South Africa faces power cuts for 4th straight day

 

South African utility Eskom resumed widespread power cuts on Wednesday, leaving millions without electricity for a fourth day in a row but a government minister ruled out the chances of a total blackout.
Africa's most advanced economy is in the middle of its worst electricity crisis since 2008 and South Africans are subjected to frequent controlled blackouts, which Eskom implements to prevent the grid from collapsing.

 

 

South Africa on Tuesday lost a quarter of its power supply in one of its worst power outages in years in both scheduled maintenance and plant breakdowns. Some supply had been restored by Wednesday, but the power outages remained widespread.

Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown said despite the seriousness of the power supply constraints, South Africa was not at risk of facing a total blackout.


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Nokia aims to become networks giant with Alcatel-Lucent deal

 

Nokia is to buy ailing French telecom company Alcatel-Lucent for around 15.6 billion euros ($16.5 billion) through a public exchange of shares in France and the United States, in a bid that will see the newly created company become a leading global networks operator.

Though Alcatel-Lucent has been racking up billions of euros of losses since its creation in 2006, Nokia seems to believe it can cut costs and hopes the deal will give it scale in the market of providing the networks that mobile phones use.

The Finnish company said Wednesday that the all-share transaction will be on the basis of 0.55 of a new Nokia share for every share of Alcatel-Lucent. According to the deal, Alcatel-Lucent shareholders would own 33.5 percent of the fully diluted share capital of the combined company, with Nokia shareholders owning 66.5 percent.

Nokia stock was down nearly 2 percent at 7.35 euros in late trading in Helsinki while Alcatel-Lucent plunged more than 14 percent in Paris.

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Nigeria Overnight Rate Hits 90 Pct, Nears Record High

 

 Nigeria overnight rate spiked to 90 percent , near record highs, up from 60 percent on Monday, dealers said, two days after the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) debited lenders to enforce its cash reserve requirements.

Rates have been rising sharply for two days — the overnight lending rate stood at 27 percent on Friday last week, before the CBN bank withdrew the funds.

Rates set a record high of 100 percent in February.

Traders said the open balance with the central bank stood at N26 billion as at Monday, down from around N160 billion last week.

CBN cuts annual overseas spending from $150,000 to $50,000

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has slashed annual overseas spending by Nigerians using any Nigerian banks debit card from $150,000 to $50,000.

It has also brought down the daily usage card limit to $300. According to the CBN, the move is being taken to reduce the pressure on the Naira.

In a circular signed by the director, Trade and Exchange Department, Olakanmi Gbadamosi, the CBN said the new limit takes effect from Monday, April 13, 2015.

The circular however did not state if there would be restrictions for individuals with multiple naira denominated cards from different banks.

CBN disburses 20% of MSME fund

The Central Bank of Nigeria says about 20 per cent of the N220 billion Micro, Small, and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) fund has been disbursed to beneficiaries.

CBN Director, Banking Supervision, Mrs. Tokunbo Martins, said the supervisory bank was working on ways of ensuring that more funds get to the critical sectors of the economy.

Head, Relationship Management, MSME Development Finance Department, Tobin Jonathan, said CBN was jolted by low access to the fund by operators.

CBN, he said, is worried that since the fund was launched last August only insignificant portion has been disbursed to operators because of stringent conditions attached to accessing the funds.

MSME-operators, Ibrahim said, were complaining that the criteria were too difficult to meet, hence CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele relaxed them to make the funds more accessible.

He added that the CBN also addressed other complaints by participating financial institutions, including the spread of profit to cover their cost of operations.

NUPENG Sets Agenda for Buhari in Petroleum Industry

Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, yesterday in Lagos, set an agenda for the incoming government of General Muhammed Buhari, GMD, retd, in the Petroleum industry, saying the government must end importation of petroleum products within a record time.

This came as the union urged the outgoing National Assembly to pass the protracted Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, before its tenure elapsed in June.

At a briefing, NUPENG president, Mr. Igwe Achese, noted that the incoming government must also ensure the safety of the nation's pipelines network to reduce the haulage of products by roads with its negative consequences including loss of lives through road accidents and traffic gridlock especially on Apapa-Oshodi Expressway which had been causing untold hardships for road users among others.

According to him, among the expectations of NUPENG from the incoming government were that the "government must ensure job security in the sector, as the cardinal programme of the party is job creation. The four refineries must be rehabilitated and new ones established to end or reduce massive importation of petroleum products into the country.

"Government must also protect the nation's pipelines from vandals because if the pipelines are effectively protected, with public depots scattered across the country, products will move through the pipelines to all the major depots across the country." This will reduce the pressures on our roads with its consequences such as road accidents and gridlocks especially in Lagos that has been creating untold hardships for citizens. Again, without the safety of the pipelines, crude cannot even get to refineries such as the Kaduna refineries. The government must also rehabilitate and expand all the access roads to the refineries."

FG RESTATES COMMITMENT TO FINDING CHIBOK GIRLS, FOUNDATION WORK STARTS ON CHIBOK SECONDARY SCHOOL

The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, Mrs Anastasia Daniel-Nwaobia, representing the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala today met with representatives of the Chibok community to assure them of the federal government’s commitment to rescuing the abducted Chibok School girls and to also update them on the status of the safe school initiative.

She informed the representatives of the Chibok community that government has never relented in its efforts at the rescue of the Chibok school girls and has been pursuing a two-pronged approach: pursuing the release of the abducted girls as well as ensuring that the children at home are able to go back to schools that are safe and secure.

She noted that to fold hands and do nothing will approximate to accepting defeat which is exactly what Boko Haram whose agenda is to stop Nigerians from going to school wants.

The Permanent Secretary informed them that the architectural model of the Chibok Secondary is ready along with the budget and that the Nigerian Army Corps of Engineers have been mobilized to commence construction. She however stated clearly that this is but part of the overall strategy of government for restoring sanity to the community but that the rescue of the girls remains the priority.