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Business activities
resumed on Thursday at the Calabar branch of the Central Bank of
Nigeria which was sealed on Wednesday by the Cross River Board of
Internal Revenue Service over tax default allegedly for five years.

Officials of the
state Internal Revenue accompanied by security agents on Wednesday
afternoon ordered all staff to close and locked up the office entrance.
But the staff questioned that their Pay As You Earn (PAYE) which is
deducted monthly by the CBN management is not remitted to the state
government’s coffers.

According to
Akumaye Adie, the Revenue Service Director of PAYE, the amount which
was more than Nl00 million was reduced to N56 million following a
waiver on interest and penalty granted to the bank. The CBN was,
however, said to have paid N30 million but “refused” to pay the balance
of N26 million in spite of repeated demands and representations by BIRS
officials.

But, Mr. Adie, told
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the CBN branch was reopened on
Thursday following a commitment by its management that the money would
be paid next week.

Besides, he said
that the unsealing of the bank was also facilitated by consideration
given to the plea of all the banks in Calabar.

He said, “The
management of CBN had a long discussion with our chairman and at the
end they promised to pay the money next week, unfailingly.

“In fact, the way
the agreement was reached, the money will be remitted to us on Monday
or Tuesday,” he said. He, however, said that if the bank failed to pay
the money as promised, “We may have to go back and seal the place
again”. The News Agency of Nigeria reports that normal business has
resumed at the apex bank which is located on Calabar Road, in the state
capital.

Divine Edim, a
director with the revenue service, who led the operation, said they
decided to shut down the CBN branch because “it has not settled its
liabilities with the state government. These among others include PAYE
which is deduction of income of staff to pay as tax to the host state
government”.

Mr. Edim revealed
that the outstanding PAYE to the state government for the period under
review was N26.5million, adding that this amount may be more as it
covers only 2005 to 2008. When that of the last two years is added, the
bank will be indebted more.

“The management of
CBN”, according to him, “said it is processing the relevant documents
in order to pay. This action is a follow up to series of
correspondence, meetings and even telephone calls all of which yielded
no results. We have documents to show”.

Since the federal
government ceded 76 oil wells of the state to Akwa Ibom state, Cross
River has embarked on an aggressive revenue drive to shore up its
revenue base and thus be able to meet its budgetary commitments.

Nigerian interbank lending rates
eased to 1.16 percent on average this week from 7.33 percent last week after
about 390 billion naira in monthly budgetary allocations to states and local
governments was injected into the system, traders said on Friday.

The secured Open Buy Back (OBB)
eased to 1.05 percent from 6.5 percent, after initially dropping to 1.10
percent on Wednesday when part of the funds hit the system.

Overnight placement fell to 1.20
percent from 7.50 percent, while call slipped to 1.25 percent from 8.0 percent.

The finance ministry announced
the disbursal of 750 billion naira from the federation account to the three
tiers of government — federal, state and local — on Monday, but part of the
funds meant for states and local governments came into the system between
Wednesday and Thursday, helping to ease the tight liquidity in the market.

“The system closed with a
surplus balance of about 310 billion naira, this is more than sufficient to
keep the system liquid for the coming week,” one dealer said.

Banks in sub-Saharan Africa’s
second biggest economy depend largely on monthly cash inflows from budgetary
disbursals to its agencies to fund their operations.

Africa’s biggest energy producer
shares oil revenues between federal, state and local governments each month in
order to pay salaries, fund development projects and keep government running,
providing the bulk of liquidity in the economy.

The federal government’s portion
of the funds is kept with the central bank, while that of the other two tiers
goes in the accounts with retail banks.

Dealers said the cost of
borrowing among banks could remain stable next week despite plans by the
central bank to sell treasury bills at the secondary market in a bid to reduce
the impact of excess liquidity on the economy.

Though
Nigeria ranks high as one of the nation that deploys troops for the
United Nations (UN) peacekeeping mission, it has failed to benefit from
the agency’s procurement system.

