Buhari, Osinbajo disclose assets

President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo yesterday made public their asset declaration showing the President had less than N30million prior to assumption of office on May 29th.

Osinbanjo on the other hand, declared a bank balance of about N94 million and 900,000 United States Dollars in his bank accounts, a statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on media and publicity, Garba Shehu, revealed on Thursday.

According to the statement, documents submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau, which are still being vetted and will soon be made public, show that prior to being sworn in on May 29, President Buhari had less than N30 million to his name.

“He also had only one bank account, with the Union Bank. President Buhari had no foreign account, no factory and no enterprises. He also had no registered company and no oil wells” Shehu said.

Critics of the Buhari government have been calling for the full disclosure of their assets as declared to the Code of Conduct Bureau.

Documents submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), show that the retired General has indeed been living an austere and spartan lifestyle, contrary to what many might expect of a former Head of State of Nigeria and one who has held a number of top government positions, such as governor, minister of petroleum and the head of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PTDF), Shehu added.

President Buhari declared however that he had shares in Berger Paints, Union Bank and Skye Bank. President Buhari, according to the document submitted at the CCB and quoted by Shehu, has a total of five homes, and two mud houses in Daura. He has two homes in Kaduna, one each in Kano, Daura and in Abuja. One of the mud houses in Daura was inherited from his late older sister, another from his late father. He borrowed money from the old Barclays Bank to build two of his homes.

President Buhari also has two undeveloped plots of land, one in Kano and the other in Port Harcourt. He is still trying to trace the location of the Port Harcourt land, Shehu said.

In addition to the homes in Daura, he has farms, an orchard and a ranch. The total number of his holdings in the farm include 270 heads of cattle, 25 sheep, five horses, a variety of birds and a number of economic trees.

The documents, according to Shehu, also showed that the retired General uses a number of cars, two of which he bought from his savings and the others supplied to him by the Federal Government in his capacity as former Head of State. The rest were donated to him by well-wishers after his jeep was damaged in a Boko Haram bomb attack on his convoy in July 2014.

Meanwhile, highlights of Vice- President,Osinbajo’s asset declaration include his four bedroom residence at Victoria Garden City, Lagos and a three bedroom flat at 2 Mosley Road, Ikoyi.

The Vice President also has a two bedroom flat at the popular Redemption Camp along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and a two bedroom mortgaged property in Bedford, England. Aside from these, the Vice President has no other landed properties on the form.

Apart from his law firm, known as SimmonsCooper, the Vice-President also declared shareholding in six private companies based in Lagos, including Octogenerium Ltd., Windsor Grant Ltd., Tarapolsa, Vistorion Ltd., Aviva Ltd. and MTN Nigeria.

According to details shown on the form, the Vice-President has about N94 million, nine hundred thousand US dollars and nineteen thousand pounds in Nigerian banks with the foreign currencies kept in local domiciliary accounts.

His personal vehicles are one Infinity four-wheel drive SUV, one Mercedes Benz and a Prado Jeep. “As soon as the CCB is through with the process, the documents will be released to the Nigerian public and people can see for themselves,” Shehu said.

Dangote Cement reduces prices in Nigeria

According to reports, Dangote Cement has cut cement prices in Nigeria by N300 per 50 kg bag or N6000 per tonne, effective immediately. An announcement was made to the Nigerian Stock Exchange on 3 September. The price cut is relevant to the 3X cement brand, which is a market-leader.

In addition to the new pricing announcement, the company is said to be planning new marketing initiatives to help stimulate growth in Nigeria’s building sector.

Dangote Cement decreased cement prices in November, but had to increase them again in December to protect profits in the wake of fuel shortages, logistics problems and the devaluing naira.

Nigeria to raise $4 bln in treasury bills in Q4

Nigeria plans to borrow 814.78 billion naira ($4 billion) in Treasury bills between Sept. 17 to Dec. 3, the central bank said on Friday.

The bank said it would auction 215.14 billion naira worth of the 3-month paper, 193.64 billion in the 6-month debt and 406 billion worth of 1-year paper.

The total debt proposed for the fourth quarter is 6.66 percent short of the 872.96 billion raised in the second quarter of the year, the data released by the bank showed.

