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The European
Central Bank and the Bank of England left their benchmark interest
rates unchanged at historic lows Thursday, as both worried about the
strength of the economic recovery.

The European
Central Bank, which sets monetary policy for the 16 countries in the
euro zone, left its benchmark interest rate at 1 per cent, where it has
been since May. The bank believes that the euro-zone economy remains
too weak to create an imminent danger of inflation.

In Britain, which
just barely emerged from recession last quarter, the Bank of England
left its benchmark rate unchanged for a 12th month, at 0.5 percent.

Fear of recession

Bank of England’s
committee members, meanwhile, are watching closely for any signs that
Britain’s fragile economy could relapse into a recession. Gross
domestic product rose 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter from the third
quarter, the office for national statistics said last month, revising
an earlier estimate upwards.

“It’s pretty
unlikely they’ll do anything for the next six months,” said James
Knightley, an economist at ING in London. “The environment is still
very uncertain. If the data continues to show a gradual improvement,
they will just keep everything as it is.”

The fear of rising
unemployment and concerns about the sustainability of house prices,
which remained relatively high, is prompting consumers to curb
spending. Unemployment unexpectedly rose in January to the highest
since 1997.

Tight housing
supply and low interest rates are expected to keep property prices from
falling this year, the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors said
Tuesday, easing some pressure on homeowners. Still, the availability of
credit remained under pressure as some banks are concerned to meet any
future regulatory requirements. Mortgage approvals dropped to the
lowest level in eight months in January.

Uncertainty about
the outcome of the general election, which is expected to be held
within the next three months, and whether the new government would push
ahead with large-scale spending and job cuts in the public sector meant
consumers were increasingly holding off big purchases. Yet, unsecured
debt rose as Britain’s already indebted consumers borrowed more through
credit cards and personal loans in January.

The pound fell to
the lowest in 10 months against the dollar on Monday before it started
to recover on Wednesday amid concerns Britain might soon face a similar
sovereign debt crisis to Greece. The Bank of England voted last month
to halt its program to purchase government bonds and other debt to
strengthen the economy but said it would not rule out continuing the
program should the economy deteriorate again. The bank is expected to
review its decision in May.

Implication of too much available cash

In the euro area,
the European Central Bank president, Jean-Claude Trichet, and the
bank’s governing council are cautiously draining the cash they began
providing in October 2008 after the collapse of Lehman Brothers brought
interbank lending practically to a standstill.

The bank is
concerned that too much available cash will fuel inflation or asset
bubbles of the type that preceded the 2008 crisis.

The central bank
may be ready to return to competitive bidding to set the interest rate
on three-month loans, which would raise costs for banks. But amid
nervousness about Greek debt and signs that some institutions are still
dependent on central bank funds, the bank is expected to continue
providing unlimited financing on a shorter-term basis.

The European
Central Bank has already stopped making any more 12-month loans to the
roughly 2,200 banks in the euro zone that are eligible. The bank said
in December it will make the last round of six-month loans at the end
of this month.

The central bank
had extended the time periods for loans beyond the customary three
months to encourage institutions to continue lending to the private
sector. The bank also allowed banks to borrow as much as they wanted at
the benchmark interest rate, provided they could supply collateral. And
it expanded the definition of the kinds of bonds and other securities
it accepted as collateral.

Analysts say they
expect the European Central Bank to continue providing unlimited funds
for one-week periods, to avoid a crunch as the longer-term loans expire.

When Mr. Trichet
holds a news conference this afternoon, analysts will be watching for
any revision of bank staff estimates of euro-zone economic growth.
Currently the bank projects growth in the euro zone of 0.8 percent this
year and 1.2 percent in 2011.

Nigeria’s United
Bank of Africa (UBA) has started operating in Zambia with a capital
investment of $15 million as it seeks to expand its influence on the
African continent, Chief Executive Officer Abba Bello said on Thursday.

Mr. Bello told
Reuters one UBA branch was already operational in Lusaka and the bank
planned to open two more in the country’s mining towns on the
Copperbelt and another in Solwezi, which hosts two key mines in
Africa’s largest copper producer.

