The Nation Newspaper

Tag: benefit

  • ‘Nigerians have a lot to benefit from Dubai’

    ‘Nigerians have a lot to benefit from Dubai’

    Ms. Stella Obinwa, a Nigerian, is the Regional Director, Africa Internal Operations, Dubai Tourism Board. Obinwa led a team of Dubai Tourism Board to Nigeria ahead of the annual Dubai Shopping Festival scheduled for January and February. In this interview with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf she speaks on the socio-economic benefits of Dubai tourism and how Nigerians can key into it. Excerpts:

    You came to Nigeria to promote the annual Dubai Shopping Festival. Why did you choose Nigeria?

    We chose Nigeria because they have shown a large interest in shopping and we feel we have something to offer them; and also because it is the largest populated country in Africa. We also chose Nigeria because there are a lot of local businesses here in Nigeria and Dubai that they can collaborate. This is just the first. We will take this out to other countries in future but in the short time that we have to put this together, Nigeria fits perfectly.

    For a Nigerian that has not been to Dubai, what is so special about the shopping fair?

    If you’ve never been to Dubai, the Dubai Shopping Festival puts Dubai at an advantage over all other shopping destinations in the world. At the Dubai Shopping Festivals, the retailers are offering 70 per cent or more discounts on all the merchandise on their stores. It is like an after season and urging people to come and get their best deals on anything, the Gold Souk, spice souk, Dubai Mall, every mall. Every retailer will be running a discount programme.

    Nigerians travel to Dubai a lot, what is the special thing about the festival?

    Contrary to public perception, it is a select few that have been to Dubai from Nigeria. We are finding out that they go often. Nigeria has a population of 170 million. Let us knockout 100 million as below age and not earning money, there is still 70 million. Let us knock out half of that and say for reasons of logistics 50 per cent can’t go, we are down to 35 million. The number on record of Nigerians that go to Dubai is less than 200,000. That means there is a huge potential to grow it. So we decided in Dubai Tourism that we are going to give people a free experience to Dubai. So, on this trip that I am here with my colleagues, we are running a giveaway promotion to give away travel packages to up to 200 Nigerians. We pay for the flights, pay for the hotels and all they have to do is to go there and experience the Dubai Shopping Festival which is not only about shopping, it is also about gastronomy. All the leading restaurant s will run special programmes, special eating experiences, there will be concerts and the normal activities. You would experience the desert; experience the culture, there is so much to do during the Dubai Shopping Festival.  So, we take 200 people there, they will enjoy, they will come back and spread the word that Dubai is not an alternative destination, it is the destination.

    You know Dubai is like one big bazaar venue, how does this shopping festival run?

    Every mall and every location, as long as you are a licensed retailer in Dubai, you run the discount, whether you are in the gold souk area, whether you are at the mall, whether you are at the Downtown area, the Deria, every where you are. All kinds of merchandise: phones, pillows, bags, shoes, you name it, everything would be on sale.

    So, all you need to do is be in Dubai during the festival?

    Like you say, all you need is to be there, well, we take care of your being there, you do the enjoyment.

    Talking about being there, a couple of months back, there are issues regarding Nigerians entering Dubai and who can come in, marital status and so on…?

    I am familiar with the issues you are a talking about. When I was employed in Dubai tourism, I went to them with guns blazing telling them you guys want me to drive traffic with all these restrictions? They told them, Stella, go take a look, those are guidelines that enable them screen out those that should not be there. Every country needs to do her due diligence to maintain the safety of those who come into their country and those who live in their country. It is awesome they are doing that. So, while it might seem frustrating for people when they hear these restrictions, it is for their own good that Dubai has such a wonderful screening programme that ensures that when you come in, you are going to be safe.

    Which months are the pick months for travel into Dubai for Nigerians?

    December and January are huge travel months for Nigerians as well as August and September, and even March and April depending on when the Easter season falls. Those are the biggest travel months. We see upward of 25,000 to 30,000 Nigerians those months documented. I say documented because I was one of those who probably went there in December. I live in Nigeria but I went on my United States passport, my document does not show I am a Nigerian. We are going to address all these in the coming months so that the true number will show.

    In terms of products, you know what the average Nigerian wants. In terms of our shopping culture , what do you think they are going to enjoy most about the Dubai Shopping Festival?