Sean Purcell, the UN Chief, Peace Keeping Section, said this at a
workshop in Lagos to sensitise Nigerians on the need to register as
vendors for the organisation. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the
Centre for Trade Practitioners organised the workshop.

Mr
Purcell disclosed that the UN Procurement Department (UNPD)’s
expenditure has doubled to close to $4billion in the last four years,
but the participation of Nigerians company has drastically reduced.

“In 2009, the UNDP spent $3.6billion on purchases and just $500,000 was what came from Nigeria businesses,” he said.

The
UNPD is saddled with the responsibility of purchasing materials
utilised by UN missions across the world on either peacekeeping or
political mission. The materials range from food, fuel, pharmaceutical
supplies, freight services, air transportation, construction and
engineering services amongst many other services and skills.
Individuals and corporate organisations of member countries of the UN
are allowed to bid for the supply of the materials.

Mr
Purcell revealed that 10 companies are registered with the UNDP from
Nigeria, and noted that the workshop was organised to get Nigerian
companies to register with agency “so that the UN can know what you do
and what you have to offer” adding that “to win a contract with the UN,
you must be a registered vendor.”

He
noted that the UN has 78 different agencies and the UNDP deals with at
least “25 per cent of the entire UN procurement system.”

How to register

Florence
Marie Owonibi, a Nigerian with the UN Procurement Section, New York,
took the participants through the 14-stage process of how to register
as a vendor on the UNDP’s portal, noting that the registration is
“absolutely free.”

Mrs
Owonibi said that transactions vary for vendors from level 1 which
involves expenditure of less than $200,000 to Level 5 of above
$5million, noting that “the registration process has been revised to
let business owners choose businesses that suits their capacity.”

Other
benefits of being a registered vendor, is “the regular supply of
adverts from agencies within the United Nations Global Market Place
(UNGMP)” she added.

Martin
Uhomoibhi, the permanent secretary for the foreign affairs ministry,
noted that despite the price Nigeria has paid in all its services to
the UN “both in human and material resources, Nigeria has not
benefitted significantly in the UN activities” and that other countries
have taken full advantage of the full UN Procurement process.

Mr
Uhomoibhi enjoined all regulatory agencies in the country to ensure
that made in Nigeria goods meet the UN standard because “it is only on
that level that Nigerian goods would be considered” he said.

An
industrialist at the workshop asked if the UN will give certain
considerations to Nigerian companies due to peculiar challenges faced
in the country when competing with other nations citing power failure
which occurred six times during the event. But Mr Purcell responded
that “all the 192 member nations of the UN are evaluated on the same
level.”

For registration, please visit http/www.ungm.org/info/Publications.aspx

The income being
generated from the South Atlantic 3 (SAT-3) is not enough to finance
the workers’ 25 months arrears, officials of the Nigerian
Telecommunication Limited (NITEL) have said.

The SAT-3 cable,
owned by a 36-member consortium, runs from Portugal and Spain to South
Africa, through some West African countries such as Benin, Togo, Niger,
and Nigeria, of which NITEL owns 8.39%. SAT-3 system provides a path
for telecom traffic and is the only optical fiber link between West
Africa and the rest of the world.

In a telephone
interview, Sule Shehu, the spokesperson of NITEL, said, “The income we
are making out of SAT-3 is not too regular. What we get from SAT-3 we
also use to pay back for membership of the consortium. So, what is left
is then ploughed into maintenance by way of providing power, diesel,
etc.”

Abandoned Infrastructures

Mr. Shehu explained that the challenge with SAT-3 is as a result of the neglected infrastructures over the years.

“Right now, the
service of SAT-3 is only restricted to Lagos; no service in Abuja or
the rest part of the country because the transmission backbone is not
functioning beyond Lagos. Our network has been inactive; when last did
you use NITEL lines or connection working? At the moment, our customers
are strictly Lagos-based, and that is why we plough the little income
we get back into SAT-3, just to make sure the Lagos end is still in
service and pay for our membership of being part of the consortium.
There is no operation across the country because the backbone has been
abandoned for years,” he said.