“Our focus is on
wholesale and retail and we play in all sectors of any economy that we
are in, so when you say mining, yes we will be in mining but we will be
in all sectors of wholesale space in Zambia and we will support that
with retail play,” Mr. Bello said.

Mr. Bello said UBA hoped its growing influence in Africa would help boost trade and spur the continent’s economic growth.

“UBA is here as a
vehicle to ensure that Africans have their own bank that can assist in
empowering indigenous Africans in growing intra-African trade and trade
between Africa and the rest of the world,” he said.

Mr. Bello said with the start of operations in Zambia, UBA was now present in 17 countries in Africa.

In October, UBA
launched its Kenyan operation to compete with pan-African group Ecobank
Transnational Inc which began working in Kenya in 2008.

Bello said the competition, brought about by the opening of more
banks in Zambia, which now has 18 banks, and favourable economic
indicators in recent months would help bring down interest rates.

The newspaper headlines, as usual, differed from the content of
the news stories they pointed to. However, the gist of it all was that at a
recent conference in Lagos, the Minister of State for Finance, and the Governor
of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), did not quite see eye-to-eye on the apex
bank’s current reform initiatives.

I seriously doubt, to begin with, that as the media reported,
the honourable minister questioned the necessity for the CBN’s operational and
statutory independence. Despite the sundry dislocations occasioned by the
global financial crisis, a central bank’s independence is not one of the values
that have been called to question. Even in economies such as ours, where
governments have made a good fist of their work, this concept has played a key
role in achieving low inflation.

Still, we could differ on the chances that we would always get
competent hands to run the central bank to ensure that its medium-term take on
price directions in the domestic economy are robust enough to act as a foil to
the politicians’ narrow focus on the short-term imperatives of the four-year
electoral cycle.

Nevertheless, we ought no longer to tolerate a situation where
fiscal and monetary policies are decided in the same room, by the same people
(especially, when this latter lot are beholden to political interests). Of
course, one lesson from the current crisis comes out of the fact that fiscal
policy did take up the slack once monetary policy reached its limits. I would
thus be in the vanguard of any call to strengthen collaboration between
monetary, regulatory, and fiscal policies going forward.

On the question of the central bank’s competence, it is hard to
conclude otherwise than that the incumbent governor has done this economy a
world of good. It is so illogical that we should clamour to trade in a final
cure (because of a near-term allergic reaction) for a major ailment. Of course
we now know that it is proper policy to maintain a firewall between regulators
and the industry they regulate. It is obvious too, that banks occupy a hallowed
place in the economy; although we’d always suspected this from the relationship
that existed between demand deposits, which sit on the liabilities side of
banks’ balance sheets, and the credits they create which sit on the asset side.
Once impaired, especially by the markets’ beginning to question the soundness
and stability of the system, the resulting runs on deposits, affects the
industry’s ability to create loans. Unfortunately, banks’ ability to create
loans on a sustainable basis does matter for any economy’s growth.

The central bank governor

What about the person of the central bank governor? Sanusi
Lamido Sanusi has been described as too showy; a caudillo. In mitigation, we’ve
heard arguments in favour of “stronger institutions”; and inscrutability as a
preferred attribute. Now, I cannot recall many strong institutions that have
been built on the back of invertebrate leadership. Conversely, the gnomic Alan
Greenspan is often indicated as the ultimate model of a central bank governor.
How useful is this? If any financial market took its cue from the coordinates
of its central bank governor’s eyebrow, this was undoubtedly because the market
works well, and that this semaphore had been integrated in its signalling
mechanisms.

But the point of the CBN’s current work is the fact that the
domestic industry had become a burlesque of bank practices. Markets were skewed
so badly that the price mechanism worked selectively, and interested party
transactions held sway over many business decisions.

Financial accounting was a joke. The flipside of this is that as
we make our way tentatively out of the current crisis, we can no longer argue
that financial regulation should remain outside the macroeconomic framework.

When the CBN governor says the reforms are a process, not a
destination, it is my understanding that the apex bank is moving from financial
regulation as a tool for addressing the failings it has since discovered in the
industry, towards using its capacity to design prudential rules for the
industry, to address broader macroeconomic questions, including using it to
moderate the boom-bust cycle.