    I think Nigerians will enjoy the night life. I think that now that Dubai has launched great African fine dining experience, Nigerians are going enjoy that. There is also the great shopping experience. I think Nigerians enjoy relationship, the banter; they will get all of that in Dubai. They will get the relaxation, the cold weather, all of these make for a complete experience.

    How do Nigerians queue into this?

    If you go to any travel agency that has an online platform, you will see packages to Dubai. What the travel agencies do is that they contact the airlines directly …I think you can get that on any platform and Dubai Tourism is here to support every travel agency.

    I know that there are a few travel agencies that you are working with, how about the others?

    No, I am working with all. I am developing a relationship with the umbrella agency for Nigerian travel agencies, NANTA; everybody who is a member of NANTA will have access to Dubai Tourism. We are not favouring one agency over the other. Of course for different promotions, it is impossible to run a promotion with 2000 agencies, so we look at the statistics of what the agencies are producing and if we think you produce very strong number in the month of March for example, if I have promotion running, I will give it to you. I will spread the love equally. I don’t want to single out favour for any particular agency.

    I know the shopping festival starts in January, what is the duration?

    The Shopping Festival is from January 1st to February 1st. Nigerians are invited and some of them, I will pay for them.  Let me qualify it. If someone sends you on a trip by yourself, you might not really enjoy it. what we are doing is a 100 packages  but each person who wins a package can bring a friend or anybody who has a Nigerian passport. You will travel on your Nigerian passport even if you have another country’s passport for this particular trip.

     

  • Traders benefit from Rotary’s micro-finance scheme

    Twenty-five traders, both men and women,  have benefited from a micro-credit scheme of the Rotary Club of Ikeja, District 9110, as part of its Community Development Initiative Programme (CDIP).

    Presenting the cheques of N25, 000 each to the 25 beneficiaries from the Obada market in Isolo, the club’s President, Mr. Tosin Kadiri, said one of the ways to help develop a society was by empowering women.

    The initiative, he explained, followed the challenges faced in raising credit from financial institutions, including the high interest rate, which the petty trader cannot afford.

    Kadiri said the scheme, which is a revolving loan with zero per cent interest, would be repaid after three months.

    “This micro credit is a way of helping these traders, and that the multiplier effect will eventually enhance the value of their family.”

    The programme, which started five years ago, Kadiri said, would be sustained because of its impact on the society, and especially because the traders had shown a high level of cooperation by their prompt repayment of the credit facility.

    The Iyaloja of Obada market, Alhaja Wosilat Yusuf, one of the beneficiaries, thanked the club for the gesture, assuring it that the money would be used judiciously.

  • Eagles’ll benefit from Eaglets’ World Cup feat- Toro

    Eagles’ll benefit from Eaglets’ World Cup feat- Toro

    Former Secretary General of the Nigeria Football Association (now Federation) Hon. Sani Toro has declared that the good old days is back for the Super Eagles as the Golden Eaglets defended the FIFA U- 17 World Cup they won in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)  two years ago in Chile.

    The Nigerian cadet national team coached by Manu Garba made record in 2013 when they beat Mexico 3-0 to win the competition for a record fourth time. The record was re-written by the Golden Eaglets of 2015 set when the Emmanuel Amunike-tutored side also thrashed African Champions Mali 2-0 on Sunday night at the Estadio Sausalito Vina Del Mar, Chile to win back to back the cadet World Cup for a record fifth time.

    An elated former legislator, Toro was full of praises for the victorious team and officials and told SportingLife that winning the competition back to back portends good omen for the country if well utilized by the administrators in charge.

    “Firstly I want to say big congratulations to all football loving Nigerians and special congratulations to President Muhammadu Buhari who will receive the boys and the Trophy. It would be recalled that he was the military Head of State 30 years ago when the Nduka Ugbade captained side won the maiden edition of the competition in China then.

    “The boys have done well and made us all very proud. The joy of this victory is thast since they have won the Trophy back to back and consecutively this has afforded us to have a pool of talented and quality very young players that if well monitored and utilised will definitely form a very strong and all conquering Super Eagles side in future,” the former Scribe of the Nigeria Football Association said.