Mr. Shedu also said
the two weeks’ salary that was paid by the NITEL management to some
workers in March, 2010, was meant to alleviate some of their financial
problems.

He, however, added that there is nothing the company’s management can do as the unpaid arrears also affect the management.

“As a worker, I
feel very bad and sorry because we have families and dependants and
struggle to meet up with our obligations. It is not a good experience,
but as a management staff what can I do? The situation is not in our
hands; the situation is beyond us. Neither I, nor the management can do
anything about it,” added Mr. Shehu.

Waiting on Government

Following last
week’s violent protest by the workers, the union members said they
believe the situation would be resolved this week.

Elias Kazzah, the
union leader, also in a telephone interview, said, “There is no new
development on the issue because we learnt that the minister is out of
the country.”

Kenneth Ndu, a
NITEL worker, said: “We believe our salary issue would be resolved by
next week. We are to meet with Ms. Akunyili next week Tuesday (June 1,
2010) and after the meeting, we hope that our salaries would be paid.

“The presentation
the minister asked us to submit has been sent to her office. but on
reaching her office on Wednesday, we found she was out of the country.
We are optimistic that through the minister, President Goodluck
Jonathan would come to our plight,” added Mr. Ndu.

However, the
spokesperson of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Chukwuma
Nwokoh, said that the BPE has no plans to settle the workers’ salaries
as no directive has been received from the National Council on
Privatization (NCP) regarding this.

“Nothing has
changed. We did send our suggestions on how to handle the issue to the
federal government, but we have not got their approval. We empathized
with workers, and that is why we always engage them on what we are
doing,” Mr. Nwokoh said.

“Last week, when some of the NITEL workers visited BPE, we asked
them to give us more time as we expect to get a response from the
federal government soon,” he said.

Nigerian banks
should improve their brand value, as well as their customer care and
call centre services locally and internationally, while seeking to
deliver financial services and products to their customers, Foluso
Phillips, the chairman and CEO of Phillips Consulting has said.

Mr Phillips, who
stated this at the launch of ‘Flashwallet,’ a new product of Fin Bank
Plc, said improving customer care services in the banking industry
would go a long way in addressing some of the challenges customers
face, both in the country and outside.

“It’s not the logo,
but the brand value that matters,” he said. “We should be satisfying
customer demands and designing how we must change it to go along with
what customers are demanding for.”

Suzanne Iroche, the
group managing director of FinBank Plc, said the innovation of
‘Flashwallet’ is in recognition of the inherent risk and weaknesses
associated with the magnetic stripe cards and the Nigerian industry.

“Given the success
of FlashmeCash, (the flagship electronic and mobile banking product of
FinBank), and the bank’s commitment to remain the leader in the
e-products and retail segment of the banking industry, the bank is
today unveiling an innovative variant of the product with improved
capability and more value added benefits called the Flashwallet,” she
said.

Wooing the financially excluded

Flashwallet is an
electronic purse (Card) that allows holders to access their FlashmeCash
accounts across all the Interswitch-enabled Automated Teller Machines.
It is an EMV compliant card; chip and PIN-enabled.

The Chip and PIN
debit card tied to the bank’s FlashmeCash account is a tool that would
make customers access the funds in their accounts using the cards at
any Interswitch member banks’ ATM in a similar manner as the regular
ATM card. The innovated product enables the transfer of funds to other
accounts, purchase of GSM recharge PINs for direct use or for third
party use, payment of DSTV utility bill or MyTv among others.

Mrs. Iroche said
the bank introduced the card on April 30, 2009, well ahead of the CBN’s
directive to card issuers to migrate from the magnetic stripe cards to
chip plus PIN cards.

“Our general
e-business model has taken into consideration collaboration and
positive partnership towards the inclusion of the financially excluded
population, which is in line with the focus of the Central Bank of
Nigeria and the current world economic order,” she said.

