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In an effort to
fast track the implementation of Cross River State Geographic
Information System (CRGIS), the state executive council at its meeting,
approved $1.7m (about N252 million) for the services of consultants for
the project.

Bassey Oqua, the
lands and housing development commissioner, said an American firm,
International Land System Incorporated, in partnership with Teq Bridge
Nigeria Limited, was chosen as the preferred bidder for the job, after
a technical and financial review of the four companies that applied for
the job.

Mr. Oqua said that
GIS, when fully operational, will address all challenges arising from
land administration and management, pointing out that the ratification
is the component of the phase II of the implementation process, which
started with the inauguration of a steering committee headed by the
state governor, Liyel Imoke.

The committee’s
assignment is to quicken the process and thus meet contractual
agreements on delivery of certificate of occupancy in six months.

Housing too

On the expansion of
the Urban Street light project to Federal Housing Estate and State
Housing Estates and Calabar south local government area to enhance the
aesthetics and security of Calabar, the state capital, Bassey Ekefre,
the commissioner for works, disclosed that N2.7 billion has also been
approved by the council in favour of Lileker Nigeria Limited to effect
the installation, with a three and half years moratorium at N64, 000
monthly payment.

Mr. Ekefre added
that the contractor has already been mobilised to site, as work is
expected to commence soon, adding that with a new power plant at New
Secretariat to power the street lights which were hitherto fed from
Tinapa power plant, there is a guarantee of uninterrupted power supply
to the streets.

Rosemary Achonwa,
the special adviser, mortgage finance, said that the state, in its
quest to provide affordable houses to the citizenry, secured N1.5
billion from the Federal Government to boost the development
process,while Cross River State Property and Investment Ltd. (CROSPIL)
is working on a modality to disburse the fund for development.

Ms Achonwa said the
state government, in addition to the Akpabuyo Housing Estate which
physical work commences next month, has acquired 40 hectares of land at
Odukpani to further expand the development, stressing that with the
recent enactment of the Public Private Partnership (PPP) Law 2010 by
the state, government is obliged to define accurately a housing
delivery standard for Cross River citizens.

The value of
equities at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) appreciated on Thursday
by 0.11 percent, after declining by 0.23 percent the previous day.

The NSE market
capitalisation of the 199 equities closed at N6.162 trillion after
opening the day at N6.155 trillion, reflecting 0.11 percent increase or
N7 billion gains. The market had lost over N14 billion on Wednesday
after recording gains on the first two trading days of the week.

The Exchange
All-Share Index, yesterday, also went up by 0.11 percent or a gain of
27.9 units from Wednesday’s figures of 25,170.02 basis points, to close
at 25,197.92.

Emmanuel Ikazoboh,
the newly appointed interim administrator of the NSE, said the current
trading performance shows that the market is on the recovery edge.

“It appears the
market has bottomed out. It has got to its lowest probably and it has
now started rising,” Mr. Ikazoboh said last Tuesday.

However, he said
the sustainability of the market “is dependent on the economy and the
purchasing power of the market operators.”

Assessing if the
current development in the market is attractive to foreign investors,
Tinu Badmus, a finance analyst at WealthZone Company, a portfolio
management firm, said, “I think it is too early to expect foreign
investors now with the situation of things; though some of them are
still in the market.”

She said what some
foreign investors are waiting for now before taking position in the
market “is the new management coming in to fully head the Stock
Exchange and the credibility of next year’s election.”

Gainers reduce

At the close of
trading session on Thursday, the number of gainers closed lower at 33
stocks, compared with the 34 gainers recorded the previous day; while
loser closed lower at 27 stocks, as against the 30 recorded on
Wednesday.

The banking
subsector led the market transaction volume yesterday with 146.660
million units valued at N1.331 million exchanged in 3,410 deals.
Transactions in the shares of Zenith Bank, Guaranty Trust Bank, Access
Bank, and Fidelity Bank boosted the volume traded in the sector. The
total volume of 84.126 million units valued at N951.953 million traded
in the shares of the four banks accounted for 57.36 percent of the
entire sector volume.

Sectoral review

Analysts said sell
pressures still remain relatively in the banking sector as the number
of decliners stood at eight, at the close of Thursday’s trading,
compared with six recorded on Wednesday.

Transactions in the
Breweries sector ended with all the stocks’ closing at their previous
closed prices, a repeat of the Wednesday’s trend.