  • Too little, too much – this unemployment benefit…

    The competition between the three regions is still too strong and bristly fought to enable us embark on that kind of venture. It will simply become another space for the dishonest execution of that war

    I hear that the upper house of the national assembly has done it again, put itself in the news. This time, I hear it has, as a body, disagreed to agree to put on hold the decision to pay unemployment benefits to unemployed youths. You know them don’t you? Oh I don’t mean benefits – anyone can recognise those. They are those things that when you put them in your pocket, you feel so light you’re practically floating on top of the planet. So no, I’m not asking if you know what benefits are. I’m asking if you know what unemployed youths are. They are those poor tykes who scour the streets in worn shoes hoping that if they kick up enough stones and pebbles, those things would whisper something to them about where jobs are hiding. I wish I could tell you whether it works or not.

    Well, bless this new government for having its heart in the right place. It actually upped and decided that it wanted to pay out a certain sum of money called ‘unemployment benefits’ to those young things. Perhaps, the money is to tide them over, or give them some strength while they muster up more resolve to kick up more pebbles, I don’t know. What I do know is that that effort is a little too little, too much because it is fraught with a great deal of unclear particles. Let’s see why now.

    To start with, the sum of five thousand can buy what now in the market? Hardly a thing. You try setting it aside as your transportation fare for the month in any city in Nigeria, and you’ll soon find that while it may take you out, it may not take you back home. Try setting it aside for food and you’ll soon find that while it may fill your plate with some grains of carbohydrates (if you look hard enough with your magnifying glass that is), it will not lay in your plate a tiny slice off the flanks of a willing cow for protein. Worse, it won’t scoop an ice cream cone in your dessert spoon. So, I guess the slightly esteemed senators were not saying no to the sum of Five Thousand Naira. I think they were saying no to the sum of Five Thousand Naira multiplied into the endless places occupied by Nigeria’s youths. I think someone said that will go into trillions of Naira or so a month.

    There are other considerations. Just how many unemployed youths do we have in Nigeria? 10 million? 20 million? Someone said he was conservatively putting the figure at 30 million. Now, that is worrisome. If you have that number of youths without employment sitting at home or kicking up pebbles on the streets, I think the country should be shaking in its shoes. The situation is clearly a tinderbox sitting on a dynamite box sitting on a gunpowder box. Now, you have the situation.

    Obviously though, we are all not quite agreed on just what makes for an unemployed youth. If we measure by the demographic factor of age, are we saying all young ‘uns who are employable should be from the age of ten or eleven to thirty or thereabouts? You better believe that many youths who are employed right now are no older than the least in this bracket. I have reported here that a youth of no more than twelve to sixteen is the breadwinner of his family even as he works in the dignified field of begging. Many other young ‘uns of no more than six, seven or eight years are also breadwinners for their families in the equally dignified field of hawking. So, yes, we do have unemployed youths of many questionable designs.

    Are we to pick our qualification from the factor of education? Are we saying that our unemployed are only those who have graduated but have not been able to get jobs? Then we must decide on what we intend to mean by the word ‘graduate’. Many have ‘graduated’ from either primary or secondary or trade school and have no intention of going to any school but to get a job to help their families. Now, will they qualify? Who is to decide who gets left out?

    Now, what about those people who are not very happy with their lowly jobs because they are of the decidedly unshakeable faith that nature has joined hands with their country to rob them of life changing opportunities? Who is to prevent them from registering their noble behinds on the benches of the welfare office? Supposing they believe that that five thousand naira would make a difference in their lives, shall we prevent them?

    Nigeria has no data base for anything – not for the number of beggars in the country or the number it needs; not for the number of houses in the country or the number it needs; not even for the number of farms it has in the country or the number it needs; not for the types of food eaten in the country or the number it needs; not for the air it breaths … Need I go on? Heck, we can hardly get the correct statistics for the country’s population because it varies so wildly from lips to lips depending on who you are and what you need the statistics for. The figure has moved steadily in the past ten years from 120 million to 140 million to 160 million, translating to a growth rate of 20 million per two or three years. Serious, no? I have never known a country grow so fast.

    I am sure I have told you this joke before but, like I always say, I love repeating my jokes since no one laughs at them anyway but me and myself; so, I will tell you again. There was this visiting dignitary who had to endure a long speech from a representative of the colony he was visiting. The locals read out a long list of what they needed – roads to take their agricultural produce to the market, rail transportation for the locals, etc. The visitor was astounded. ‘Did you not just tell me last year that nothing grows on your land, so we could not raise your taxes?’ he asked. ‘Yes, we did, your honour’, they replied, ‘but you see, last year’s statistics was raised for a purpose, and today’s for a different purpose.’