Warri refinery management given 90 days deadline to resume full production

National Petroleum Corporation,Dr Ibe Kachikwu has issued a 90- day ultimatum to the management of the Warri Refining and Petrochemicals Company (WRPC) to commence full production at the facility.

This is contained in a press statement issued by the corporation’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division Mr Ohi Alegbe and made available in Abuja on Thursday.

The statement said Kachikwu gave the ultimatum at the end of a facility tour of the refinery and the adjoining Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) Jetty and Depot in Warri.

Kachikwu charged the management of WRPC to ensure that the plant is streamed back to full active service within the projected period.

The GMD said he was ready to provide the management of the facility the necessary support to enable it meet the fast track target.

He also urged the management of the plant to resuscitate the Petrochemicals plant which was commissioned in March 1988.

On the state of Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) storage facility, Kachikwu promised to end the era where the company relies heavily on private depots to store the bulk of it’s petroleum products.

He noted that some of the biggest storage facilities in the industry belong to PPMC.

It would be recalled that the 37-year old refinery, which has the capacity to process 125, 000 barrels of crude oil per day has been undergoing phased rehabilitation exercise.

The refinery was shutdown last week due to some technical hitches in one of its units.

Arik Air to divest ownership, goes public May 2016

Arik Air management said on Wednesday that it would go public by May 2016, in order to free the airline of a single ownership structure.

Johnson Arumemi-Ikhide, chairman of the airline, who disclosed this at a breakfast meeting with the topic: Ownership, funding and sustainability of Nigeria airlines,’ organised by Aviation Round Table, a non-governmental organisation, in Lagos, said the airline had invested a lot in Nigeria and its management was proud of the company.

He also called for a Fly Nigeria Act, as obtainable in the US, where all government functionaries’ travel itineraries were channelled through the country’s airlines.

This will go a long way in assisting Nigerian carriers develop their capacity and compete with their foreign counterparts to a certain extent, he said.

Arumemi-Ikhide lamented that a lot obstacles stood in the ways of domestic carriers in Nigeria, ranging from high interest rate, hostility from the financial sector, lack of necessary protection from the Federal Government, high cost of aviation fuel and lack of Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facilities, among others.

According to him, domestic carriers are fighting a battle with the Ministry of Aviation; there is nothing we apply for that will not dragged on for a long time, whereas, foreign carriers are being granted frequencies at will.

PenCom shifts focus to employers failing to remit pension deductions

PenCom is about to go after employers that fail to remit deductions from their workers’ salaries into their Retirement Savings Accounts.

PenCom’s DG, Dr. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, who briefed President Buhari in Abuja, said they are working with the police to ensure that it happens. The police will work with a department in the commission devoted to enforcement and compliance, she added.

Right now PenCom, has a whole department devoted to enforcement and compliance. PenCom has also engaged recovery agents because the compliance is on many levels; some people have made deductions from their workers’ salaries and have not remitted them into their RSAs.

President Buhari promised to take concrete actions to end the problems faced by retirees in accessing their retirement benefits. He also directed Pen- Com to urgently look into complaints of retirees with a view to easing their access to their retirement benefits. The president also directed PenCom to work with the NEC to ensure that all the states fully comply with PenCom guidelines.

The DG said bottlenecks are because the transfer of federal workers to the contributory pension system, midway into their career.

There are 6.637 million retirement savings account holders today which is only about 11 per cent of the working population. The pension scheme has given RSA holders freedom to determine how their retirement benefits would be administered.

Preps in top gear, as Abuja host Business Talk in Summer

The city of Abuja will be engaging financial minds of the country on Saturday September 12, 2015 at Chelsea Hotels, at a forum tagged BUSINESS TALK IN SUMMER, put together by Nigeria Info Fm’s Itohoimo Edet, a financial journalist and show host.

The event which is designed for Nigeria Info listeners and the business community seeks to engage deliberations on sectors such as Petroleum, Investment, Capital market, Entrepreneurship and Agriculture. The event is themed: Winds of change, Oceans of opportunities.

Expected Speakers at the event will include the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, Director General Securities and exchange Commission, Mounir Gwazo, NCP Presidential Candidate, Engr Martin Onovo, CEO Lonadek Consulting Dr. Ibilola Amao, CEO Global Analystic, Tope Fasua, and Manager WE FM Jonathan Lyamgohn. Other prominent guests will include the Managing director, Nigeria Export Import Bank.

