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Trading
performances at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) got poorer after
Tuesday’s proceedings as investors record more losses, making it a
total loss of over N1 trillion since trading began this year.

The NSE market
capitalisation, which opened the year at N4.989 trillion, had
appreciated to N6.796 trillion during the second quarter of the year,
before it began depreciating at the start of the third quarter.

At the close of
Tuesday’s trading, the Exchange market capitalisation further plunged
to N5.992 trillion, after opening the day at N6.108 trillion,
reflecting 1.90 percent decline or over N116 billion losses. Meanwhile,
about N32 billion losses was recorded on Monday. The NSE All-Share
Index also shed 1.90 percent or a loss of 473.04 units on the previous
day’s figures of 24,976.65 basis points, to close at 24,503.61.

Some analysts said
that the negative market sentiments persist as a result of the gradual
fall of investors’ appetite for equities, which resulted to cut down in
investment activities for safety.

A chief executive
officer of a stockbroker firm, who pleaded anonymity, said, “We (stock
broking firms) are trading and treading cautiously because we are not
sure of what’s going to happen next in the market.”

He said until
Emmanuel Ikazoboh, the interim administrator of the NSE, achieves his
primary assignment of giving the Exchange a new head, “investor
confidence may not improve.”

Also, finance
analysts at Proshare Nigeria Limited said the present negative
performance serves as indications of continued reactions from the
investing public to the crisis, which has compounded the spate of
uncertainty in the market.

“It should be
apparent to all and sundry at this time that the present crisis, though
may be necessary for the paradigm shift needed for the kind of market
we deserve, the manner and how it is being handled may leave bitter
experiences for investors, at least in the short run,” they said.

Market performance

Meanwhile, the
number of gainers at the close of yesterday’s trading closed at 16,
compared with the 27 gainers recorded on Monday, while losers closed
higher at 57, compared with the 38 losers recorded the previous trading
day.

Nigerian Bottling
Company topped the gainers chart for the day with five percent price
appreciation, while Sterling Bank and Bagco topped the losers chart for
the day with five percent depreciations.

The banking
subsector led the market transaction volume on Tuesday with 158.783
million units valued at N1.275 billion, exchanged in 3,837 deals.
Transactions in the shares of Zenith Bank, Fidelity Bank, First Bank,
and UBA boosted the volume traded in the sector. The total volume of
82.807 million units valued at N774.595 million traded in the shares of
the four banks accounted for 52.15 percent of the entire sector volume.

The downward trend
also dominated trading activities in the banking sector yesterday as
the sector recorded two gainers to 18 losers, as against the four
gainers to 13 losers recorded the previous day.

At the Exchange’s floor yesterday, Airline Services & Logistics,
in its second quarter financial result of 2010, recorded 8.48 percent
decline in gross earnings and a 95.02 percent decline in profit after
tax.

Ghana is on track
to pump its first barrel of crude oil in December from total reserves
put at 1.6 billion barrels, vice president, John Dramani Mahama, said
on Tuesday.

The comments
reaffirmed its push to join the league of oil producers this year, and
the reserve estimate breaks from previous, more cautious forecasts, to
concur with a top-end figure given by operator, Tullow Oil Plc.

“In December this
year, Ghana will join the league of petroleum-producing nations as
commercial production begins in the Jubilee field,” Mahama told a
conference in Accra.

“Conservative
appraisal of the wells and available statistics based on credible
scientific findings indicate that the country holds potentially about
1.6 billion barrels of crude oil,” he added, updating previous official
forecasts of merely 800 million barrels – widely considered as overly
conservative.

Field operator,
Tullow, puts the upside potential of the core Jubilee Unit Area at one
billion barrels of crude, with the southeast section under appraisal at
a further 500 million.

Mahama said Ghana
could expect oil revenues on average to contribute seven percentage
points to annual gross domestic product, but warned it would not in
itself transform the fortunes of the country, a third of whose people
live in poverty.

“Ghana cannot see
the oil industry as a miracle wand to solve all problems. Rather, the
country can prudently use this resource to achieve significant economic
turn around,” he said, noting plans to base a nascent petrochemicals
sector on gas from the field.