How do we get the
banks to resume lending to key sectors of the economy? And how do we
reverse market sentiments (capital and funding markets to be precise)
in favour of the financial services industry? These questions have
furtively moved to the top of the list of the average Nigerian’s
worries over how to move this economy away from its addiction to oil,
and into rehab. Apparently, in respect of financial sector worries, not
much will be achieved before something is done about the banks’ loan
books.

At the height of
the last economic bubble, banks were lending as if the funds they were
holding would burn a hole in their vaults otherwise. With the massive
increase in access to retail credit, consumer spending jumped as a
proportion of domestic output. Domestic output growth in turn drove
increases in banks’ deposits, allowing the banks to lend more over the
next cycle, and so on. When the floor came off the home mortgage market
in the United States, this virtuous cycle turned vicious very quickly.
The bottom fell off the local stock market, and with stock prices
plummeting, most bets on the trajectory of the equities market came
unstuck. Since a goodly number of retail investors had piled into the
market with nothing but the prospects of the virtuous cycle supporting
their punts, the nation’s nest egg ended up trapped in the equities
market.

Loans default

With borrowers
unable to meet their obligations, the downturn has meant that banks
have a portfolio of loans on which they haven’t earned anything in a
long while. Even when most banks in the country have taken losses on
the unprecedented levels of provisioning they have had to make to clean
their balance sheets, they cannot create new assets until they have
sorted this mess out. And the markets, investors largely, will not take
this group of businesses seriously, as long as their balance sheets
still contain so much dross.

Enter the Central
Bank of Nigeria. If the central bank governor is to be believed, the
bank’s intervention in the market thus far is anchored on four pillars:
enhancing the quality of banking in the country; ensuring financial
stability; ensuring healthy financial sector evolution; and making sure
that the financial sector contributes to the development of the
economy. Its proposal to clean up the banks’ balance sheets with the
Asset Management Company (AMC) must thus be interrogated within this
context. The plan is for banks with large non-performing loan burdens,
to move these assets off their balance sheets and onto the books of the
Asset Management Company. The company then bears all the risks of the
assets transferred, and arranges to deconsolidate the bad loans through
sale to external investors. Meanwhile, the banks obtain a fresh lease
on life from the ability to use their newly clean balance sheets to
restore their profit and loss accounts.

Commentaries on the asset company

Most commentators
on this proposal have focused on the cost of this process. For
instance, given the trillion naira estimates of the size of the
non-performing section of the banking sub-sector’s loan book, how
adequate would the N10 billion proposed as initial capital for the
asset company be? There are other costs: legal, tax, regulatory, and
accounting. How much forbearance would government and the regulatory
authorities have to offer banks to ease the proposed asset transfers?
Then, there are governance matters. Would the process be better served
by establishing an independent valuation process/agency? What other
incentives would the banks have to sell these assets, after providing
fully for them? The eventual look of the banks will depend on how the
final structure of the company combines these variables.

Important, though
all these are, one point is sorely missed: Transparency. It is the lack
of transparency on the books of the severely burdened banks arising
from their bad loans portfolios that interferes with the capital and
funding markets’ interest in these institutions. The value of the
banks’ loan books, the risk transfer process, and the rationale for the
forbearances that the regulators offer to sweeten the transfer process
must be as plain as a pikestaff if the process is to result in a
re-opening of the banks’ access to new funding sources. This
requirement is even more crucial in the context of the CBN’s barely
concealed desire to have new capital come into the industry.

So
the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would like to see credit to the
private sector grow by more than it has done in the past year?

Credit has strong
uses in most modern economies. Just before the last global crisis
broke, credit-based consumer spending accounted for about 75% of output
growth in the United States. Moreover, current International Monetary
Fund (IMF) estimates indicate that stronger consumption in the US has
been part of the new recovery. Credit works for business investment
too; and when government borrows, it drives government spending.

The apex bank is
thus justified trying to resuscitate bank lending. To this end, it has
tied itself up in several knots. It has eased monetary conditions, only
to find banks building up liquidity in the wrong places, including
balances with it. It has tinkered with the corridor around the policy
rate, trying to discourage banks from warehousing surplus funds in the
CBN’s vaults.

