The Nation Newspaper

Category: Business

  • NERC asks customers to pay for meters

    NERC asks customers to pay for meters

    Against its ealier stance to provide meters free of charge, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) yesterday asked willing customers to pay to Distribution Companies (DISCOs) after which a meter will be given to them within 45 days.

    NERC Chairman Dr. Sam Amadi, who said this in Abuja, explained that in exchange for the payment, “the DISCOs will in turn reduce the customers’ electricity bills monthly to the tune of the amount originally advanced by the customer.”

    He said the Commission may accredit meter vendors to supply and install the meters directly to customers, adding that NERC will work out the modalities for the payment.

    This decision followed the companies’ slow implementation of the 18-month timeline for metering deployment plan set by NERC at the commencement of the Multi Year Tariff Order (MYTO2) in June, last year.

    The tariff made allowance for sufficient funds to provide meters so that customers were no longer required to pay for the facility.

    But Amadi explained that the 18-month metering plan was based on the assumption that with financial viability, the process would improve after MYTO 2.

    “Unfortunately, the negotiation between labour and the Federal Government has resulted in increased personnel cost by 50 per cent. The impact is that the operational cost of the DISCOs increased significantly. So the DISCOs have not been able to utilise increment in collection arising from tariff review to focus on metering.”

    He said the Commission would hold a public hearing for SMEs and other stakeholders to arrive at a more affordable fixed charge to ensure sustenance of the sector.

    “The Board of the Commissioners also reviewed the requests made by some electricity distribution companies to unbundle customers classes (R2 and R3), a development that will see to customers in the R2 category, who are mostly low-income working class customers paying less for electricity without undermining the capacity of the operators to recover their costs.

    He said NERC has requested for an imposition of Kilo Volt Amp (KVA) charges to users of heavy industrial machinery that are known to cause stress to the system, adding that the charge would serve as a deterrent to such customers and compel them to install capacitor baks that will be used to reduce the impact.

    The Commission also revealed that it received a request from Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (Bulk Trader) to grant a special permit to the 450 megawatt Azura- Edo power plant located in Ihovbor Benin, Edo State.

    Amadi explained that the permit is in respect of a site specific wholesale gas price that is higher than the official price to enable it complete it’s financial transactions and commence construction of the plant.

    While accepting that the power plant is important in terms of wholesale, he stressed that the commission has resolved that a decision will be taken after a public hearing with the stakeholders such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation , DISCOs, electricity consumers and others.

    On metering plans, he said: “I also like to inform you that we have received concerns about slow deployment of meters. As you know, NERC had indicated metering the nation in 18 months based on the assumption on how the financial viability would improve after MYTO II.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Reps probe N275b Customs contract

    Reps probe N275b Customs contract

    • Malfunctioning PA system forces adjournment

    The House of Representatives has expressed concern over the management of the N275billion Destination Inspection Scheme (DIS) between the Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) and the Ministry of Finance.

    The lawmakers have subsequently mandated the Committee on Customs and Excise to investigate the whereabout of the said money.

    The DIS contracts were awarded to four foreign firms- Cotecna Destination Inspection ltd; SGS Scanning Nigeria Limited; Global Scan Systems Limited and Webb Fountain (Nigeria) Limited to provide scanning services, risk management techniques and electronic platform at the various ports in the country.

    The firms that have been handling Information and Communications Technology (ICT) services for the NCS in the last 7 years, were supposed to build, equip, train and eventually transfer the technology and expertise to the Customs.

    Bimbo Daramola (ACN, Ekiti) who raised the motion under matter of urgent public importance, stressed that it has become expedient for the country to block drains of its revenues, especially through the ports.

    Daramola explained that in December last year, the Minister of Finance, Customs and the service providers announced an extension of the contract for a period of six months.

    He said: “This curious extension was without due process and against the overall interest of the country. As a result of the extension, N21billion would be paid to the service providers irrespective of the quality of work and without handing over to the NCS, or making Nigerians the dominant players after so many years.

    “Our concern and worry is that the revenue potentials of the country are not being realised as adequate taxes are not being paid by the Destination Inspection service providers.

    “Needless to say that the collection of government revenue is also not being maximised as over $1billion of government revenue may have been lost.”

    The motion was referred to the House Committee on Commerce after it was put to voice vote by the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, who presided. The committee was given four weeks to report back to the House.

    Meanwhile, plenary was abruptly adjourned till next Tuesday when it became apparent that plenary could not continue as a result of malfunctioning of the public address system in the chamber.