Mahama stressed the
importance of ensuring local employment in the oil business, which has
typically been more capital than labour-intensive, and said oil revenue
management legislation aimed at ensuring transparency was before
parliament.

The field is due to
take four to six months to reach planned output of 120,000 barrels per
day – a level it will maintain for three years, Ghana’s energy minister
told Reuters in an interview last month.

Kosmos’ stake

Oil firm, Kosmos
Energy, said it had $350 million of extra credit to develop its assets
in Ghana’s Jubilee field and was committed to staying in Ghana, a week
after it said it cancelled an accord to sell its stake to ExxonMobil.

“The funds will
support Kosmos’ share of Jubilee Field phase one development, appraisal
of additional discoveries, and ongoing exploration activities on the
West Cape Three Points Block and adjacent Deepwater Tano Block offshore
Ghana,” it said in a statement issued in Dallas.

Ghana’s state
petroleum company, GNPC, a fierce opponent of the sale of the Kosmos
stake to ExxonMobil for what sources close to the deal put at $4
billion, last week reiterated its interest in the Kosmos assets.

But the Kosmos
statement noted the new funding was part of its plan to build on the
value of its assets and repeated that “the company will remain in
Ghana.”

Kosmos is backed by
private equity firms, Warburg Pincus and Blackstone Group LP. It is the
operator of the West Cape Three Points Block in which it holds a 30.875
percent interest and holds an 18 percent interest in the Deepwater Tano
block.

With eight months
to the deadline, banks are already gearing up for compliance with the
new uniform accounting system recently introduced by the Central Bank
of Nigeria (CBN).

In a circular
issued to the 24 commercial banks by the banking and payment system
department of the CBN and dated July 14, the banks were given a nine
month compliance period to migrate to the new system, which ends on
April 2011.

To be known as the
Nigerian Uniform Bank Account Number (NUBAN) system, the aim is to
standardise account numbers in banks in order to eliminate delays that
come with filling wrong account numbers for clearance.

Under the new
format, every bank is required to create and maintain a NUBAN code for
every customer account in its customer records database, which should
be the only account number to be used at all interfaces with a bank
customer. The Central Bank said the new format is in line with
international best practice and is expected to enhance the e-payment
system.

“We expect every
bank to maintain their present account numbers and use them for their
internal operations only as from the effective date of NUBAN, but every
such account number would have to be mapped to a NUBAN code as an
alternate account number,” the bank said in the circular. The new
number format will comprise 13 digits which includes the three-digit
bank code and a 10-digit NUBAN code.

Banks’ compliance

Moshood Isamotu,
Afribank spokesperson, said the bank had put in place modalities to
meet the deadline. “We have started implementing, even though we have a
nine month period. Our technology platform is flexible and can
accommodate such change,” he said. He added that Afribank would comply
with the CBN directive and begin to issue compliant account numbers to
its customers as soon as possible.

Frank Barde, head
of corporate affairs of Union Bank of Nigeria Plc, said the bank was
still studying the directive and would ensure that its customers are
carried along. “We have nine months to comply. We will look at the
document and follow up as directed by the CBN,” he Barde said.
Intercontinental Bank on its part said the deadline period gives it
enough time to ensure compliance. “We are understudying and looking at
the implementation within the timeline given by the central bank,” said
a source in the bank who spoke off record.

Migration

The Central Bank
said banks are to submit their comprehensive migration plan to the new
system one month from the release of the circular. Compliance
monitoring will commence six months from the release of the circular.
“Any infractions to the dictates and stringent timelines provided in
this document shall attract severe sanctions as may be determined by
the Central Bank of Nigeria from time to time,” the circular stated.

The bank noted that
the upsurge in automated direct credit was as a result of the January
2009 directive that all ministries, departments, and agencies should
replace all forms of cheque payments with electronic payments, hence
the need to adopt a new cheque number system to make clearing and
settlements of cheques less cumbersome.

