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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.

A
spokesperson of the Nigeria Communication Commission (NCC) has said
that the commission is not involved in granting tax waivers to
telecommunication companies.

The
House of Representatives had accused the commission of helping to
arrange dubious tax waivers for telecommunication companies following a
review of the Auditor General’s reports between 2003 and 2005 asking
the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the
waivers.

Reuben
Muoka, NCC’s spokesperson, said in a telephone interview, that, “Those
associating the commission with tax holiday to the telecom companies
are totally misinformed. The commission does not grant tax waivers for
telecom companies.

“Those
responsible for recommendation of tax exemptions are the Nigeria
Investment Promotion Commission (NIPC), Federal Ministry of Finance,
Federal Ministry of Commerce, National Planning, and other government
agencies.”

Mr. Muoka further explained that tax waivers are not only in the telecom sector, but in all other sectors of the economy.

“The
essence of the tax holiday to pioneers was to explore the sector and
the tax waivers given to the telecom companies were fully justified
because they met the criteria for such holiday,” he said.

Meanwhile,
Femi Babafemi, EFCC spokesperson, said that investigations were ongoing
on the matter. “I am aware that we been investigating the NCC over the
tax waivers and in relation to that we invited the former executive
vice-chairman, Ernest Ndukwe, for questioning in 2009 and the
investigation is still on.”

Encouraging first timers

Also
speaking, Kenneth Ugbechie, the secretary of Africa Telecoms
Development Initiative, a non-governmental organisation, said, “When
the telecom companies were given licences in 2001, they were given tax
waiver, which is the same principle all over the world for people that
are investing into business venture, which is called tax wavier or tax
holiday.

“It
is to encourage first timers and that was what the federal government
did in the case of the telecoms companies. But what people are saying
now is that the telecom companies ought not to have been given waiver
since those companies were declaring profit from day one.”

Mr.
Ugbechie explained that the reason why the telecom companies have been
making profit in their business is because they have done well.

“I
think that is illogical to say that they should not have been given tax
waiver. They started making profit because they did their job well.
They deserve to be given tax wavier because as at the time they came
into the country, the sector was poor and nobody was willing to invest
in the sector,” added Mr. Ugbechie.

Mr.
Muoka said, “The dividends of that tax holiday are very visible in all
sectors of the economy from the banking sector, labour, and several
business activities that have been generated from telecom sector.”

“The
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has improved as a result of the telecom
sector and the image of the country within the global community has
gained a lot of mileage as a result of telecom revolution,” Mr. Muoka.

“When something is done well and done rightly, we should not
quarrel with it. The House of Representatives have to be told the truth
and stop chasing shadows,” concluded Mr. Ugbechie.

“The issue is not about decision to pay or not. The issue is that the corporation is still bleeding as a result of challenges, including subsidies on petroleum products supplies that are not being replenished, making it very difficult for it to meet certain obligations. The truth, as we know in the federal ministry of finance as at today, is that NNPC’s cash flow warrants that we work with them till it is able to stand on its own as a business entity.

“One needs to understand the operations of the NNPC. One cannot be producing a product that costs N60 and be selling at N40, and would not bleed. It does not make sense. I know for a fact that the way NNPC is as at today, they do not have the cash flow to pay the debt.

“That was the immediate past minister of state for finance, Remi Babalola, responding to reporters inquiries last June at the height of the raging controversy about the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)’s insolvency and its inability to pay the over N450 billion debt to the federation accounts.

Mr. Babalola was not talking as an ordinary folk in the street. Apart from occupying the second highest office in the ministry that superintends over all matter relating to the finances of the Federal Government, he was the chairman of the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC).

Membership of the committee is composed of not only the representatives of all revenue agencies in the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, but also their affiliates at the federal level, including the federal ministry of finance, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF), Budget Office of the Federation (BOF), and the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

Therefore, there was no doubt that he was talking from a position of strength, considering that the statistics and figures of the daily operations of the state-owned oil company was at his disposal.

NNPC’s group managing director, Austen Oniwon, was to later corroborate Mr. Babalola’s position in his response to a FAAC letter giving his management a final ultimatum to come up with a firm repayment schedule.

In the letter, Mr. Oniwon was unmistaken about the facts of the serious financial difficulties the NNPC was facing, which, he claimed, has not only incapacitated its ability to regularly pay for its daily domestic allocations, but affected its capacity to settle its fuel import bills.

“The corporation is insolvent, as its current liabilities exceeded its current assets by N754 billion, as at December 31, 2008”, he declared, insisting it would be able to pay the N450 billion owed the Federation Account only when the Federal Government has reimbursed the N1.156 trillion it reportedly spent on subsidy expenses incurred for petroleum products supplies and distribution since 2003.