  • House defeats motion on cement import

    House defeats motion on cement import

    There was an uproar in the House of Representatives yesterday as the members voted on a motion brought by a member, Hassan Saleh (PDP, Benue).

    Members were disenchanted with the refusal of the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, to rule in line with the votes on the motion, causing an uproar.

    While majority of the lawmakers shouted “Nay!” to the motion, the Deputy Speaker dithered and asked the sponsor to repeat the prayer just in case members did not hear it well in the first instance.

    This incited members, anger, resulting in an uproar. For about three minutes, no one could hear anything in the chamber due to the murmuring that engulfed the chamber..

    The motion, entitled: “Urgent need to investigate the non-implementation of the backward integration policy on local production of cement,” empahsised the non-protection of local cement producers, against the background of the glut in the local market and continued importation of cement.

    The vote was eventually taken for the second time after the sponsor had read the motion a second time.

     

     

     

  • ICAN trains, certifies 38,000

    The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), has so far trained and certified over 38, 000 chartered accountants who are engaged in the creation of values in all sectors of the economy, its President, Adedoyin Owolabi, has said.

    Speaking at a public lecture, titled; ‘Accountancy Profession as a Tool for Economic Development,’ in Calabar, Owolabi said the body has currently registered a student population of about 186, 000 in its professional programme.

    He said since the introduction of the Institute’s Accelerated Programme, the number of students qualifying as chartered accountants have risen to 2500 annually.

    Also, in order to facilitate the production of middle level manpower needed by the nation in the development process, he said they introduced the Accounting Technician’s Scheme which has trained more that 12, 500 technicians in the last fifteen years.

    He said the scheme currently has a registered student population of over 98, 000.

  • Is Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative dead?

    Is Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative dead?

    Eight years ago, the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative (ANTI-MOPHTI) was born. It brought hope that with its coming, it will help in reducing theft of mobile phones. In the last two years, ANTI-MOPHTI has been inactive, provoking comments on what has become of it. Has it been abandoned by government or is it being tinkered with to strengthen it? LUCAS AJANAKU reports

    He was sleeping when they came in. Their mission, was not to kill or destory, if their victims cooperated. All they were interested in were their victims’ mobile phones. They were masked. In no time, they broke into the home of Austin Christopher, at Cement, in Dopemu, a Lagos suburb, holding everybody in the 12-room apartment (face-me-I-face-you) to ransom for about two hours.

    “They were many that came that night. They gained access to our building by pulling down the entrance door. They were armed to the teeth, but they were not very aggressive except for those who were not willing to cooperate by surrendering their mobile phones. They brought a bag into which everyone willingly dropped his/her mobile phone. After the operation, they fled,” he recalled.

    Kunle Akinwumi will not forget the experience he had two years ago when he went to buy a new mobile phone at the popular Computer Village, Ikeja, Lagos. He bought the phone for N55,000, brought it home, inserted the battery and started charging it in his bedroom. Time was about 7.30pm and he had slept off ostensibly because of the heavy traffic on his way back to his Akowonjo home in the suburb of Lagos.

    “I put the handset on top of my reading table in my bedroom, very close to the window. I plugged the charger to the socket very close to the table and slept off. When I woke up, the handset was nowhere to be found. I raised an alarm only for a neighbour who had had a similar experience to draw my attention to the mosquito net on my window. It had been skilfully torn and a long stick used to drive the handset to the window area where it was disengaged from the charger,” Akinwumi told The Nation.

    Austin and Akinwumi are examples of victims of mobile phone theft. While they are happy to tell their stories, not many are alive to tell theirs because the injuries sustained while being dispossessed of their phones led to their deaths. Most of these stolen phones were later traced to the second-hand mobile phones markets without justice being done to the victims.

    Though there are no official statistics, stolen mobile phones are estimated to run into millions of naira. This estimate is predicated upon the fact that, accordimg to figures from the Nigerian Commuications Commission (NCC), the total subscribers data released at the twilight of last year stood at 109million.

    Worried by the menace, the National Association of Telecoms Subscriber (NATCOMS), in 2005 sold the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative (ANTI-MOPHTI) idea to NCC at the Telecomms Consumer Parliament held in Lagos.

    NATCOMS National President, Deolu Ogunbanjo said: “It is to ensure that stolen phones are blocked/disabled, and are prevented from being used on any network in Nigeria, through the Central Equipment Identity Registry (CEIR) used in detecting the International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI)/Serial Number, through dialing the code *#06# on GSM Mobile Phones.”