    More importantly, Sir/Ma, it has become nigh impossible to trust any Nigerian with any statistics. Ask a south westerner to compile the names of all unemployed young ‘uns in the land and what do you get? A list full of south westerners dead, half-dead and barely living. Ask a northerner to compile those names, and what do you get? A list full of northerners dead, half-dead and barely living. And if you ask a south easterner to compile the names, what do you think you’ll get? All the names of the fish in the sea, that’s what. The competition between the three regions is still too strong and bristly fought to enable us embark on that kind of venture. It will simply become another space for the dishonest execution of that war.

    This time, I think I agree with the senators that the time is not yet ripe for this well-meaning gesture. Too many things still need to be put in place for it to happen. For one thing, Nigerians must first be schooled to be honest, and secondly, they need to learn to put the country first. In the mean time, the business climate of the country must be sanitised to enable the market absorb more of our darling young ‘uns.

  • The benefit of election

    Elections in Nigeria have been characterised by unfaithfulness, betrayal, rigging, plotting, propaganda, slander, fear, uncertainty, crisis, bloodshed and many more. These ugly features of our supposedly democratic experiment have made election our election to be synonymous with violence. While people, who describe politics as a dirty game may not be wrong in their assessment of our politics, it would only be unfair and myopic to exclusively describe it with those negative features and lock out opportunity for positive views.

    With a telescopic eye and good binoculars, one may begin to see election as a business, considering the several opportunities offered by the massive campaigns of political parties, especially now when politics is thought to be do-or-die affair.

    The economic boost seen in electioneering cuts across almost all areas of expertise and profession we can think. The opportunities come in form of mouth-watering patronage and contracts. A comprehensive analysis of all beneficiaries is almost impossible, only a few this writer could see are listed here.

    How does printing fare during the recent elections? Graphic designers, textile and printing merchants got their fair share, because winning in an election in Nigeria is largely depended on how much publicity a candidate can push out before the polls. This must be done by churning out millions of banners and flyers. The graphic designers had the best time, designing flyers, while printers work every day and night to ensure good quality. The textile workers also share in the ‘booty’ as millions of customised fabrics, vests, shirts and caps were printed and distributed to party adherents and as gifts to voters during campaign.

    Enter the media. The press is said to be fourth estate of the realm; the majority of its practitioners did not participate in the actual voting. They cover campaigns, press briefing, election proceedings, interviews, and many more. They gather reports, organise talk shows, analyse issues before and after election. But they share in the election largesse through multi-million advert they get from different political parties and their flag bearers. The online media came out in dramatic manner; they created hashtags and groups to discuss candidates’ popularity. Bloggers never run out of ideas and thus never get “broke”.

    How about sports and entertainment industries? Of course, the booty extended to the pitch. As a means of “wetting the ground” for favourable results, politicians sought the service of popular sportsmen. They host various sport competitions, such as Honourable XYZ tournament, and Senator ABC’s cup.

    The entertainment industry is another area where the weight of election is greatly felt. Musicians were hired to sing for candidates during campaign, while thespians were engaged in propaganda adverts on television.

    The education sector was also shaken to its foundation. The intellectuals in the academic shared in the spoil. Vice-chancellors were employed as returning officers in all the states. Corps members and some undergraduates were used as polling officers.

    The sacred temples of our religious organisations erupted in sacrilegious praise-singing. In the last election, we saw political evangelism at its best. Our imams, pastors and even herbalists cannot deny the political patronage they got during elections. Pastors and imams openly told their congregation to support a particular candidate after they got wads of dollars. Herbalists and traditionalists appeased their gods to support candidates who brought dollars.

    Networking and telecommunication companies got more patronage during the last general election. Apart from making more calls to ensure smooth running of their campaign, politicians also subscribed to bulk SMS and adverts through different platforms. More data subscription, more calls, more texts  led to more money to the service providers.

    Manufacturing and production businesses boomed as customised souvenirs, such as bags, plates, dishes, home appliances, electronic gadgets and edible bags of products like rice, garri, sugar etc were specially ordered with candidates’ names and pictures boldly embossed on them.