Other outstanding claims in favour of the NNPC, he said, included expenditures on repairing/replacement of vandalized oil industry assets and attendant petroleum products losses; demurrage and cost of holding strategic reserves for petroleum products on behalf of the government; and financial difficulties as a result of disequilibrium between operational costs and actual cash-flow streams.

Mr. Oniwon is also supremely in a position to know the difference between the truth and fallacies about the health of the organisation he presides over. All the over 31 subsidiaries and affiliates of the corporation report directly to his desk on a daily basis, therefore, the truth should not be lost on him.

Are Mr. Babalola and Mr. Oniwon in some sort of games to shield the facts about the financial state of the NNPC? Well, it is difficult for discerning followers of the controversy to conjecture a guess from the blurring façade that mirror available facts.

But, the spontaneous reaction by ministers of information and finance, Dora Akunyili and Olusegun Aganga to the contrary, that the “NNPC is not insolvent, … as a going concern” only aggravated the confusion in the debate in search of the truth.

Who is right between Mr. Babalola and Mr. Oniwon on the one hand, and Mrs. Akunyili and Mr. Aganga on the other? Are there facts available to the latter that the former could not be availed with? Could it be that Mr. Babalola, FAAC, and the NNPC were in some kind of political games to deceive Nigerians on the state of health of the organisation that epitomizes the face and strength of the Nigerian economy? Are Mrs. Akunyili and Mr. Aganga playing the ostrich, by burying their heads in the sands and pretending to demonstrate patriotic flavor by shielding the country from the harsh reality of the truth?

If the NNPC is a flourishing going concern, why is it difficult for it to pay up its debts to the Federation Account? And why is the Federal Government keeping quiet in the face of the obvious constitutional travesty? If the NNPC has been exporting Nigeria’s crude, both during high tide and low price regimes at the international market, and the constitution demands that all earnings from such sales and other activities should first be transmitted into the consolidated revenue account, why is the government tolerating the obvious recalcitrance of the NNPC, by allowing it to withhold such funds for such a long spell of time? Is this loud silence and complacency by government part of the pretentious war against corruption?

Or could Mr. Babalola’s redeployment to the special duties ministry be the price for a sacrificial lamb who dared to speak a damning truth? Whatever are the answers to the above puzzles are only in the womb of time.

Trading activities
at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) were characterised by mixed
performances last week, as market indicators continued their unsteady
movements.

The NSE All-Share
Index, at the close of last week’s trading, appreciated by 122.06 units
or 0.5 per cent to close at 25,106.86 basis points while the market
capitalisation of the 199 First -Tier equities closed higher at N6.14
trillion, after opening the week at 24,984.80 and N6.11 trillion,
respectively. The All-Share Index depreciated by 3 per cent during the
previous week.

All the four
sectorial indices depreciated at the close of trading last week. The
NSE Food/Beverage Index depreciated by 1.45 points or 0.2 per cent to
close at 810.17, the Banking Index depreciated by 1.38 points or 0.35
per cent to close at 372.12, the Insurance Index depreciated by 2.83
points or 1.6 per cent to close at 174.39 and the NSE Oil/Gas Index
depreciated by 5.84 points or 1.56 per cent to close at 370.44.

A total turnover of
1.2 billion shares worth N11.61 billion in 36,855 deals was recorded
last week, in contrast to a total of 1.23 billion shares valued at
N11.3 billion exchanged during the previous week in 33,065 deals.

Most active

The Banking
subsector was the most active during the week, measuring by turnover
volume, with 692.9 million shares worth N5.8 billion exchanged by
investors in 16,423 deals. Volume in the Banking subsector was largely
driven by activity in the shares of First Bank of Nigeria, Zenith Bank,

Fidelity Bank and
Access Bank. Trading in the shares of the four Banks accounted for
319.36 million shares, representing 46.1 per cent and 27.2 per cent of
the subsector’s turnover and total volume traded during the week,
respectively.

The Insurance
subsector, boosted by activity in the shares of AIICO Insurance and
Guaranty Trust Insurance, followed on the week’s activity chart with a
turnover of 96.1million shares valued at N108.3 million in 1,459 deals.
Last week, the Banking subsector led on the activity chart and was
followed by the Construction subsector.

Gainers increase

A total of 38
stocks appreciated in price during the week, higher than the 28 of the
preceding week. Also, as in the preceding week, Northern Nigeria Flour
Mills led on the gainers’ table with a gain of N5.83 to close at N42.84
per share while Nigerian Breweries followed with N4.59 to close at
N72.60 per share.