    The NCC embraced the initiative and organised a forum about three years ago. The forum recommended that the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Service must be free to subscribers/consumers.

    NCC also registered Messrs NetVisa Nigeria Limited as the company to run the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Service. After dotting the lines with the stakeholders in telecoms industry, the initaive was endorsed by and launched by former Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili.

    But lack of equipment to identify fake mobile phones may have put this laudable project in the cooler. The registration system, known as IMEI, can only identify genuine phones from big manufacturers, such as Nokia, Samsung, LG and others.

    Globally, mobile phones are assigned a unique 15-digit IMEI code upon production, which is the backbone of genuine handsets.

    In Nigeria, mobile phone vendors are expected to register their handset models with the regulator. However, this has seen only big market players comply, while a significant number of traders operate without the due process.

    Major handset manufacturers selling in Nigeria include Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony, and Ericsson. Mobile operators say genuine phones register both the IMEI code along with a caller’s number on their systems while fake gadgets record only the caller’s details.

    This made the plans by the NCC to bar the use of stolen phones in telecoms networks in Nigeria to crumble like a pack of cards.

    Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Dr. Eugene Juwah, said most of the phones had only batch numbers that could make it impossible to disable just one phone. Every mobile phone is assigned an IMEI number that is unique to it.

    Thus, by supplying the IMEI of a stolen phone, an operator could easily block the use of the phone on the network and render the phone useless to the thief thereby serving as a disincentive to potential phone theives.

    Juwah said most of the phones that came into Nigeria had batch IMEI numbers, which is not unique to one phone but to as many as five million phones.

    According to him, the implication of this is that disabling one stolen phone from use in a network could also deny 4,999,999 other phones that are not stolen access to the networks.

    “Barring of stolen phones could not succeed in the country because of the problem of batch equipment identity registry. Sixty per cent of phones in Nigeria come from China. Many of the phones that come in here are fake.

    “If you bar one phone, you must have barred another five million phones. We are still looking at the issue with new technologies,” Juwah promised.

    He said the agency bore no resposibility for the preponderance of fake phones in the country, adding that different ports of entry had prototypes of phones approved for use in Nigeria.

    Under the agreement, anyone whose phone was stolen could report to Netvisa and submit the IMEI number so that the phone could be barred from use in all the networks.

    The rationale was that if stolen phones could not be used in any network, the motivation to steal would not exist, thus the high incidence of the stolen phones would be minimised, if not eliminated.

    The existence of a flourishing used phones market where stolen phones could easily be sold is also fuelling the predilection of mobile phones theives to keep doing the business..

    The Preponderance of fake/substandard mobile phones has become an issue in the telecoms sector. The NCC and Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) are said not to be doing enough in this respect. In some cases, both NCC and SON officials have at different times, stormed the shops where such phones are sold to effect seizures and at times, arrest the dealers. Despite this, importers and sellers of these substandard phones have remained undeterred as fake phones and accessories still flood the market.

    The Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) said the best way to eradicate them from circulation would be to compel the telecoms operators to switch off all fake and substandard mobile phones from their networks. The NCC, the body argues, must compel the telecos to switch off the fake phones to render them useless. Though reliable statistics are hard to come by, it is estimated that more than half of phones in the country are fake or sub-standard.

    ATCON President Lanre Ajayi said any device that is not type approved by the NCC should not be used on any network. He urged he Commission to ensure that such devices are not allowed on any network in the country.

    A security expert and coordinator, Crime Prevention Campaign Organisation of Nigeria, Temitope Akindele, said the NCC should urgently revisit the Anti-Mobile Phone Theft Initiative. “Every government agency saddled with curtailing the influx fake mobile phones into the country must rise up to the challenge. Aside the security threats, these phones are said to be injurious to health and even compound the poor service delivery issue in the telecoms sector. NCC should go back to the drawing board and revisit mobile phone registration.”

     

  • How to bridge digital divide

    The Federal Government has received tips on how to bridge the digital divide.

    The government was implored to look for funds and provide telecoms infrastructure in rural and under-served areas of the country.

    The Director of Regulatory Affairs, Etisalat Nigeria, Ibrahim Dikko, said this has become imperative as operators prefer to invest in infrastructure in communities which they consider viable.

    “The Government would have to find ways to subsidise rural infrastructure build because operators most times, invest in areas that they consider commercially viable,” he said.

    Dikko listed other factors hindering investment in telecoms infrastructure in the country, adding that a broadband strategy would go along way in luring investors into the sector.

