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Yewande Adigun, a pepper seller at Ipodo market in Ikeja, Lagos,
said the prices of food items are increasing by the day, without tangible
explanations, apart from the rainy season.

“It is true that things are usually expensive this season, rainy
season, but this time around, it is very serious and customers especially do
not understand,” Mrs Adigun said.

“The prices of baskets of the tomatoes I sell have increased. A
basket of tomatoes today cost N9000. I bought it N2800 last week. Do you
understand, and that is what people have been talking about since morning. The
price increase cuts across almost all the things that are sold in the market”
she explained.

Harsh faces of food sellers adorn the markets with threats to
take their goods home than sell at give away prices.

Reflection of global
trend

Lydia Olushola, an economist and consultant at Skytrend Nig. Ltd
said to a large extent, rising food prices usually reflect global trends.

“Food-price inflation is sometimes globally prone, with the
prices of different food types such as grains, cooking oils, vegetables, meat
and other stuff all rising by varying degrees reflecting, in part, more intense
competition for the same resources in the production of different food
products. Sometimes however, local factors are also responsible for pushing up
prices of certain items in individual countries”.

Ms Olushola added that food price inflation affects general
price inflation since it contributes directly to general consumer-price
inflation as food is a major component of the Consumer Price Index.

She also said that if not addressed accordingly, it may lead to
non-food inflation as higher food-price inflation may consequently prompt
higher earning demands to compensate for rising food costs, consequently
bringing about some cost-push inflation. Besides that, it may generate higher
inflation expectations.

“People tend to work on the anticipation that things are usually
expensive in one period or the other of the year, create higher inflation
expectations for that period, and set prices accordingly, which would now
generate some form of second-round effects on prices”.

She however says an economy with a credible monetary-policy
framework will help to keep inflation expectations under control in the event
of unexpected price surge.

Rising price index

The Composite Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 12.5 per cent
year-on-year in April, according to the latest report issued in May by the
Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS). This is higher than 11.8 percent recorded
in the previous month. The monthly change of the CPI was 1.2 per cent increase
in April when compared with March.

The year-on-year average consumer price level as at April for
urban and rural dwellers rose by 7.9 and 14.8 per cent respectively.

Average monthly food prices rose by 1.4 percent in April when
compared with March of same year. The level of the Composite Food Index was
higher than the corresponding level a year ago by 14.3 percent. The average
annual rate of rise of the index was 13.6 percent for the 12-month period
ending April.

The rise in the index was caused mainly by increase in the
prices of some food items like yam, potato, meat, sea food, fruits, tomatoes, fresh
vegetables and non-alcoholic beverages.

Global food prices rose notably in 2007 and in early 2008, with
the prices of several agricultural commodities such as wheat, maize and, more
recently, rice, surging ahead. As well as heightening social concerns, higher
food-price inflation has also triggered concerns over broader price stability
and led to some delicate weighing of risks by monetary policy-makers, at a time
of unusually high uncertainty over global growth.

Workers in the oil
and gas sector on Thursday, assured Nigerians that the proposed
increase in petroleum products prices would not be effected without the
approval of labour unions.

Reacting to the
proposal by the National Economic Management Team (NEMT) for the
government to increase the petrol price from N65 to N100 per litre, the
workers said the body was in no position to make such a suggestion.

The oil and gas
workers belong to the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas
Workers (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association
of Nigeria (PENGASSAN).

Mr Babatunde Ogun,
the PENGASSAN president, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos
that the NEMT was usurping the responsibility of another government
agency.

“The team is not in
the proper agency to make such proposal. The Petroleum, Products
Pricing, Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) is the one charged with the
responsibility to do so,” he said.

The union leaders
explained that before the government could increase the price of
petrol, certain fundamentals needed to be considered and certain things
put in place.

According to him,
some notable Nigerians were appointed members of the committee on
deregulation of the oil and gas sector and their input must be
considered before any price increase.