“As the Automated
Clearing House volume increased, so have complaints of banks and bank
customers resulting from the incidents of abuse of the clearing
system.”

The Central Bank
said the change would enable Nigeria to fully comply with the 10-digit
Account Number structure required by the West Africa Monetary Institute
(WAMI) towards the economic integration of ECOWAS countries.

If you are one of
those always-wanting-to-spend-the-money types who work in the IT
department of a multinational that has billions to spend on IT, you can
stop reading now. This article is not targeted at you.

But if, on the
other hand, you belong to one of the small or medium enterprises that
constantly need to justify cost, the question must have arisen before:
where can I get XYZ program that will not cost an arm and a leg? Truth
is that, in Nigeria, some just plunk down to Otigba and buy the
software for N300.

But that is piracy, deemed to be a crime, and a serious business cannot afford to take that route any more.

But before you pay
another kobo to Microsoft or another software publisher, consider
whether you can use a free or open-source application instead. Just
about every commercial application you use on a daily basis has an open
source alternative.

The most well known
open source software is the Operating System which serves as an
alternative to the almost ubiquitous Microsoft Windows operating system, Linux. However,
because of the fact that just about every computer you buy from a
vendor already has Windows pre-installed, there is no need to switch
from that. You have already paid for it when buying the computer, and I
am not quite sure that PC Outlet or any of the other major computer
vendors in Nigeria would refund the N12k plus that a Windows license
costs nowadays. In any event, there are a lot of other applications
that need to be installed, and paid for.

Whether you are
looking out for your small business or personal computing needs, the
open source community delivers excellent applications that are
completely free of charge. In most cases all you need is a working
Internet connection to download the software and you are home free.
Using these applications can save you loads of money. The poster child
for free and open software in the Windows world for the past few years
has been Mozilla’s popular browser, Firefox. Ahh, those young ones who
spend a lot of time on Facebook must be nodding their heads in
agreement right now. No other open-source software has taken the world
of software by as much storm as the little browser, and none has been
as successful in winning converts. But in an office environment, a
browser is not the most important thing so let us start from the basics.

Anti virus

In my experience,
this is the single most important piece of software that you need to
have on your computer, and quite often, the most overlooked. A lot of
people on popping their new computer out of the packaging take a look
at the Norton or McAfee that ship with the computers, and believe that
they have protection.

Rain check here,
these factory installed anti-viruses while having their own merit have
one fatal flaw; they are time-bound. In almost no time at all, you’ll
find that your copy of Norton has expired, and to continue to receive
protection from software you have to subscribe, for a fee. To get
around this,I advice
uninstalling those software and getting either AVG or Avast
anti-viruses. They are very good programs (AVG has been ranked highest
at Cnet.com forever now). AVG has an integrated spyware suite. Another
program that is fit for purpose is Google’s anti-spyware offering.

Office and Productivity Software

The next thing you
will need in your office is your productivity software, and this is
where Microsoft’s Office Suite is king. But the question is can you
afford the licence to buy six copies of Office for your computers? No
worry needed here-OpenOffice.org (OOo) has been around for many years
as a feasible substitution for just about any operating system. It
includes Writer for word processing, Calc for spreadsheets, Impress for
presentations, Draw for illustrating, and Base for databases.

OOo is pretty much
a copy of MS Office 2003, with a few improvements such as support for
Microsoft’s OOXML format that later versions of MS Office default to.

However, unlike MS
Office, OOo does not include an email client (Outlook). For an email
client like Outlook, you can download and use Mozilla Thunderbird. You
may even consider Mozilla’s SeaMonkey, an all-in-one Internet suite
which includes a browser, email and newsgroup client, HTML authoring
program (Dreamweaver), and chat client.

Scribus is an open
source substitute for Microsoft’s Publisher. It does offer page layout
control and provides professional publishing features, such as CMYK
color, separations, ICC color management, and PDF creation. Some people actually use it as a replacement for CorelDraw.

Photo/Video Editing

For an open source
alternative to Adobe Illustrator, there exists Inkscape. It’s a vector
graphics editor similar to Illustrator and CorelDraw. For those who are
Adobe Photoshop users, there is the GIMP.