    For lawyers, election litigation is a brisk business. After elections are won and lost, our learned fellows begin to get their own share of the booty. Petitions are filed by losers against winners; court cases are decided on frequently and money keeps coming in for lawyers.

    Security agencies are part of the most important stakeholders when it comes to election. Election period is their festive period. People are genuinely and wrongly arrested for inciting violence, wandering or for committing electoral offences, and are charged huge amount of money for bail. Security agents are stationed at polling units and other strategic locations to maintain peace and order and ensure the safety of election materials only after being assured of reward. At other instances, they are employed to hijack and rig in collaboration with hooligans in return for cool cash from their paymasters.

    In the transportation sector, the unionists are also on the roll when it comes to election. They unnecessarily hike transport fare due to the rush in election period as people have to travel to their various home or places of registration to vote. They are also employed to mobilise electoral officers from polling unit to collation centers and vice versa.

    The list of beneficiaries is inexhaustible and could continue to infinity. What about the market women? They were happy during elections. How much litres of petrol are sold during election and for how much? Considering the epileptic state of electricity and the need to get updates of elections, petrol station made more sales than before.

    How about voters who got cash reward for voting for a particular candidate? How about the ones who scrambled for T-shirts and packaged garri? The beneficiaries are uncountable.

    Calculating the net expenses on election may be a herculean task for economists or mathematicians. Opportunities open at different ends for those who could see beyond violence; a trial for one is a blessing for another. The pictures are not too far as the just-concluded election shown; whether the businesses are legal or not is a topic for another day. One thing that the last general elections has come to teach us is that, there are more to election than violence. Beyond the violence, there are great business opportunities for all and sundry.

     

    •Yussuf is a student of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, UNILAG

  • Boko Haram: 45,000 displaced children to benefit from EU’s N325m support

    Boko Haram: 45,000 displaced children to benefit from EU’s N325m support

    Help is finally coming the way of about 45,000 children and adolescents displaced by the activities of the Boko a Haram insurgents in Borno State as the European Union is set to make available the sum of N325 million to support community-based psychosocial protection for them.

    Speaking at a signing ceremony of the financing agreement for the 11th European Development Fund support for strengthening community-based psychosocial and protection services for children and adolescents in Borno State, the Minister for National Planning, Dr. Abubakar Sulaiman, said the project will be implemented in 300 communities across 11 local government areas in the state for a period of 36 months.

    The Minister said by authorising the financing agreement, Nigeria will be on the right path to mitigate the adverse impact of social upheavals and insecurity in Borno State. This, he said, would also significantly assist Nigeria in achieving its developmental goals articulated in the Vision 20-2020.

    He said: “In 2014, the federal government of Nigeria signed the 11th EDF National Indicative Programme with the European Union for the implementation of development programmes and projects covering health, nutrition and resilience, sustainable energy and access to electricity, rule of law, governance and democracy.

    “Of importance to today’s event is the support for strengthening community-based psychosocial and protection services for children and adolescents in Borno State, Nigeria, which falls into social infrastructure and service sector of the 11th EDF.

    “I wish to inform you that the support for strengthening community-based psychosocial and protection services for children and adolescents projects under the 11th EDF arms to promote a community-led protective environment for children and adolescents through strengthening community-based services including psychosocial support.

    “The project is expected to contribute to mitigating the negative psychosocial implications of the humanitarian crisis that currently plagues Borno State, which has largely disrupted education and health services, including immunization activities.

    “The project will compliment the ongoing 10th EDF support to immunization governance in Nigeria, especially the polio eradication component which has been a source of concern to residents on Borno State.”

    Head of the European Union in Nigeria, Ambassador Michel Arrion, said the programme will provide psychological first aid services to 45,000 children affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in Borno State, especially those that require sustained support to recover from the trauma they have suffered, who will be referred to specialists’ services.

  • Nigeria, others to benefit from Dangote’s $5b power investment

    Nigeria, others to benefit from Dangote’s $5b power investment

    NIGERIA Ghana, Togo and Tanzania will benefit from the Dangote Group’s fresh investment capital, its President, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has said.

    Speaking at the United States (U.S).-Africa Business Forum in Washington on Bloomberg Television’s “Market makers,” he said the money will be invested in power generation, distribution and transmission infrastructure, adding that the deficit between what is available and what is needed is “enormous”.