Some stocks that
made gainers’ chart in the building materials sector yesterday ended
with unchanged status at the close of trading session, as the sector
recorded one gainer to three unchanged, compared with three gainers to
one unchanged recorded yesterday.

Only PZ made the
gainers’ chart in the conglomerate sector, while other four stocks
traded ended at their previous closed prices compared with one gainer
to two losers recorded the previous day.

A Kaduna
Magistrate’s Court on Thursday remanded four Afribank employees in
prison for allegedly issuing a dud bank draft to Nasiru Umar Sadiq, the
chief registrar of the Kaduna High Court of Justice.

The accused are
Kalawa Sani and Folahan Remilekun, both 47 years old; Ibrahim Adamu,
44, and Fatima Yakubu, 30, all staff of Afribank of Nigeria Plc,
Mogadishu, Kaduna branch.

The police
prosecutor, David Agei, an inspector, told the court that the accused
persons had been ordered to issue a bank draft of N37,905,821 to their
bank’s leasor and complainant, Sunday Jemedate, through Mr Sadiq in his
capacity as chief registrar.

Uganda’s President
Yoweri Museveni wants the final say on all oil and gas deals as the
country prepares to launch oil production, a letter seen by Reuters
shows.

In the letter,
dated July 19, but given to Reuters on Thursday, Mr Museveni ordered
his energy minister, Hilary Onek, not to sign any oil or gas deals
without his prior written consent.

Mr Museveni said he
was changing the normal practice of a minister signing deals on behalf
of the government after advice from the attorney general, in order to
safeguard against mistakes.

He said the
discovery of oil in Uganda had created a lot of “excitement and
stampede” among some people who were scrambling for easy money from the
commodity.

Commercial
hydrocarbon deposits were discovered in Uganda’s Lake Albert Rift basin
along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006 and
reserves are estimated at 2 billion barrels.

Shady operators
smuggled about 10,000 tonnes of cocoa out of Cameroun during the
2009/10 season, accounting for all of the No. 5 grower’s decline in
official exports, a top cocoa official said.

The Central African
state announced on Wednesday that output during the August-July season
dropped to 197,000 tonnes, below a target of exceeding last year’s
205,000 tonnes.

“Our rough estimate
is that these underground operators process about 10,000 tonnes of
cocoa beans and smuggle a similar amount to neighbouring countries,”
Apollinaire Ngwe, president of the Coffee and Cocoa Interprofessional
Board, said.

“For this reason,
the figures published today, we believe, do not reflect the real
situation of the cocoa sub-sector because of the growing number of
these unlicensed and illegal operators,” he said.

A new dimension was added to the saga of 27 months unpaid salaries for the Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (NITEL) workers.

A group of workers,
under the rather nebulous name Combative Association of NITEL/Mtel
Workers, in a letter addressed to embassies and high commissions in
Nigeria, has threatened to disrupt the 50th independence anniversary
celebrations if the federal government failed to settle the salary
arrears before then.

In the letter signed by one Teddy Umoh, the group’s national coordinator, the association said,

“We simply want to
assure you and indeed the Nigerian government that we have volunteers
across the length and breadth of this country with whom we shall
embarrass the government in such a way that no one can contemplate. We
have been pushed to the wall and we have decided to take our destiny in
our hands. We shall remain quiet while we await the approach of October
1, 2010.

“It is
inconceivable that this evil phenomenon by the name of Goodluck
Jonathan is wasting billions of naira to celebrate the country’s
independence anniversary, as well as buying presidential jets, while we
have been left to suffer this cruel fate for no just cause.”

“We are not aware”

However, the union
leaders said that their association was not aware of Mr. Umoh’s plans,
but are also working on solutions on how to handle the issue.

In a telephone
interview, Elias Kazzah, a NITEL union leader said, “I am not aware
about this plan and cannot say anything on that matter.” Also, Emmanuel
Abu, the chairman of Senior Staff Association of Communications,
Transport and Corporations (SSACTAC), NITEL, Abuja, said,

“No, we don’t have
plans towards such attack, and I don’t believe that a militant approach
would help in solving the situation at hand. We believe in solving
issues like this peacefully.

“As I speak to you, we are planning on holding a meeting tomorrow in Abuja to discuss our unpaid arrears.”

The 27 months
salary arrears have become an albatross on the federal government’s
neck, as no concrete decision has been reached on how to settle them.