Mr. Phillips
commended the bank on the launch of Flashwallet, adding that the bank
has been able to maintain its leadership position in e products in the
banking industry.

“It is a brilliant
idea,” he said. “Others can join you later. It is really about who gets
there first. It’s organisations like this that can stay ahead of the
game.”

Finance experts
have urged Nigerian banks to reach out to the people as mobile banking
is about outreach. They argue that through this medium, banks can move
people who don’t operate bank accounts into the banking society, and
thereby attract new customers.

Transactions via the Flashwallet costs N100, the bank management
said. It however added that there would be negotiations on the fees for
corporate organizations who wish to make large transactions via the
card. The bank management further stated that the default limit for
individual money transfers via the new product stands at N200, 000,
while corporate transactions would be based on negotiations with the
bank.

Two
Nordic countries, Sweden and Finland, are exploring opportunities for
green businesses in Nigeria, as part of efforts to step up their trade
and investment promotion activities in Nigeria.

The
Cleantech or Green business involves bringing in technologies that will
help in managing Nigeria’s environment to gain commercial value.

Lauri
Voionmaa, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Finland, Nigeria, and
Efraim Gómez, First Secretary of the Embassy of Sweden, in Abuja, said
Nigeria is ripe for introduction of clean technology business, adding
that it is worrisome that Nigeria, up till this moment, treats wastes
as wastages, instead of commodities with economic value.

The
two countries said they have recently paid a visit to Cross River State
which, according to them, will host the pilot stage of the project,
based on the fact finding mission.

Mr.
Voionmaa said: “Finland and Sweden are global leaders in clean and
green technology, and champions of sustainable and competitive
economies. They are vocal in the global climate change debate, pursuing
ambitious emission cuts, comprehensive assistance in adaptation
schemes, and timely forestry measures. Cross River State has made a
name for itself, in and outside of Nigeria, for its dedication to
environmental issues – protecting and turning its natural endowments
into vehicles for responsible economic development.

“Cross
River and us Nordics are a perfect match. The opportunities for Green
business between us are abundant. I look forward to explore how we can
tap into the huge potentials in clean technology, green knowledge
management, and ICT for climate change.”

Waste to energy

Their
plan is to use Cross River State as the springboard for the numerous
activities they plan to embark on in this regard in Nigeria.

“We
want to see how our business can go straight into efforts of Cross
River State, not only on the government side, but also on the private
sector level; but we have not concluded exploration. We are looking at
various aspects of Cross River State economy like waste management,”
said Mr. Voionmaa.

The
representative of the two Nordic countries said they are convinced that
with the new technology they plan to bring in, about 6kilowatt of
electricity will be generated from wastes collected in the state.

Nordic
countries are versed in waste management, because waste is a commodity
that they have learnt to turn into energy, according to Mr. Gomez, who
added that Cross River can be self sustaining on waste if they can
convert it to energy.

“For
a city of the size of Cross River, we are certainly going to produce 6
to 7 megawatt of electricity from waste management,” he said.

“There
is huge potential for waste management in Nigeria. Ordinarily, in
Nigeria, waste is disposed as waste, treated as something annoying, but
it can be actually useful, for fuels. The next step is we have to
report back to our countries and for a preliminary assessment. That
will depend on the next discussions.”

Apart
from introduction of high technology, there will be capacity building
and cooperation with Nigerian universities for technology transfer.

Nigerian
president, Goodluck Jonathan, visited Finland and Sweden in May 2009,
together with representatives of the Nigerian business community and in
company of John Odey, Minister of Environment.

Also,
Minister for Foreign Trade of Finland, Pave Väyrynen, visited Nigeria
in March 2010 and the Swedish Vice Minister for Trade, Gunnar
Wieslander, made similar visit to Nigeria in 2009. Both led large
business delegations, representing experts in energy, environment, and
information and communication technology.