Kino can substitute
for the video editing application Adobe Premiere, while PiTiVi is an
excellent video editing program for those who just want to do the
simple stuff.

Again for amateur video producers, try Avidemux. It still supports editing AVI, MPEG files, MP4, and ASF using a variety of codecs.

Money Management and Accounting

My personal
favourite in this category is Eqonomize, but I’m not quite sure there
is a Windows version. Grisbi is more for simple personal accounting,
suitable for the family budget, similar to the commercial products MS
Money and Quicken.

GnuCash is a
personal and small-business financial accounting application. It offers
more-advanced features, as in PeachTree and QuickBooks. GnuCash
supports import from both Microsoft Money and Quicken. Also it can
communicate with your bank accounts, though this feature is hardly used
in Nigeria.

Some finance
analysts have said that the recent change in leadership of the Nigerian
Stock Exchange (NSE) would bring stability to the market soon, despite
the current unsteady performances at the Exchange.

The NSE measuring
parameters, which recorded gains in three of the five trading days last
week, depreciated at the close of Monday’s trading by 0.51 percent.

Laoye Jaiyeola,
president of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, said the
recent action taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to
regulate the Exchange is similar to that which the Central Bank took
over the banking industry.

“I believe what the
SEC is trying to do is to ensure a strong, stable, and safe capital
market for all investors,” Mr. Jaiyeola said.

He said the regulatory measures the Exchange Commission has taken will soon boost investors’ confidence in the market.

David Adonri, chief
executive officer of Lambert Trust and Securities Company Limited, a
stock broking company, is also optimistic that the market “may firm
stronger as we approach the end of the third quarter.

“The past weeks
have been very turbulent in the market but there is calmness now,” he
said, adding that investors’ confidence is gradually picking up.

Market performance

Meanwhile, at the
close of trading on Monday, the NSE market capitalisation recorded
about N32 billion losses on Friday’s figure of N6.140 trillion, to
close at N6.108 trillion; while the All-Share Index lost 130.21 units
down from 25,106.86 basis points to close at 24,976.65.

A total of 27
stocks appreciated, yesterday, in price while 38 stocks depreciated.
Evans Medicals, Spring Bank, and Northern Nigerian Flourmills topped
the gainers chart for the day with five percent price appreciations.
However, Union Homes topped the losers chart for the day with five
percent depreciation.

The banking sector
led the market transaction volume today with 133.895 million units
valued at N1.001 billion exchanged in 3,000 deals.

Transactions in the
shares of Zenith Bank, UBN, FCMB, and Fidelity Bank boosted the volume
traded in the sector. The total volume of 78.92 million units valued at
N534.637 million traded in the shares of the four banks accounted for
58.40 percent of the entire sector volume and their value represented
53.39 percent of the sector’s value.

The downward trend dominated trading activities in the banking
sector on Monday as the sector records four gainers to 13 losers.At the
Exchange’s floor yesterday, Goldlink Insurance, in its second quarter
financial result of 2010, recorded 10 percent growth in gross earnings
and a 22.11 percent decline in profit after tax.

More than 600
workers at Exxaro’s mineral sands unit in South Africa went on strike
on Monday, a union said, while 1,700 planned to do the same at a Rio
Tinto-BHP Billiton joint venture.

The National Union
of Mineworkers (NUM) said workers at Exxaro’s KwaZulu Natal sand units
were demanding a 14 percent rise in wages. The company has offered an 8
percent increase.

“Our strike is
indefinite. With us, you either deliver on our demands or you go fry
eggs,” Bhekani Ngcobo, the union’s regional coordinator for the
province, said in a statement.

Trevor Arran, the
head of Exxaro’s mineral sands and base metals businesses, said the
company would ask the union to drop its wage demand as it was higher
than the below 8 percent pay settlements at its other units and core
businesses.

“We certainly think it is unrealistic,” Arran said.

Arran said the
strike would not impact Exxaro’s operations as production at the mines
had been suspended before the strike and the company also had enough
stockpile of slag, used to produce titanium dioxide, at the units with
a 200,000 tonnes annual slag output capacity.