Ogun cautioned that
if the fuel price was increased without the government implementing
certain yearnings of workers, it would not be acceptable to Nigerians.

Another labour
leader, Elijah Okougbo, NUPENG General Secretary, said that the union
would protect consumers from any increase that would have an adverse
effect on them.

“We are keeping our
eyes open, but do not think that the government will increase the price
of fuel from N65 to N100 without the knowledge or contribution of the
unions,” Mr Okougbo said.

He noted that the
NLC was represented on the committee set up by the government to
deliberate on deregulation and price increase of petroleum products,
which had not concluded its assignment.

“The committee is still sitting and even the issue was debated at
the NEC meeting of the NLC in Kaduna. No increase was mentioned,” he
said.

Nigeria’s ambitious oil reforms look set to be delayed further
as lawmakers give more consideration to government and foreign oil company
concerns, a senior government official said on Thursday.

A new president and a cabinet reshuffle, including a change in
oil ministers, looks likely to prompt Nigeria’s parliament to revisit issues,
stalling the final stages of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) after years of
development.” Remember, there has been a recent change in government,” said
Philip Chukwu, executive director of exploration and production for Nigeria’s
petroleum ministry, when asked why the PIB was still in deliberation.”

The National Assembly are looking at areas of concern,
especially the international oil companies … We have our own concerns,” Mr
Chukwu said on the sidelines of a Nigerian investment conference in London.

The PIB aims to make state oil firm NNPC more competitive and
transparent, encourage outside investment, promote local oil company
involvement and increase gas supplies to the dilapidated domestic market. But
international oil companies worry the bill will impose higher taxes and
royalties while failing to address key issues of under-funding, corruption and
security.

More disagreements

“I definitely think it (PIB) will be delayed further because
there are so many contentious issues in it,” said Holly Pattenden, Nigeria
expert at London-based Business Monitor International.” The fact that the
administration has changed means that they’re going to have to look at it very
closely, and I expect there to be more disagreements.”

With elections due to be held in April next year, new oil
minister Diezani Allison-Madueke and Nigeria’s government are running out of
time to pass the oil reform legislation. Nigeria relies on its energy industry
for 90 percent of export revenue, but Africa’s second-largest economy has never
fully realised its production potential due to sabotage of oil facilities,
which has cut out a third of its capacity of three million barrels per day.

A government amnesty last year encouraged thousands of militants
to lay down their weapons and led to months without attacks, which allowed oil
companies to make pipeline repairs and ramp up output. However, several
incidents last month pointed to a resurgence in oil theft and pipeline
sabotage, threatening to set back the post-amnesty progress.

Speaking at Thursday’s conference, which focused on investment in the
restive oil-producing Niger Delta region, Chukwu said militant unrest had been
successfully diffused.” Pipeline vandalism is declining and I can say
production in Nigeria has risen,” he said. Chukwu said crude oil and condensate
production was around 2.5 million barrels per day.

On May 17, 2007, at its annual shareholders’ meeting, a private
shareholder asked David Clementi, chairman of Prudential, the UK insurance giant,
if the company had ‘the strategy, strength and scale to stave off a breakup or
a merger?’ In his response, Mr Clementi, a former deputy governor of the Bank
of England, assured the shareholder that Pru had the ‘strategy, scale and we
have the strength.’ But he did sound a note of caution. ‘Looking ahead, we will
return to these structural issues. Life changes and businesses change. We will
return and we will do so against the one main yardstick [we use to] operate the
group, namely shareholder value.’

Exactly, three years later, on 17 May, the group launched an
audacious $21 billion rights issue, the second biggest ever in sterling, to
fund its planned $35.5 billion takeover of AIA, the Asian business operations
of AIG. Piloting the deal was Prudential’s chief executive, Tidjane Thiam,
ex-McKinsey partner and one-time Ivorien government minister, who was named CEO
in October 2009. Mr Thiam had promised shareholders that AIA will be worth $60
billion in two years, that is, nearly double its purchase price.