    “The Government needs to develop right spectrum policy to encourage investors to come in. Issues around multiple taxation, right-of–way and power must be addressed to encourage operators make requisite investment in infrastructure. The NCC needs to continue to foster competition in the broadband industry,” he said.

    One way the government has been doing this is through the Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF). The Nigerian Communications Act 2003, that established the NCC mandated the Commission, “to establish USPF to promote the widespread availability and usage of network services and application services throughout Nigeria by encouraging the installation of network facilities and the provision for network services and application services to institutions and in un-served, under-served areas or for under-served groups within the community.”

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • DBI to create knowledge-based economy

    The Digital Bridge Institute (DBI) is designed to create a knowledge-based economy in the country and provide the pool of skilled manpower to the ICT industry, Director, Public Affairs, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Tony Ojobo, has said.

    Ojobo, who spoke in Lagos, recalled that in 2001 when the telecoms sector was liberalised, the industry faced “dearth of skilled manpower” to move it forward. He said over time, the DBI had trained engineers in line with technological trends across the world.

    He said the institution is also in partnerhsip with other institutions outside the country. “DBI is working in collaboration with other isntitutions abroad including Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom (UK). We are partnering with thses offshore universities and we believe that this is going to be high class institution that compare with any institution in the world,” he said.

     

  • Dell, others launch Window 8 tablets, ultrabook

    Dell, in partnership with Microsoft and Intel, has launched Windows 8 tablets and Ultrabook, promising that the products would usher in a new era of computing with its redesigned portfolio of business and consumer PCs which it said would take advantage of the new operating system.

    Speaking at the launch of the product at Ikoyi, Lagos, Annie Odo-effiong, client product marketing manager, Dell Anglophone East and West Africa, explained that the products were built to optimise the Windows 8 operating system (OS), adding that Dell has crafted designs that would enable new users to experience and make touch computing available to more customers than ever before.

    She said consumers would be able to purchase a range of new Dell products for home and for business including the XPS 10 tablet, Latitude 10 tablet, XPS 12 convertible Ultrabook, Inspiron 15z Ultrabook, Latitude 6430u Ultrabook, OptiPlex 9010 All-in-One with touch XPS One 27 with touch.

    She said further that the products free customers from carrying mutiple devices, helping them to save time and be more productive. The gorgeous and durable designs offer unparalleled security and manageability, empowering users to keep pace in an always-connected world.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • ‘Smart Tvs will dominate market’

    About 85 per cent of flat-panel televison sets produced in 2016 will be smart TVs while global unit production of flat-panel smart TVs will grow from 69 million in 2012 to 198 million in 2016.

    Worldwide unit production of smart TVs in 2013 is expected to reach 108 million, Gartner, Incorporated has said in its forecast..

    However, analysts said smart TVs alone won’t spur demand in the market. TV manufacturers must recognise the need to offer some compelling reasons for consumers to choose their brand over a competitor’s.

    “In the end, the choice may be all about the extra content that one TV brand offers over another. Consumers will be asking questions such as, which Internet TV services can the TV access? Are these the sites I think are valuable? Can I use my smartphone or tablet with this TV?” said Paul O’Donovan, Principal Research Analyst at Gartner.

    “It is critical for the TV industry during this global economic downturn and decline in consumer confidence levels, to sustain sales and maintain or grow market share — especially in emerging markets. This is difficult when demand has slowed, so the extra functionality offered by smart TVs becomes the product differentiator — if prices are already competitive and all other variables are equal between brands.”

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • Google improves handwriting on tablets

    Google has announced some improvements to the Handwrite facility for smartphones and tablets that use handwriting instead of typing to carry out web searches.

    In a statement, the company said that they have been working to improve recognition quality and also working on a number of features to make it easier and faster to handwrite searches on Google.

    Users can distinguish between ambiguous characters, overlapping characters, and write multiple characters at a time in Chinese.

    If you’ve tried Handwrite before, you may have had some trouble entering a lowercase “L”, the number “1”, or a capital “I”. Now, we provide alternate interpretations of your characters that users can select above the space bar. Similarly, in Japanese the characters “?” and “?” look nearly identical but are different characters and produce different search results. If Google interpreted the handwriting one way and the user meant the other, they can now more easily make a correction.

    Compared with tablets, mobile phone screens are smaller and are a little more difficult to write on. Now, instead of squeezing in letters across the width of the small screen or writing one letter at a time, users can write letters on top of one another.