Still, the banks
would rather keep such money with the apex bank, and earn 2% on it,
than lend to sectors of the economy where higher returns might be met
with. When you consider as fact that one of the main responses in the
markets to the current crisis has been for depositors to demand higher
returns on their funds with the banks, then the banks’ behaviour
becomes harder to explain. Surely, there must be better ways to lose
money?

Put differently, is
it enough for banks to have a surfeit of cash in order that they may
lend money? In response to the global and local shocks that have hit
the industry, most banks have tightened their risk acceptance criteria.
They have not only shortened the maturity profile of new loans, they
are more prone to demand that would-be debtors meet requirements that
were not in place nine months ago. Again, we imagine that further down
the road, these loan covenants will firm even more. This would follow
naturally, as risk management frameworks are strengthened in response
to the lapses unearthed by the CBN’s recent special audit.

There are other
worries, not least of which is the fact that most of the banks that
have been at the receiving end of the apex bank’s monetary forbearances
are still in the process of rebuilding their capital. Add to this, the
on-off debate over the extent to which current levels of provisioning
may have sufficiently addressed the industry’s portfolio of
non-performing loans, and the effect on bank lending of current
proposals by the Basle process to raise the industry’s capital adequacy
ratio.

But none of these
attend to the question of how strong the demand for credit is. Current
concern with the supply side of the market for credit is all very well.
However, no less crucial is the need to establish whether there is a
market out there for loans. Are there investment vehicles?

Did the stock
market bubble not inflate largely because the banks had no other place
to put these funds? And what has happened to non-bank sources of
credit? Why have these not taken up the slack from the failure of bank
credit?

The more probable
cause of the credit market problem is that there are major structural
policy challenges constraining the supply and demand sides of the
market.

Until recently, the
downstream sector of the oil industry was a major market for bank
credit. Apparently, the central bank’s intervention at some point dried
this market up. Now, the banks are asking that would-be importers of
fuel obtain promissory notes from the federal government before they
provide the necessary trade finance cover. Because government has
refused to meet this demand, oil importers haven’t had access to the
credit necessary to remove the unsightly fuel queues from our roads. Of
course, government’s practice in the past of not paying these importers
on time was the one reason why their bank facilities did not perform.

Until issues of
this nature are addressed, and you want to add the difficulty with
passing the petroleum industry bill to this list, I am not sure that
the market for credit in this economy will pick up.

Job loss ranks as one of life’s most
challenging events. Some of the issues involved include, adjusting your
finances, looking for a new job, and coping with the emotional and
social impact of your new situation. It would be much easier to deal
with it financially and emotionally if you’ve prepared for the worst by
planning ahead, but even if you failed to anticipate this sudden change
in your circumstances, here are some practical steps to take if the
worst does happen.

Don’t panic

When you think about all the bills and
monthly expenses you have to face without a steady income, it is easy
to despair. Try to remain calm and do not rush into any major financial
decisions whilst you assess your situation; you need a clear positive
outlook. Even if you are eligible, be cautious about dipping into your
retirement savings account.

Do you have any savings?

How much money have you saved? How long
will it last based on your monthly bills? The importance of an
emergency fund becomes glaring in situations like this. If you have
been able to set aside say 6 months of income in a high yield money
market account, you will be able to pay some of your bills and relieve
some of the financial stress while you look for new job. But if you
have always lived from month to month, this may not be an option.

What are your entitlements?

What do your full entitlements amount
to? If you have no savings at all and you are fortunate enough to
receive severance pay or other benefits, use this as a bridge to tide
you over the difficult period. Spend carefully, and do not use all of
your entitlements to make large payments such as your mortgage as you
might have to live off that money for what could be an extended period
of time. Don’t let such funds lull you into complacency; you need to
actively seek a new job or other income generating opportunity.

Revise your budget

How best can you adjust your budget to
suit your new circumstances? Develop a new written budget to cover
several months based on what you have saved and any expected income.
How much will it cost to maintain your family, your home and lifestyle?
Keep your family members fully in the picture so that they too can
adjust their expectations about what you can afford. You will have to
control your spending by cutting back on nonessential expenses.
Naturally your priority will be for housing, food, utility bills. Of
major concern would be the lack of access to affordable insurance and
appropriate health care. This must also be planned for.