Since news of the deal first leaked in February, Prudential had
been under a lot of pressure from its shareholders to either abandon it or
renegotiate its terms. Last week, RiskMetrics, the proxy g6adviser, wrote that
‘a full price, integration risks and ambitious targets that barely meet the
cost of capital do not make a compelling combination.’ It recommended that they
reject the proposal.

In May, Robin Geffen, managing director of Neptune Investment
Management, which owns 0.2 per cent of Prudential shares, began actively
organising shareholders to oppose the acquisition. On
www.prudentialactiongroup.com, a special purpose website, he created to
mobilize dissident shareholders, the manager claimed to have won the backing of
about 20 per cent of Pru’s shareholders.

Another shareholder, David Cummings, head of Investments at
Standard Life Investments, which controls about 2 per cent of Pru’s outstanding
shares, said, ‘We and other shareholders believe the price is too high and the
financial case for the deal hasn’t been particularly well articulated. When
you’re raising £14 billion one needs a lot of strategic and financial
precision. We are sceptical on price and we are not clear in terms of the
strategy.’ It gets worse.

Peter Lees, Head of UK Equities at F&C Asset Management
which owns just under 0.7 per cent of the company pointed out that while it
‘had no issue with the Prudential’s strategy of expansion or acquisition per se
and is broadly supportive of the rationale for developing its presence in Asia,’
it was uncomfortable with ‘the economics of the deal which leave no margin for
error in the delivery of revenues and cost synergies.’

On Wednesday, Prudential announced that it was walking away from
AIA. The insurer obliquely implied that the refusal of the board of AIG, owners
of AIA, to accept a lower price was its reason for exit. How much of that is
damage control spiel and how much of it is delusion should be clear to all.
Prudential’s shareholders, not the AIG board, defeated the deal.

From the start, there were serious questions when the
shareholders who voiced strong reservations about the transaction were not the
typical ravaging ‘locusts’, that is, short-termist hedge fund managers. On the
contrary, they were long-term shareowners who until now had supported the
board.

Vote of no confidence

Shareholders may bear an imperial CEO who has an impeccable
track record a la Jack Welch of delivering value; an imperious Caligula does
not stand a chance. Since the termination announcement, powerful shareholders
have called for Thiam’s departure. In my honest view, their rejection of the
deal was really a vote of no confidence on Thiam’s leadership.

Complexity, integration, pricing, timing, valuation and all of
that are red herring. Investors were not ready to give the Pru CEO a blank
cheque. Despite his illustrious antecedents in management consulting he is
still a ‘suspect quantity’ in the capital markets. The ability to deliver
shareholder value is not just an objective extrapolation from strategy, scale
and strength. It is a direct function of a CEO’s tested and tried reputation
for stirring those three ingredients into a sweet sauce.

Back in March, when he briefly considered accepting an
invitation to the board of Société Générale, the French bank, Jane Coffey, head
of UK equities at Royal London Asset Management, which manages Pru shares,
advised Thiam that he really ought to concentrate on ‘his day job.’
Shareholders were not convinced then that he had the bandwidth to moonlight
just yet. Even with the excruciating pain of $652.5 million in breakup fees,
they have repeated it again loud and clear, ‘show us you can crawl before
running.’ So while Prudential has the S-Factor, its CEO still needs more time
to make his bones. I mean, X-factor.

Google continues to
push the boundaries in providing features that are revolutionising the
way we use the Internet, such as efficient basic keyword searching,
analytics, the chrome browser, developer tools /API kit, Google Cloud,
ad words and ad sense (- which allows anyone who has any type of
content on the web to monetise it and make a decent income, if there’s
significant traffic to the site, portal, blog etc).

To go even further,
these Google products are integrated with mobile telephone technology,
making it possible to utilise these features on the move. Let me delve
further into the Google doc’s application.