    He said: “Well, it is going to be in the sub-Saharan African countries, mainly Nigeria, Togo, Tanzania, and Ghana, the likes of them. We are going to really invest this money in terms of generation of power, transmission of power, distribution of power, infrastructure, in terms of gas pipelines, to make sure that we unleash the opportunities. When you look at it really, the gap especially in power generation in Africa it’s enormous.

    “And we saw that and then we agreed that, look, let us now team up, the big corporations to put money (down in the ratio of) 50/50. We are already going to go into a 50/50 agreement where they put 50 per cent of the money, you put 50 per cent of the money and we will roll out.

    On the Chinese footprints on the continent, Dangote said the Chinese do not engage in 50/50 partnership, adding that they prefer to go on their own.

    “Well, the Chinese, normally they don’t actually do 50/50. They hardly take locals. They go on their own. But the Chinese are not in the kind of things that we are doing. And they’re not normally in cement, energy and power.

    “They are in railroads, but they are also – mainly Chinese companies are looking for contracts to do things, or mineral sources. And what we are trying to do now is to say: hei look, we don’t want people to now come and take our mineral resources. We want them to process these mineral resources locally so that they develop our own people, they can train our own people. That is the way it can be a win-win situation,” he said.

    He restated the commitment of the Group to building its 500,000 barrels of oil refinery with a petrochemical complex with it in the country.

    “Actually, it’s not about execution. It is about the demand growing. And the answer is yes. The demand is growing. Well, as a company, what we have always been doing is to look at what can we do to bring our costs down. So, even if margins will go down, but once the cost is down, then you’ll be able to maintain your margin. What I am not saying is, we must make this certain amount of money. Obviously, if you ask me in the next 10 years, are we going to  make the same money we are making per unit? No. That’s the answer,” Dangote said.

    Justifying his firm’s investment in Zambia, he said there is a ready market for cement in that country.

    “In some of those countries, when you look at Zambia, for example, Zambia has nine borders; they have nine borders with nine countries in Africa. And some of these areas, they are landlocked. They don’t have any manufacturing there. So, whatever you produce in Zambia you can actually take it to the next other countries and invest. It’s not normally for only the domestic market.

    “Even though Zambia itself is a landlocked country, there’s quite a lot that could be done. What we’re not really targeting is a particular country in Africa. We are targeting regional markets. And so now, for example, in Nigeria, if I grow the business very, very, very large in Nigeria, I don’t just rely on Nigerian market, I rely on the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) market,” he said

    He expressed worries over the ravages of Ebola disease that has taken parts of the sub-region by storm, arguing that governments in the affected countries are trying their best to curtail the onslaught of the disease.

    He said: “Well, yes. It is a worrisome issue, but the governments of the affected countries are doing quite a lot about it. The guy who came from Liberia, luckily fell ill right on board, so he was taken straight to the hospital. This means, we are lucky.  If he was actually somebody who had actually run in the city for a while, then it would have been a big issue, but he fell ill right on board and they were able to detect it and they were able to quarantine the person – he died there. And all the 59 people that he was in contact with, they’ve actually been contacted and some of them have actually been quarantined.

    “The effect of the disease might be one per cent on business. But I am sure various governments, they are doing things to tackle the situation. Ebola had actually been around since the late ’70s. So, it’s not a new thing today. It’s just that people are panicking now, which I think yes is okay. It’s good for people to panic so that something could be done about it. But, right now, it has come to the attention of the Western world and I’m sure we’re going to find a cure for it soon, and also see occupying what is really causing Ebola so that we can attack it from that front.”

  • Young Ghanaian entrepreneurs to benefit from US largesse

    Scores of young Ghanaian entrepreneurs are to benefit from a number of initiatives to be introduced by the United States of America. Under these initiatives, grants will be offered to support start-ups, expansion of businesses and social ventures in six countries in 2015 including Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

    This initiative was announced by President Barack Obama when he met young African leaders under the YALI initiative in Washington. Over the next two years Ghanaian entrepreneurs will benefit from a host of initiatives that will see the US Government expanding support to them by connecting them to investors, advisors, and distribution networks in the US and across the world.