Be cautious about borrowing

It is tempting for credit card holders
to start to load day-to-day expenses on their cards. Try to avoid doing
this unless absolutely necessary and only for critically important
expenses that cannot be delayed. Taking on additional debt can keep you
in denial about your true financial situation and can make things worse.

If you are unable to fulfill your
financial obligations, such as your mortgage or car loan, contact your
lenders immediately and inform them that you have lost your job and are
actively seeking new employment. It may be possible to negotiate new
terms and come to an arrangement to adjust your payments for a limited
period of time. It is better to be approach them upfront rather than to
fall behind with your payments. If you default on your home or vehicle
loan, your bank will take steps to re-possess your property.

Stay socially connected

Some people feel embarrassed or
inadequate after losing a job. Don’t withdraw and let negative feelings
stop you from taking important steps; you need your network now more
than ever before. Reach out to family, friends, ex-colleagues and your
network and spread the word that you are in the job market. By seeking
support you may find they may be aware of new opportunities for you.
Your CV should be carefully updated and circulated.

Seek alternative sources of income

With the sheer number of people
currently searching for jobs, you need to cast your net wide, and not
just for the same type of job. Be practical and flexible and don’t
pigeonhole yourself into a specific role or job so you can increase
your chances of finding work. Consider temporary or part time work that
will generate income and give you the time and flexibility to attend
job interviews and actively pursue a more permanent position. This
might be a time to upgrade your skills, or go back to school which will
all add to an impressive resume.

If you have alternate sources of
income, you will be in a much more comfortable position if you lose
your job. Your hobbies, talents and skills and other interests may be
converted to a business and offer serious possibilities for income.

Be Positive

Apart from the financial issues
associated with job loss, there are usually emotional and personal
aspects that are too often ignored. Whether yours was the only position
that was cut, or an entire unit or department, the feelings caused by
being laid off are largely the same regardless of the circumstances.
Many people experience a loss of self esteem, a sense of failure and
even depression after retrenchment. But it’s important to take your
next steps based on clear rational thought, devoid of emotion.

As difficult as this may sound, one should try to think of losing
your job as a positive event, an opportunity to re-evaluate your future
and, potentially change your career or start a new business. Losing
your present employment may well be the impetus, just what you need, to
take a fresh look at your life and re-define your goals. Often, it is
times like this that propel people into greater things.

Even before Google began threatening to shut down its search
service in China, it was not fitting in.

Google and other major American Internet companies like Yahoo
and eBay failed to gain significant traction in the Chinese market, and
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are blocked by the government.

Instead, the hottest companies in the world’s biggest Internet
market have names like Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba – fast-growing local firms
that are making huge profits. Post-Google, China’s Internet market could
increasingly resemble a lucrative, walled-off bazaar, experts say. Those
homegrown successes, however, could have trouble becoming global brands.

“If the Chinese government continues to favour domestic
companies, those companies that reach critical mass could become phenomenally
profitable,” said Gary Rieschel, founder of Qiming Ventures, an American
venture capital firm with investments in China. “But it may be hard for those
companies to become world class without outside competition.” Still, the
success of Chinese companies here can be measured by the numbers.

Revenue at Tencent, a kind of Internet conglomerate, jumped over
70 per cent last year, to about $1.8 billion.

Baidu, a Google look-alike, has largely clobbered Google in
China, despite giving up some ground in recent years. And Taobao.com, China’s
huge e-commerce site, handled nearly $30 billion in transactions last year.

Local Companies have the upper hand The story behind the success
of these companies is a simple one, some analysts say. The young people who
dominate Web use in China are not just searching for information; they’re
searching for a lifestyle. They are passionate about downloading music, playing
online games and engaging in social networking.

“Sixty per cent of the Internet users here are under the age of
30,” said Richard Ji, an Internet analyst at Morgan Stanley. “In the U.S., it’s
the other way around. And in the U.S. it’s about information. But in China, the
No. 1 priority is entertainment.” Experts say American companies have largely
failed here because they don’t have local expertise, are too slow to adapt and
don’t know how to deal with the Chinese government.

“Internet companies in China have to work so closely with the
government,” said Xiao Qiang, of the China Internet project at the University
of California, Berkeley. “And that means the government’s political agenda can
become the company’s business agenda.” The need to censor Web sites, for
example, can overwhelm smaller companies, Mr. Xiao said. “This becomes a
growing business cost. So, often, small companies don’t develop.” At this stage,
analysts say the Web in China is less about innovation than about quickly
delivering on the latest online trend.