Google docs (Google Cloud)

As the name
implies, Google docs is another unique feature which allows you to
create word documents, and excel spreadsheets that can be accessed,
amended and saved over the Internet. Even with low Internet access
connectivity speeds, the docs’ applications seem quite responsive:
making it a very crucial tool. A programme director in a bank, who has
to work quite a lot off site pointed out to me that this feature
enables him to work as efficiently (as being in the office) and
provides him with access to his essential documents and data in
whatever part of the world he arrives at by just getting on the
Internet.

Now I will have to
assume, since I don’t work for Google (and not privy to the thinking
behind creating Google Docs) that the product will likely be utilised
by corporate professionals (such as my bank friend) who does not sit in
front of a desk in the same office on a day to day basis and is quite
mobile.

Pertinent
questions: Is Google in direct competition with Virtual Private
Networks which most corporations, companies, universities, government
establishments and others who allow remote working of any kind already
have? A virtual Private Network literally tunnels through the World
Wide Web to provide encrypted remote access to everything on your
desktop just as if you were in the office including access to your
corporate email account and all other applications used within your
organisation.

•In today’s age,
laptops are portable and available in even smaller sizes (at very
affordable prices), so it is likely that most people who will have a
need to access documents and other data in real time or round the clock
from wherever they are, will already carry a laptop.

The way Google docs
will fare in competing with the two alternatives above, probably cannot
be predicted at this stage but again it is another innovative feature
from the folks at Google to assist in providing us, with an even more
efficient way of working and collaborating.

The obvious
implication for Microsoft Office application suite is also noteworthy
and the question here is will Microsoft roll over and allow their
market place dominance in this area be threatened or will they simply
attempt to give out office applications as all bundled into the Windows
Operating System?

We could be looking
at another revolution in the making, in the way, we create, save,
manage, and use our documents from remote locations, or working from
multiple locations but I suspect that the take on Google Docs has been
slower than expected which could also be attributed partly to the
bullet points above.

The writer is an international IT and Business Process Consultant.(Written in Italics

South Africa’s food
prices will rise gradually from 2011 partly as the economic recovery
gains pace, increasing the likelihood of more protests, the
Agricultural Business Chamber said on Wednesday.

Households,
especially in the lower-income level, spend a large chunk of their
income on food and higher food prices in recent years contributed to
millions of people’s inability to escape poverty, more than 16 years
after the end of apartheid.

John Purchase,
chief executive of the chamber said any spike in food prices could
signal increased activism and possible strikes by powerful labour
federation Cosatu.

“While food prices
are still coming down at the moment… it is going to bottom out
probably within the next six months or so,” he said on the sidelines of
an agriculture conference. “There will be gradual increases in food
prices, we believe, again from 2011. How big that rise is, is very
difficult to predict.”

South Africa’s
annual consumer price inflation slowed more than expected to a
four-year low of 4.8 percent in April as food price pressure eased,
compared with March’s 5.1 percent. Inflation has slowed sharply since
peaking close to 14 percent in 2008 and food price inflation, the main
driver at the time, has trended downwards, slowing to 0.9 percent on an
annual basis in April.

Protests

Cosatu and Fedusa-
two of the largest union federations in the country — protested
against high food prices in 2008. Although the biggest economy in
Africa has emerged from its first recession since 1992, household
finances are tight after about a million jobs were shed and as debt
levels remain high.

Purchase said the
first sign of food inflation would be seen in the price of maize, which
is expected to ease further in the short-term partly due to a bountiful
harvest. South Africa’s agricultural minister said in April the country
had secured foreign markets to sell the surplus maize produced in the
2009/10 season to help safeguard maize prices for local farmers.

“We have a big surplus of 4 million tonnes and if it’s not all
exported… it’s going to depress prices probably into the next season
quite significantly, that’s why I say there is going to be a time lag
in this whole period,” he said. “As we see economic recovery taking
place we will probably see bigger demand for resources, like oil and
fertilizer … So all this puts pressure on demand for (commodities
like maize) and that’s going to drive up food prices.”