On the losers’
table, a total of 49 stocks depreciated in price during the week, lower
than the 64 of the preceding week. African Petroleum led on the price
losers’ table, shedding N5.79 to close at N21.20 per share while Flour
Mills of Nigeria followed with a loss of N3.01 to close at N71.00 per
share.

Two equity prices
were adjusted for interim dividend as recommended by the companies’
Board of Directors. Guaranty Trust Bank was adjusted for an interim
dividend of N0.25 per share while Nigerian Aviation Handling Company
was also adjusted for an interim dividend of N0.25 per share.

Bond trading

A turnover of
239.15 million units worth N243.862 billion in 2,890 deals was recorded
last week, in contrast to a total of 166.74 million units valued at
N170.761 billion exchanged in 1,762 deals during the previous week.

The most active
bond, in terms of turnover volume, was the 10.00 per cent FGN July 2030
with a traded volume of 50.45 million units valued at N49.384 billion
in 943 deals. This was followed by 4.00 per cent FGN April 2015 with a
traded volume of 34.5 million units valued at N28.818 billion in 336
deals. Only 18 of the available 37 FGN Bonds were traded during the
week, compared with the 20 in the preceding week.

However, there were
no transactions in the Federal Government Development Stocks, State
Government Bonds and Industrial Loans/Preference Stocks sectors.

Which is the more
remarkable? The fact that in its statistical news for July 2010, the
National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) describes the revision of the basis
for computing the consumer price index (CPI) or the fact that on the
strength of this restatement, previous estimates of domestic price
movement may have been slightly understated (as has long been suspected
by most commentators on these data)?

At issue with the
former fact is why the NBS chose July 2010 to revalue the consumption
expenditure data from the May 2003-and September 1985-based indices,
and why it opted for November 2009 as the new basis for the index? Are
there triggers for such adjustments, and what pray tell, might these
be? Or is this a periodic thing, a key part of the statistical bureau’s
calendar? In which case, when might we expect the next revaluation?

No less important a
line of enquiry is why the NBS did not think as part of this
revaluation of the basis for computing the domestic inflation rate, to
re-weight the makeup of the basket of goods on which its computation is
based.

A good number of
commentators have argued that a basket heavily weighted (65%+) in
favour of food items (including non-alcoholic beverages, and food of
the imported variety) does not sufficiently reflect the spending
patterns of the most economically active segments of the Nigerian
economy. Thus, if the quantum of spending is what matters to the
movement of prices in the economy, we shouldn’t be looking to the
all-in costs of the average Nigerian to explain such movements.
Instead, we should look to an index based on a basket that reflects the
spending patterns of the financially significant sections of this
economy.

In a sense, one
cavils a bit here. For, evidently, the NBS’ adjustment is driven by its
sense of a change in the mix of goods and services purchased by the
“typical Nigerian consumer”. To gauge the trajectory of this change,
one need only look at the composition of the basket over its many
incarnations, and the weights attached to the respective components.
For the September 1985-based index, the food component alone accounted
for 69% of the basket. This index also included a category “drinks,
tobacco, and kola”, which accounted for a little under 5% of the
basket. With the May 2003-based index, “food” alone had a weight of
63.76%. Add “non-alcoholic beverages”, and this weight rises to 64.41%.

With the new base
(November 2009), however, the bureau has introduced a new category
(“imported food” with a weight of 13.25%), on account of which the old
“food” category now has a much reduced weight of 50.70%.

The question is
what changes do these new categories tell of? Do they reflect a change
in the composition of domestic shopping baskets? Do they reflect the
entrance of new goods and services into the shopping basket, the way a
properly reflective index ought to have in the earlier parts of this
decade when telecoms spend entered household balance sheets to an
unusual extent? Or do they just show how granular the bureau can be
now, in the light of new skills and/or software?

The balance of
evidence favours more granular number crunching competences. The makeup
of the measured basket remains basically unaltered. But should we then
replace the one measure of price inflation (that of the man in the
street, plenty of numbers both, no spending weight) with the other
measure (where the size of the purses, and the items on which spending
goes are statistically significant)?

Not necessarily!
For each measure tells a different story about both the character of
the economy and its likely direction. This latter observation leads on
to another question: why do we have just one measure of inflation in
the country, when in some countries they make do with up to five?

Would, for
instance, monetary policy be better designed if we had some measure
that excluded more changeable items in the current basket? What would
we exclude from our own version of the “personal consumption
expenditures price index” to compensate for those short-term price
changes that could interfere with proper estimates of future long-term
inflation trends in the economy?

Point is that the NBS’ recent adjustments raise a few more questions than they do address.