“People here are quick to see trends, and to clone and
innovate,” said William Bao Bean, a former Internet analyst who is now a
partner at Softbank China & India Holdings. “If one company is doing well,
other companies will quickly clone it and roll it out.” No company is better at
that than Tencent, which is based in the southern city of Shenzhen.

Local advantage

The company’s biggest weapon is a popular instant messaging
service called QQ. Its 500 million active users give the company an advantage
when it introduces new products and offerings, like online games.

Tencent was founded in 1998 by a group of friends that included
Ma Huateng, also known as Pony, who is now its 38-year-old billionaire chief
executive. With Tencent commanding a stock market value of $37.2 billion, the
only global Internet companies that are worth more are Google ($173.7 billion)
and Amazon ($57.2 billion).

One advantage local companies have is government protectionism.
Because the Communist Party wants to maintain tight control over communication
and the media, foreign Internet companies come under suspicion.

For instance, YouTube has been blocked inside the country for
over a year, ever since a user uploaded a video that was said to show human
rights violations in Tibet.

But some experts say Google’s departure will leave Internet
users here with fewer options, making the country’s Internet market less
competitive and less open.

“The biggest loser is Netizens,” says Fang Xingdong, chief
executive of Chinalabs.com, a research firm. “Google is a multilinguistic
search engine, but Baidu is a Chinese-language one. Chinese information only
occupies a small fraction of the Internet.” Google was troubled by censors. And
it’s clear that censors make some of the material on Baidu’s search engine look
like the bulletin board of propaganda, with some links directed to People’s
Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece.

One question, though, is whether Google’s departure will prevent
Chinese companies from developing alongside the world’s technology powerhouses.

“When the Chinese companies go outside of China, they will find
that they fail to understand their competitors as well as they did when they
were competing in China,” said Mr. Rieschel, founder of Qiming Ventures.

Of course, Chinese companies may just be happy staying home. With 400
million Internet users and growing, their own market is a substantial prize.

Lee Kun-hee, a tycoon convicted of corruption last August but
pardoned by President Lee Myung-bak four months later to help South Korea
campaign for the 2018 Winter Olympics, returned to the helm of Samsung
Electronics on Wednesday.

He was the latest and most prominent in a series of ex-convicts
who have retained top management of major conglomerates in the country.

The Samsung Group is the largest of those, and in announcing Mr.
Lee’s surprise comeback, it said the chairman will bring to its electronics
subsidiary and to the conglomerate as a whole badly needed leadership at a time
when global businesses like Toyota were tottering.

Not all South Koreans were convinced.

“This only proves how unreasonable Samsung can be,” said Kim
Sang-jo, an economist at Hansung University and executive director of
Solidarity for Economic Reform, a civic group. “His return only makes Samsung
more vulnerable to the kind of risk Toyota faces. It shows how distorted and
how closed its decision-making is. It shows Samsung’s lack of a mechanism to
deal with errors.”

Mr. Lee’s return

The manner of Mr. Lee’s return – as disclosed by a senior vice
president and top Samsung spokesman, Rhee In-yong – spoke volumes not only
about the power the taciturn chairman wielded at Samsung but also about that of
other “owner chairmen” like him at their own family-controlled conglomerates,
known in the country as chaebol.

Top executives of Samsung affiliates, all aides loyal to the Lee
family, conferred twice in February as Toyota was dealing with its car recall
crisis, the spokesman told reporters. The executives were worried and decided
to appeal to Mr. Lee to come back with his “seasoned management skills and
leadership.” Then, on February 24, the most senior of them, Lee Su-bin,
chairman of the top life insurer Samsung Life, visited Mr. Lee.

“I will think about it,” Mr. Lee told the envoy, according to
the spokesman. After a month of deliberation, Mr. Lee finally agreed to retake
the chairmanship of Samsung Electronics, the mother ship of the Samsung fleet.