Ngcobo said the
union was demanding that Exxaro phases out a certain grade in which
workers’ monthly net pay was 5,800 rand and place them in a grade of
over 7,000 rand.

“We further demand
that the company should ban the usage of labour brokers and offer a
housing allowance of 2,000 rand a month,” Ngcobo said.

NUM also said it
would on Tuesday give 48 hours’ notice to strike at the BHP-Rio Tinto
Richards Bay Minerals joint venture if Rio Tinto did not agree to its
demands by the end of Monday.

The union is demanding a 10 percent pay rise on a one-year deal. Rio Tinto has offered an 8 percent rise on a three-year deal.

The NUM is also demanding a rise in housing allowance to between 4,000 and 6,000 rand, depending on the employee group.

Rio Tinto said it would comment later on the planned strike.

South Africa, the
continent’s biggest economy, has been hit by a wave of strikes and
strike threats in both the private and public sector, which have led to
above-inflation settlements and stoked fears that the cost of living
will rise.

South Africa’s inflation rate slowed to 4.2 percent in June.

Shares in Exxaro were up 1.48 percent at 114.88 rand by 1349 GMT, compared with a 1.83 percent rise on the JSE’s Top-40 Index.

The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation and LNG Japan Corporation have began discussion on strategic collaboration on the Brass Liquefied Natural Gas (BLNG).

This followed the visit of the LNG Japan Corporation team led by its President and Chief Executive Officer, Yasunori Takagi, to the corporation in Abuja.

The collaboration would provide the world’s most competitive finance and gas marketing opportunity in Asia, the petroleum managing director, Austen Oniwon, said on Thursday.

“This is part of efforts to fast track the exploration of the abundant gas resources in the country to increase Federal Government’s revenue from the oil and gas sector,” he said.

Mr Oniwon expressed the willingness and readiness of the NNPC to collaborate with LNG Japan Corporation in the value chain.

He also urged LNG Japan to expedite action as the Federal Government had given the NNPC a timeline for the Final Investment Decision (FID) on the LNG projects.

“Japan LNG Corporation is welcome into Nigeria and NNPC as a major stakeholder in all the LNG projects in the country, is willing to partner with you and do business that will be of mutual interest to both parties,” Mr Oniwon said.

He said when the Petroleum Industry Bill currently before the National Assembly is passed into law, the Corporation will transmute into a ring fenced organisation that will play in the international hydrocarbon market like other National Oil Companies.

He urged Japan LNG Corporation to serve as a vehicle that will help link the NNPC to other gas markets in the Asian Continent noting that there was room for expansion up to train 7.
Mr Oniwon congratulated the Japanese chief executive on his appointment and encouraged Mr Yasunori to brace for the challenges in the hydrocarbon industry.

Also speaking, the Group Executive Director (Gas and Power), Voka Mukoro, said NNPC is prepared to ensure the smooth take off of the transaction.

He called on LNG Japan to be frank and open as the business framework was being developed for the mutual benefit of Nigeria and Japan.
Earlier, Yasunori Takagi had lauded NNPC for selecting LNG Japan Corporation as a strategic investor.

The Nigerian Stock
Exchange said on Thursday, that it was cutting a third of its staff,
three weeks after, its director general was removed amid governance
concerns and auditors were called in to assess its state of health.

The Securities and
Exchange Commission (SEC) appointed a former top Deloitte accountant as
interim manager and appointed accountancy firm KPMG to audit the books
earlier this month, after removing Ndi Okereke-Onyuike, the director
general.

“In furtherance of
its goal to restore investor confidence in the Nigerian capital market,
the council of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) decided to reduce the
exchange’s staff strength by 32.5 per cent from 292 to 197 staff
members,” the bourse said in a statement signed by its spokesman Sola
Oni.

The new head of the
SEC, Arunma Oteh, who took over in January, has pledged tighter
regulation and surveillance as part of an overhaul of Nigeria’s capital
markets.