In June 2009, the
federal government revoked NITEL sale to Transcorp for failure to
fulfil the terms of the sale after three years and then decided to
privatise NITEL for the fifth time.

The workers were
owed 13 months arrears as at June 2009, which cumulatively is now 27
months, with only one month salary paid to the workers last December.

Then, the federal
government promised to pay the workers five months salary in three
tranches before the end of January 2010. A sum of N3 billion was meant
to be borrowed from the accounts of NITEL Pension Fund in liquidation,
but that also failed because the liquidator decided in February to stop
all payment because of alleged harassment by some NITEL workers.

Sule Shehu, NITEL spokesperson, could not say exactly when the arrears will be paid, claiming to be “on leave.”

Nigerian businesses
need to focus on the exchange rate, just as government needs to focus
on foreign reserves management during the remaining period of 2010,
declared Doyin Salami, a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC)
of the Central Bank and lecturer at Pan African University.

He added that the
political transformation of President Goodluck Jonathan will determine
how the economy will fare in the remaining part of the year.

Speaking at the
August breakfast meeting of the Nigerian-South African Chamber of
Commerce, held in Lagos yesterday, Mr. Salami said the exchange rate of
naira against the dollar will be the biggest issue for business
managers to monitor.

“If foreign
reserves stabilise, there may not be pressure on the naira. If not,
depletion of the reserves may not be good for the economy. The biggest
points will not be interest rates, but exchange rate. Reserve
management is going to be at the heart of stability going forward and
management of exchange rate is going to be key,” he said.

Nigeria’s foreign
reserves, which stood at $62.24 billion in mid-May 2008, dropped to $36
billion on July 6 this year, its lowest level in over two years. It
climbed to $38 billion on Tuesday. Naira currently exchanges for
N148.75 to the dollar on the CBN official window, while the benchmark
interest rate is currently 6 percent.

Election spending, job creation

Salami said
election spending would have economic impact in the medium to long
term. He said there is likely to be an improvement in demand for credit
between now and January, which will be driven mostly by electoral
considerations. For this, he said the Central Bank would face a
daunting challenge managing the fallout of such venture, and the
attendant repercussion on the private sector.

He explained that
government would need to concentrate on job creation in order to
empower the youth, adding that the economy has grown in the last five
years without a commensurate creation of jobs.

“Issues of jobs and
youth empowerment have to be planned 10 to 20 years. If the economy has
to create jobs, key impediments have to be taken away,” he advised.

Such impediments
include restructuring the education sector so that institutions can
churn out employable graduates. “Not only do we have unemployment, we
also have the unemployable. So even if jobs are created, where are the
people to be employed?” He advocated for massive retraining of youth so
that many of them can be useful to the economy.

Razia Khan, Head of
Macroeconomics, Regional Head of Research, Africa at Standard Chartered
Bank, London, said in a recent report that the amount of liquidity that
has been pumped into the system, with spending ramped up dramatically
in this year’s budget, has decreased Nigeria’s savings.

Mr. Salami said
that solving the problem of power may not necessarily translate to
growth as expected unless there is efficiency in other sectors of the
economy.

“We need industries that would rely on agriculture that is high quantity, high quality, all year round.”

One way of doing
this, he added, is a review of the Land Use Act, which should be taken
out of constitutional legislation so that it becomes a policy issue.

“The Land Use Act
must be reorganised such that it makes verification and transfer of
title easy. Currently, farmers cannot pledge land, which is why banks
are not willing to finance agriculture,” he stated.

He said it is
ironic that agriculture, which contributes about 42 percent of the GDP,
does not attract credit due to the distortion in the Land Use Act,
which requires the consent of the governor before deed of title is
issued.

The global economic
growth during the first half of the year exceeded expectations, thus
necessitating a marginal upward review of the remaining half of the
year, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has
said.

OPEC, in its Oil
Market Report, August 2010, stated that the recovery was led by “a
strong pick up in both manufacturing and international trade,” adding
that “recovery in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) countries, in contrast, was more modest and relied
primarily on continued monetary and fiscal support, creating the
appearance of a two-speed world.”

The report said the
world gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2010 is estimated at 3.9
percent, marginally above July’s 3.8 percent. The 2011 forecast remains
unchanged at 3.7 percent.

Meanwhile, Mansur
Ahmed, director general of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory
Commission (ICRC), last weekend, said in spite of problems and poor
infrastructure in Nigeria, the country’s economy has grown considerably.