    Over the next year, the US State Department will also lead three partnership opportunity delegations of entrepreneurs and investors to Ghana and two other African countries Tanzania and Ethiopia. In addition, the State Department and the U.S. Africa Development Foundation (USADF) will support selected young African leadership initiative (YALI) entrepreneurs to attend and participate in the DEMO Africa 2014 conference, to be held in Lagos, Nigeria, between September 25 and  26. DEMO Africa is a platform for top African companies to launch their products and announce to Africa and the world what they have developed.

    Speaking to the YALI participants, President  Obama said the United States will continue to provide young Africans access to resources they can use to put their skills to work in service of their communities.

    Meanwhile, hundreds of new entrepreneurship grants will be dished out to African entrepreneurs. The USADF will partner with the US State Department to offer $2.5 million in seed funding to members of the YALI Network over the next three years in the form of 250 small entrepreneurship grants.

    These grants will support start-ups and expansion of businesses and social ventures in six countries in 2015, including Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

    In a related development, U.S. embassies across Africa said it would build entrepreneurial capacity beyond the capital cities by training and helping to incubate the businesses of at least 5,000 aspiring entrepreneurs from the Network in provincial cities and rural areas during 2015.

    StartUp Weekend and other experts will accompany a mobile incubator, equipped with the tools and technology to get a business off the ground.

    The programme  is billed to be in collaboration with local governments, institutions, and NGOs, the workshops and equipment are designed to walk aspiring entrepreneurs through the basic precepts of starting a business, including writing a business plan, leveraging online resources, raising capital, and expanding market share.

  • ‘Ibori did not benefit from V-Mobile’

    A London Crown Court has heard that former Delta State governor James Ibori did not receive any financial benefits from V-Mobile (now Airtel).

    During last Friday’s proceedings in the London confiscation case against the former governor, his lead counsel, Mr. Ivan Krolic (QC) said there was no evidence linking Ibori to the £37 million V-Mobile money.

    The lawyer said there was no proof that the money, or part of it, was paid into his client’s account.

    Krolic said: “During the submission on V-Mobile, only the name of Ibori’s former solicitor and his former Commissioner of Finance, respectively reverberated in the court; Ibori’s name was never mentioned and the court records are there to prove me right.”

    He insisted that Ibori only approved documents relating to V-Mobile.

    Krolic also told the court that even when a financial forensic expert was invited to the court and was cross-examined by both the defence and the prosecuting teams, there was no trace of Delta State money that Ibori could have benefitted from.

    He added: “The case is so clear because the forensic expert dealt with the issue of Delta State money in great detail and nothing there indicted Ibori or linked him as to having benefited from Delta state funds in any way.”

    Krolick reminded the court that the case has changed from the concluded one and the new one is now a ‘pure law’ of money laundering.

    He said confiscation trial, which is totally different from the concluded one where Ibori pleaded guilty to some charges, is a quantitative case and that he once pleaded guilty is not enough for confiscation.

    “It is on record that we have stated this stance before, I repeat, we said no then. I am saying no again. And this is not being ambushed.”

    The matter resumes this week.

  • 13 African global leaders to benefit from Dangote Fellowship

    Thirteen among the 19 Africans recognised as Young Global Leaders (YGL) by the World Economic Forum (WEF) are to benefit from the Dangote Fellowship, instituted by the Dangote Foundation.

    The African youngsters were among the 214 young leaders from 66 countries honoured for leadership and service to society by the WEF.

    One hundred and nine of them are women with 19 from sub-Saharan Africa.

    The Dangote Fellowship, created by the WEF and Alhaji Aliko Dangote, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dangote Group, aims at increasing the quality and number of young African leaders by supporting African YGLs in the community, such as those from small enterprises or the non-business sector.

    The fellowship assists YGLs from Africa to attend YGL and WEF events. It funds the organisation of an YGL Africa Education Module.

    Dangote said the fellowship award was his contribution to the intellectual development of exceptional young people in Africa.

    The YGLs come from diverse backgrounds and bring a range of expertise to the community from across the world.

    Over 50 per cent of the new intakes are women, half of who come from the private sector and the other half from the public sector. These include the academia, arts and culture, civil society, government, media and not-for-profit organisations.

    “The YGL Community assembles the world’s most outstanding next-generation leaders who have a proven record of extraordinary achievement and helps them further develop in their leadership journey,” said David Aikman, Managing Director and Head of New Champions at the World Economic Forum.