The SEC said
Okereke-Onyuike’s removal was aimed at restoring confidence amid
worries about inadequate market oversight, allegations of financial
mismanagement, ongoing litigation, and an unclear succession plan for
its leadership.

Ms Oteh said in May the reforms would ultimately involve the
demutualisation of the stock exchange, which would turn it into a
listed company, making it more globally competitive and giving it a
larger incentive to bring in profitable new products such as
derivatives or exchange-traded funds.

The United States
will provide financing of $45 million for a power project in mainland
Tanzania and Zanzibar, the U.S. embassy said in a statement on
Thursday.

The funding is part
of a $698 million grant to the East African country by the United
States in 2008 under the Millennium Challenge Corporation to fund
water, energy, and infrastructure. A total of $206 million has been
allocated for energy projects.

“The work involves
the construction and rehabilitation of 24 power substations throughout
the mainland and on Unguja (the main island of the Zanzibar
archipelago),” said the statement.

The financing agreement is scheduled to be signed in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, on Friday.

The contract has been awarded to a joint venture between the U.S. firm, Symbion Power LLC, and French company, Areva.

The agreement will
finance the manufacture and installation of a new 100 megawatt
submarine power cable between mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar, according
to the U.S. embassy.

In April, the
United States and Zanzibar signed a $28 million package to finance a
power project aimed at alleviating frequent electricity outages in the
semi-autonomous islands.

Erratic power
supply is the bane of the economy of the Indian Ocean archipelago,
which relies on tourism for more than 25 percent of its gross domestic
product and 70 percent of its foreign exchange.

Electrical power was restored to Zanzibar on March 8, three months after the islands were plunged into darkness.

Ever
since the introduction of Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM)
in 2001 in Nigeria, mobile phones have become ubiquitous that they
permeate every area of people’s lives.
But
the latest innovation is a novel one facilitated in South Africa by
Nokia, a global mobile phone manufacturer renowned for its user
friendly phones. Phone technology will become more innovative as
reported in the African Business August/September edition.
“A
South African-designed mobile application for smartphones is diagnosing
ailments via mobile technology aided by a panel of doctors,” the report
said.
It
was conceived by 20 four Labs’ Werner Erasmus, who won the first
position in Nokia’s Calling All Innovators Africa 2009 competition with
a prize money of $85, 000. The mobile application, called ‘Afridoctor’,
was designed as an alternative information service for people who have
limited access to health care.

Only smartphones can do this
An
engineer, Olusola Teniola, while commending this innovation, however,
expressed concern about the kind of phones that can perform such
serious operation.
In
an email, the chief operating officer of Phase3 Telecoms Ltd. said,
“The ability to identify innovative solutions that address local
problems is a probable cause for this clever application that can
reside on an open-platform operating system. Unfortunately, this is
limited to high end smart phones running a specific release of the
Symbian operating system.
“Any
application like this becomes so important, in the sense that it helps
the average man on the street to do what he wants to do in a most
convenient manner,” added Mr Teniola.
Chandra
Prakash, a radiologist at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital
(LASUTH), Ikeja, Lagos, also commended the innovation.
“I
think this is a good idea, as it is a way of communication between
patients and doctors; but there are limitations,” Mr Prakash said.
“For
instance, it affects the privacy of the doctor and his duties at
hospitals and the service would not be good for some emergency cases,
where the patients would have to come in personally to see the doctors
and needs immediate attention.
“The
benefit is that it would definitely save the patients’ time waiting in
the hospital for minor routine cases and allow the doctors to focus on
important cases. Appointment to see a doctor might take a long time, so
that can be narrowed down through the use of this application,” added
Mr Prakash.
Rasaq
Giwa-Osagie, an estate agent and a Nokia mobile phone user, equally
commended it saying, “The innovation is a brilliant idea, but it is not
exactly better than going to the hospital for diagnosis. But it serves
as a substitute way for busy individuals to access their health
issues.”
Unfortunately,
no Nokia official in Nigeria was willing to comment on the application
or whether there is a possibility that it would be available in Nigeria
in the future.