Mr. Ahmed said the
nation’s GDP at 7 percent was a positive indicator to growth. “I think
it is fair to say that the Nigerian economy, in spite of all its
problems and hurdles of poor infrastructure and so on, has still
continued to grow positively. The growth of the economy measured by GDP
in this quarter and for the rest of this year is in the region of 7
percent,” he said, adding that the figure is high compared to the
average growth of the most successful economies.

However, an analyst
said that the full reliance of the nation’s economy on oil revenue will
do Nigerians no good. Oladimeji Akintayo of Resource Cap Limited, an
investment advisory firm, said a country’s economy should be built
across different sectors.

“In developed
countries, revenues are generated from the processing of different
commodities into finished products. By this, jobs will be created
through manufacturing industries, distribution and marketing companies.
Government can also get revenues from taxes because a larger part of
the citizens are gainfully employed,” Mr. Akintayo said.

Forecast

Despite the
better-than-expected economic performance, OPEC said recovery in oil
demand in the first half of the year remained relatively modest.

“Global oil demand
rose by 0.7 millions of barrels per day (mb/d) and 1.3 mb/d during the
first and second quarter, respectively, but from the extremely low base
of the previous year. Looking to the second half, the pace of economic
growth is projected to slow, not only in OECD, but also across most
emerging and developing markets, indicating that oil demand growth will
remain moderate,” it further said.

The report said
global economic recovery is projected to continue through the whole of
2011, with an even distribution between the first and second half of
the year. The bulk of the recovery in oil demand is expected to occur
at approximately the same pace throughout the entire year. As in 2010,
next year’s oil demand growth is expected to take place in the
non-OECD, mainly China, India, the Middle East, and Latin America.

In an apparent deference to what many Nigerians have always
known, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revised inflation figures,
backdating it to last November. The figures, which are yet to be released
officially, said year on year consumer inflation stood at 13 percent, compared
to 14.1 percent revised for June. Previous official inflation figures for June
were given as 10.3 percent.

Apart from November figures, which remained unchanged at 12.4
percent, all other inflation figures for each month within the period were
revised upward. The revised figures were due to adjustments to previous data
available to the bureau. By these revised figures, the inflation figures for
July were still lower than that of the previous month.

For instance, previous inflation figures for December, January,
February, March, and April, which were given as 12.0 percent, 12.3 percent,
12.3 percent, 11.8 percent, and 12.5 percent, were revised to 13.9 percent,
14.4 percent, 15.6 percent, 14.8 percent, and 15 percent.

More reflective

Wale Abe, chief executive officer of Financial Market Dealers
Association (FMDA), said the inflation figures for July was more reflective of
what is on ground. Mr. Abe said the inflation figures were likely to continue
due to increased spending by government.

“The CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) will try its best to manage
the situation, but we know that unfortunately, it has little control over
fiscal policies of government. This is an election year and a lot of money will
find its way into the system,” he said.

Razia Khan, head of Macroeconomics, Regional Head of Research,
Africa, at Standard Chartered Bank, London, made a similar observation in her
forecast of the economy released yesterday.

Ms. Khan said the Central Bank would need to adopt measures in
order to keep inflation within manageable levels. “Increased OMOs (Open Market
Operations) may be necessary if excess liquidity feeds into unsustainable
demand for FX, and the potential for pressure on the naira,” she stated in her
forecasts.

She said there were palpable concerns for the value of the naira
as a result of factors that would be outside the control of the CBN.

“A bigger issue is the sheer amount of liquidity that has been
pumped into the system, with spending ramped up dramatically in this year’s
budget, and an increased pace of disbursal from the excess crude account,
eroding much of Nigeria’s saved oil windfall.”

Ms. Khan expressed concern that much of the inflation pressure
was from food items, with food inflation rising to 14 percent year on year,
from 12 percent the previous year. She said much of the pressure is from local food
items rather than imported food. “The pressure is much more likely to be
localised, but with August and September traditionally seeing food prices
coming off, we are not yet overly concerned about the near term outlook for
Nigerian inflation.”

Efforts to get further clarification on the revised inflation
figures were not successful.

Sunday Ichedi, NBS head of statistical information, said that the revised
figures were yet to be released officially and so he would not comment on the
issue. “I am yet to get the hard copy myself,” Mr. Ichedi said.