‘It’s crisis time’

In addition, the way Mr. Lee justified his return typified the
reasoning that other convicted tycoons have used to ignore public outcry and
regain management positions. It is also the reason that many courts of law have
offered to an increasingly skeptical public to explain lenient sentences given
top executives convicted of crimes. They have all said, “It’s a crisis time.”
“Now is the real crisis,” Mr. Lee said Wednesday in a rare comment released by
Samsung. “Top global companies are collapsing. You never know what might happen
to Samsung and when. The lines of business and products Samsung now represents
will be gone within the next 10 years. We have to start over again. There is no
time to lose. Let’s focus and march ahead.” Civic groups that have campaigned
for more transparency and accountability from the nation’s top business
families were not impressed.

“We are back to business as usual. With Lee Kun-hee back, we
fear that Samsung is back to its premodern and imperial management style,” said
Kim Keon-ho, an official at the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice. Under
the “imperial” management system symbolised by the Lee family, “vassal”
executives work only for the best interests of the owner families, not for the
shareholders as a whole, Mr. Kim said.

Corruption scandal

Mr. Lee, 68 – whose father founded Samsung in 1938 – headed the
company for more than two decades until he stepped down in April 2008 amid
scandal.

The group’s former chief legal counsel, Kim Yong-chul, had
asserted that Samsung kept a stash of secret funds and ran a network of
bribery. Mr. Lee also faced allegations that he had helped his son, Lee
Jae-yong, buy shares of major subsidiaries at unfairly low prices as part of a
plan to hand over control of Samsung to the younger Mr. Lee.

After an investigation that critics called a whitewash,
prosecutors said they had found no evidence of bribery. But they indicted Mr.
Lee on charges of evading taxes on 4.5 trillion won, or $4 billion, by hiding
the money in stock accounts under the names of aides. In a Supreme Court ruling
last year, he received a suspended three-year prison sentence for tax evasion
and breach of trust.

He also was ordered to pay 45.6 billion won in back taxes and
110 billion won in fines.

In December, President Lee granted him a pardon so that he could
retain his membership on the International Olympic Committee and lead a
campaign by the South Korean city of PyeongChang to host the 2018 Winter
Olympics.

About the same time, Mr. Lee’s son was promoted to become chief
operating officer of Samsung Electronics, South Korea’s biggest company and a
top global maker of computer chips, cell phones and TV sets.

Mr. Lee and his son remain the largest individual shareholders.

New York Times

The Central Bank of Nigeria has said the newly created
Infrastructure Finance Office will enhance a sustainable financing framework to
address infrastructure gaps in the country. The CBN is also working with the
Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) to achieve set targets.

Uji Amedu, the Head of the Specialised Services Division of the
bank, said during a visit to the commission earlier in the week, that the new
unit will address funding gaps in infrastructure development.

A statement issued by Olugbenga Adegbesan, communications head
at the commission, quoted Mr. Amedu as saying, “The Central Bank appreciates
the need to provide some intervention finance but the burden of huge and
long-term facility for infrastructure financing can also be borne by other
financial institutions, like the insurance companies and the pension fund
administrators, subject to the provisions of relevant laws.”

He also noted that the roles of the commission were similar to
those of other government institutions in developed economies, adding that with
the necessary support from public and private institutions, the country’s
infrastructure deficit would witness a turnaround.

Mansur Ahmed, the commission’s Director General, described the
Central Bank’s initiative as a catalyst for actualising the economic vision of
the government in the area of physical development.

He said that such financial policy will provide succour to
prospective private investors in the government’s Public Private Partnership
programme.

Beyond government

Mr. Ahmed said the provision of public goods, particularly
infrastructure services, is no longer in the sole custody of public
institutions. “Demands in terms of the required technical, managerial and
institutional capacity for the growing economy and population is beyond the
government.” He added that the commission is expected to guide government
ministries, departments and agencies responsible for infrastructure services to
execute their projects in an effective and sustainable manner. “The commission
coordinates the process and provides guidelines to ensure value for money and
reasonable returns for private investors,” he said.

The commission

The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC) was
established by an Act in 2005 to regulate Public-Private Partnership endeavours
of the Federal Government, aimed at addressing Nigeria’s physical
infrastructure deficit which hampers economic development.

