worth $800 billion by 2030, compared
with $280 billion now.

It intends to
galvanise European private and public sector investment, following
similar investment in African farmland and businesses by large emerging
economies including China.

Private sector
investment would not over-turn problems of malnutrition, however, where
200 million Africans are under-fed and 5 million die annually from
hunger. This requires public support, possibly including a global grain
reserve to ease food price spikes which hurt the poor more, the report
said.

“Food price spikes,
particularly the one in 2007-08, had a devastating impact on African
consumers. Speculators drive these spikes higher than they would
otherwise be,” said Mr. Conway.

“These spikes need
some form of physical grain reserve to moderate them,” he added, saying
that he was not advocating a government takeover of commodity markets.

The governing board
of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) yesterday
met with officials of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff
Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in Abuja on ways of aborting a
crisis over a demand for the reinstatement of two members.

Sources revealed
that one of the key resolutions of the meeting was the immediate
reinstatement of the two officials on or before next week Tuesday,
ahead of the next meeting of the board.

But it was gathered
that even as the two officials are expected to be issued with fresh
letters, latest next Monday, reinstating them to their former positions
as well as being paid the backlog of their salaries and entitlements
for the period, it might not be smooth sailing for them to resume their
seats.

The affected
members , Phillip Salvation and Daniel Afiakurue, who were General
Managers, finance and administration, and operations until they were
suspended in September 2007, along with the then Executive Secretary,
Oluwole Oluleye, over allegations of impropriety and corruption by the
Federal Government.

After two years of
investigation by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)
the three were recently cleared of all allegations.

Though Mr. Oluleye
has since December 2008 been retired with full benefits, the other two
officials, who still had long years of service, were yet to be
reinstated by the PPPRA management for lack of vacancy.

It was gathered
that the management had argued that it would be difficult to reinstate
the two, as directed by the office of Secretary of Government of the
Federation (SGF), as they were not consulted when the Federal
Government took the decision to suspend them from office.

Besides, the
management claimed that in the wake of the suspension of the three
officials, their positions were filled by new appointees, Gbenga
Komolafe, as acting General Manager (F&A), and Joseph Dogo as
acting General Manager (Operations).

Ultimatum

But PENGASSAN,
early this month, reportedly issued a 14-day ultimatum threatening to
embark on a nationwide strike if the directive by the SGF for the board
to find accommodation for the two was not met.

The crisis
degenerated, as the PPPRA management accused PENGASSAN of over-reaching
itself with its insistence on the reinstatement of the two officials,
since the issue had nothing to do with the welfare of its members, a
source said.

Joint conciliatory
committee meetings called for Kaduna between PENGASSAN executive
committee and PPPRA management to find a way out of the crisis was
reportedly ignored by Mr. Dogo on two occasions, resulting in the call
by the oil workers’ union for his immediate sack in line with the
dictates of labour laws, which stipulates that officials should be
summarily relived of their positions after three cases of
insubordination.

Prior to the
expiration of the ultimatum by the PENGASSAN last Thursday, it was
learnt that the PPPRA board had to take the matter before the Minister
of Labour and Productivity, Chukwuemeka Wogu, who called for an
emergency board meeting held yesterday to forge reconciliation between
the union and management, and avert the strike.

The
downward country rating of Nigeria by Fitch Ratings, the international
rating agency, may not significantly affect Nigeria’s debut at the
international bond market, says a financial analyst.

Nigeria
plans to raise $500 million from the international debt market before
year end. Razia Khan, regional head of research, Africa Global
Research, Standard Chartered Bank, London, said though the downgrade
was not unexpected, there were clear guidance on what the country
needed to do in order to retain the confidence of the international
investing community.

“Ahead of its maiden Eurobond, the market implications of the Fitch outlook revision are probably limited,” Ms. Khan said.

“However,
there is considerable market expectation that any eventual external
debt issuance by Nigeria is likely to trade tighter than
similarly-rated peers,” she said in her quick view of Nigeria’s latest
sovereign rating.

Concerns about spending

She said there have been concerns about the way Nigeria spends her revenue, a fact reflected in the Fitch Ratings report.

“The
drawdown of the excess crude account and fall in international reserves
are factors that have worried investors, but the Fitch move is
altogether more measured, and strikes a good balance between
considering near term cyclical pressures and the potential upside
further out,” she added.

The
excess crude account (ECA), which stood at over $20 billion in 2007, is
now about $500 million. Last Thursday, Nigeria’s foreign reserves
dropped to $33.91 billion, its lowest level in several years.

Ms.
Khan said there was need for the institutionalisation of oil savings,
fiscal improvements, including a removal of fuel subsidies, and greater
transparency overall in order for Nigeria to enjoy the confidence of
the international investing community.

“It
is important to note that the measures which Fitch has identified as
important for Nigeria’s outlook to return to stable are already being
implemented.

“For
instance, we understand that Fitch will view the passing of the Bill to
establish the Nigerian Sovereign Wealth Fund very positively,” said the
minister of finance, Mr Olusegun Aganga.

He
added that the Bill is being drafted, and expressed the hope that it
will receive a positive and speedy reception in the National Assembly.

Effect on sub national ratings

Fitch’s
downgrade also had a spiral effect on other ratings within the country,
as the ratings agency has revised Lagos State’s long-term foreign
currency rating outlook to negative from stable, and affirmed the
actual rating (BB-).

Samir
Gadio, emerging markets strategist at Standard Bank, said such a
development was expected since Lagos State’s rating and outlook were in
line with those of the sovereign. He said this does not necessarily
suggest deterioration in Lagos State’s operating environment.

Lagos
State is currently in the debt market to raise N275 billion in multi
tranches funds for developmental purposes. The latest entrance is the
N50 billion infrastructure renewal bond opened in July.

Last
year, Fitch also assigned Rivers State a long-term foreign and local
currency ratings of ‘B+’ and a national long-term rating of ‘AA-, the
highest subnational rating in the country.