The idea is to create alternative investment module away from the obvious petroleum (crude oil), which we know that it has contributed substantially to Nigerian revenue since its discovery in 1956 and more especially, since 1970 when its price was on the upward trend.

However, it is also a known fact across the globe that for a country to attain growth and development, its economy has to be diversified.

Diversification does not occur in a vacuum. Mono-economy needs to give way to the productive development of various sectors of the economy.

Following the supply and demand limitation of major importers from the country, which brought about the fall in the price of oil by more than 40% since June 2014 when it was $115 a barrel, which now is below $60, after five years of stability, it is a well-known fact that Nigeria's continuous large earnings or revenue from this sector will be impossible.

To this end the different speakers from the five sectors of the economy, will create ideas and set new frontiers for the ultimate wish of Nigerian which is to see an economy rated among the world's first 20 economies.

As a matter of fact, there is an urgent need for the Nigerian government to begin looking into diversification of various sectors of the economy so as to attain solid economic growth.

Also there exists a positive relationship between economic growth in Nigeria and diversification of other sectors because when there were proper management of human resources, huge investment and concentration on agriculture, Nigerian economy was recorded to be healthy and vibrant.

It is believed that at the end of the forum, we would have been able to draw a clear path for which will see our economy grow in a different dimension.

Nigeria Shifts Implementation of National Identification Number to 2016

The federal government has shifted the take-off date for banks, MDAs of federal government to commence mandatory use of the National Identification Number (NIN) for identification, from September 1, 2015 to January 9, 2016.

The National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) had earlier directed that all transactions involving the identification of individuals as specified in Section 27 of the NIMC Act must be done with the NIN beginning from September 1, 2015. The date follows the recent directive by President Muhammadu Buhari, that all MDAs should expeditiously harmonise their biometric databases.

The extension would enable NIMC progress further, ongoing efforts with the MDAs that have reached advanced stages of harmonisation including the CBN, FRSC, FIRS, PenCom, INEC, NHIS, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, (FMARD).

This would help avoid the situation similar to what was experienced when the CBN wanted to enforce the cut-off date for the BVN, leading to a late rush to meet the deadline/massive turn out of citizens and the troubles they had to go through. It would also help ensure that the need for double enrolment is reduced to the barest minimum during this transition period when the harmonization is being implemented.

Naira drops to 218 as dollar demand rises

The naira dropped on Monday by 2.3 per cent to 218 against the dollar at the parallel market. The greenback was sold for 213 at the black market on Friday.

Foreign exchange traders linked the development to huge demand for the dollar by importers, politicians and investors.

“There is an upsurge in demand for the dollar due to increase in liquidity in the system, with some buyers willing to pick up dollars at any available rate,” the President, Association of Bureau De Change Operators, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, said,

The naira had last week hovered between 208-210 against the dollar.

This came after the Central Bank of Nigeria increased dollar sales to the BDCs in a bid to narrow the margin between parallel and interbank market rates.

Some forex dealers said a number of people were buying up dollars to pay school fees and other commitments abroad, fuelling a surge in demand at the parallel market.

Nigeria's Warri refinery remains shut while crude deliveries continue

 

Nigeria's Warri refinery has not yet reopened after last week's temporary closure because crude oil is still being loaded into the plant, a spokesman for its operator the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said on Tuesday.



NNPC spokesman Ohi Alegbe said the refinery would only restart when it had enough crude to keep it going for at least 25 days.

"Once we have supplied sufficient crude ... we can restart the production process," Alegbe said.
He added that crude was being supplied to the refinery in batches carried by marine vessels, because most of the pipelines supplying it had been compromised by vandalism.

Oil sales account for around 70 percent of government revenue in Africa's top crude producer, which imports most of the fuel used by its 170 million inhabitants because of the age and inefficiency of its refineries in Warri, Kaduna and Port Harcourt.

NNPC had on Thursday said the decision to shut Warri was taken because there was insufficient crude in the system, adding it expected to resume by Tuesday.

The 125,000 barrels per day (bpd) Warri refinery resumed operations two months ago after maintenance that began in November 2014. It is expected to run at 60,000 bpd.