The Commission is responsible for setting forth guidelines to
promote, facilitate, and ensure implementation of Public Private Partnership
(PPP) projects in Nigeria, with the objective of achieving better value for
money (VfM) for infrastructure services and enhanced economic growth.

The ICRC Act seeks to provide for the participation of the
private sector in financing, construction, development, operation, and
maintenance of infrastructure or development projects through concession or
contractual arrangements. Thus, the Commission is to regulate, monitor, and
supervise the concession and development of projects.

The Commission, inaugurated on November 27, 2008, is expected to
take custody of every concession agreement made under the ICRC Act and monitor
compliance with the terms and conditions of such agreements and ensure
efficient execution of any concession agreement or contract entered into by the
government.

Specific details of the finance plan could not be ascertained as
at press time, as Mohammed Abdullahi, the spokesperson for the Central Bank,
neither picked his calls nor replied his text messages.

Infrastructure challenges

Nigeria has continued to battle with infrastructure challenges,
a major factor that has contributed in keeping investors at bay. Businesses and
investment continue to be hindered by power, ports challenges, fuel supply, bad
roads, lack of adequate security for life and property, inadequate access to
credit, policy inconsistency, corruption and lack of skilled labour.

Nigeria’s business men and women are not expecting improvement
in Nigeria’s business climate anytime soon as and have a pessimistic view of
the environment in the short run.

In a national survey carried out by Nigeria’s premier and most
credible research firm, NOI Polls, in partnership with the Nigeria Economic
Summit Group (NESG) earlier in the month, top business executives in the
country stated that their businesses have continued to be hindered by the lack
of these basic amenities in the nation.

Agricultural scientists have asked for more support from
government to propagate the distribution of more improved seedlings to farmers,
for the development of the sector.

Wasiu Odofin, the director/chief executive officer, National
Centre for Genetic Resources and Biotechnology (NACGRAB), made this call during
a courtesy visit alongside Nigeria’s Technical Sub Committee on the Release of
Crop Varieties to the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in
Ibadan, Oyo State.

Appraisal of research
institutes

The committee commended the efforts of research institutes for
their effort towards enhancing food production in the country through the
provision of varieties of improved seedlings to farmers in Nigeria and sub-
Saharan Africa. Peter Oyekan, Chairman of the Committee, said the commendation
is based on the certification and assessment of the various performances of
crop varieties released in the country.

“The improved varieties developed by IITA had contributed
significantly in raising crops’ yield as they have been performing well in
farmers’ fields, because breeding has always been targeted at particular
ecological zones and specific production constraints relating to pests and
diseases and this is increasing farmers’ incomes as well.

“For example, maize varieties that are drought-tolerant are
targeted for the drought-prone regions, while stem borer-resistant varieties
makes it possible for maize to thrive in the south-eastern zone of the country
where stem borers are a major challenge. Others are high yielding cassava
varieties, improved hybrid yam varieties, Striga and Alectra resistant cowpea,
and soybean rust-resistant varieties. All these are doing well and they are
making it possible to increase agric production.

“And this has consequently, earned Nigeria the position of not
only the largest world producer of cassava, but has also resulted in
significant gains in maize, yams, soybean, plantain/banana and cowpea
production,” he added.

More research support

Mr. Odofin said the Biotechnology Centre already has a closer
working relationship with the IITA, especially in the conservation of the
country’s genetic resources to create a synergy that will facilitate greater
researches and improve efficiency in the use of resources.

“IITA needs to be commended for the capacity building it has
offered to Nigerian scientists. More of such opportunities are still needed in
the future. NACGRAB is building its core scientists and we need IITA support to
strengthen our capacities,” he said.

Dr. Paula Bramel, IITA’s Deputy-Director, Research, while
receiving the delegation, reiterated the institute’s goals of reducing poverty
in Africa.

“The institute remains open to partnerships as part of its
strategy is aimed at improving the livelihoods of farmers,” she said.

Farmers’ confirmation

Oladele Quadiri, a farmer at the Epe, Lagos, said he has enjoyed
planting cassava stems from IITA ever since he was introduced to it in 2006 by
the Lagos State Agricultural Development Agency in Oko-Oba.

“The yields from the cassava are very impressive as they are
bigger and disease resistant. They also bring in more money and grow at quicker
pace than the normal local cassava we used to grow,” he said.