The Nation Newspaper

Tag: industry

  • Art, science of billings, receivables: Case study of Nigeria’s electricity industry

    In the service industry, one can never eliminate accounts receivable due to the need to certify services provided, upon which payments are based.

    The service provider owes the duty to prove that services contracted have been delivered in the right quantity and quality. Disputes can and often arise with regards to these two issues. Resolutions often involve discounts, where service quality is below par, and sometimes, resolution may involve the issuance of credit notes.

    With regards to infrastructure, the need for accurate and transparent billings is a sine-qua-non. The curious case of Nigerian electricity billings and receivables include the situation, where a utility service provider would brazenly continually provide bills on estimation, the basis of which is unknown to the consumer. The service provider fears no dispute nor loss where he makes no attempt whatsoever to provide a means of ascertaining the quantity or quality of services rendered.

    Another curious case in the Nigerian electricity industry is that in which an MDA will obtain appropriation in the annual budget for utilities and still refuse to pay the service provider for continuous periods. The question is, “what happens to the funds appropriated for that purpose?” Another question is, “how would such an MDA obtain an appropriation for the settlement of utility bills (power) for previous physical periods without being queried?

    In Nigeria, the art involved in power billing to the individual consumer consists mainly of the art of pole-climbing – the popular extortionist tactics of NEPA – PHCN – DISCOS. It also includes the sneak distribution of bills when the consumer is most unlikely to be available to challenge the bill.

    Another component of this art is the haggling and negotiations involved in arriving at the non-disconnection or on-the-spot reconnections fee. The final component of this art is the skill involved in arriving at the estimation. The marketing officers take casual inventory of the type of car the consumer uses, his fashion preferences, and possibly the facial ambience of the property occupied. These are the requirements for providing an expert judgment of power consumption – NO METERS REQUIRED. In other climes, meters are the only basis for charging utility bills?

    With the level of technological advancement and knowledge freely available, I can bet with any Disco that a set of junior secondary school kids will design a tamper – proof App that will ensure electricity meters cannot be circumvented. Personally, I can design such meter for any willing Disco at less than one million naira and a royalty of 2% of the value of any such meter deployed by them.

    The greed of the Discos is the major factor at play here. The continuous issuance of estimated bills is nothing but extortion from the helpless individual consumers to make up for the shortfalls from MDAs who are powerful enough to resist the monthly balloons of estimated bills.

    I believe its high time government beams its searchlight on the regulators in the electricity industry (NERC) to ascertain why they are reluctant to apply the sanctions in the privatisation agreement or relief to the consumers. How can we explain a situation where a consumer has been placed on estimated billing for years without being offered a meter? Obviously, the service provider “does not give a dam!”

     

    • Aibangbe, a Media and Energy Relations Consultant, wrote from Lagos
  • Getting graduates into oil, gas industry

    Getting graduates into oil, gas industry

    Many graduates with requisite skills are finding it difficult to get jobs in the oil and gas industry. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and others have a role to play to solve this problem, Gbubemi Peter Agbowu writes.

    Nigeria is a petroleum rich country, and an oil and gas producing member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) since 1969. The advent of oil production turned Nigeria from a multi-sectoral economy to a mono-economy, with oil and gas providing about 95 per cent of export earnings and 70 per cent of government revenue.

    This is an obvious negative economic trend, known as the ‘Dutch Disease”. Pundits have agreed that for the country to attain its true growth potential, it must rekindle other sectors of the economy; sectors for which it ironically had comparative advantages before petroleum.

    One effect of our mono-economy is its inability to accommodate the ever growing population, majority of which are youths.

    The age structure of the populace is as follows: 0-14 years account for 43.2 per cent, 15-24 years account for 19.3 per cent, while 25-54 years age group accounts for 30.5 per cent of our population.

    This results in a youth dependency ratio of 84 per cent (CIA World Fact Book). These numbers vividly show Nigeria’s massive current and future youth population.

    Of this youth cross-section, 50 per cent are unemployed, with graduates of tertiary institutions making about 20 per cent, and often remain unemployed for upwards of five years after graduation (NISER 2013).

    With the current high  rate of youth unemployment  among university graduates, coupled with the fact that petroleum still remain our mainstay, serious efforts should be made  to get graduate  youths employed in the sector.

    In Europe, since the 2008 financial crisis, there has been an increase in youth unemployment, although varied among its different countries.

    One unifying trend, based on research and experience, is that young people who do not get attached to the labour market at an early stage upon graduation, risk being permanently excluded from the job market.

    Such exclusion could have severe consequences not only on the personal level, but also for the long term social and financial sustainability of the country. Nigeria currently faces this dilemma, with a staggering number of its youths plagued with unemployment.

    Furthermore, its university graduates are faced with the usual trend of never being able to find employment, years after graduation. The burning questions are: how do we get these able bodied, qualified individuals into the workforce?

    How do we get a graduate employed in the oil and gas industry; the mainstay of the economy? How can these graduates be ushered from school leaver status to employment?

    The answer lies in Federal  Government’s ability to initiate and execute policies that would stimulate opportunities and assimilation of qualified graduates into the oil and gas sector.

    Nigerian Petroleum Exchange (NIPEx) oversees both the e-marketplace and the Joint Qualification System (JQS) for electronic procurement, contracting and registration of contractors/service providers respectively.

    This has been a welcomed development by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) since its inception, and has helped to ensure transparency in the contracting process and reduction in the contract approval cycle in the oil and gas industry.

    A  recommendation is to use the NIPEx process to aid the transition of graduates into the oil and gas workplace. This can be achieved by enabling a process where graduates with outstanding results in oil and gas-related degrees are able to register their details into the Nipex portal.

    The system would require validation and attestation of the credentials of these recent graduates. The portal would maintain a high level of “graduate pool”, and will be organised according to their various disciplines.

    When there are Invitation to Tenders (ITTs) issued by the oil and gas companies for various projects, via the portal; depending on the scope of work, most call to tenders require each prequalified bidder to submit its man-power and staffing plan, complete with CV’s, showing the bidding company’s ability to successfully execute the proposed work.

    It is at this juncture that the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) in conjunction with Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) mandates a policy that man-power from the graduate pool in the portal is assigned to each bidder’s bid package submitted in NIPEx.

    This ensures that regardless of which bidder wins the contract, it would have absorbed highly competent graduate staff who would get their much needed assimilation into the industry.

    This exercise will be an advantage, not just for the graduate that is being placed, but for the contractor, who sometimes finds it difficult to find quality personnel with oil and gas related degrees. Another avenue is for the government to initiate policies that would easily enable the youth to be part of a registered and licensed local content oil and gas company, and provide measures that would pave the way for these companies integration into the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

    A way of achieving this is for the government to begin a programme which mandates the Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to subsidise the costs and simplify the process of company registration for qualified graduates.

    This subsidisation and simplification process will be afforded to groups of youth graduates that have come together to form a company with the intention of operating in the oil and gas industry, with the support of the government.

    To qualify, the group of shareholders in the company must either have the same discipline, forming a specialist company, or have different but complimentary disciplines.

    An important requirement to qualify for this status would be that at least one of the shareholders of the proposed company must have at least 10 years of oil and gas industry experience in the companies proposed area of specialisation.

    This is to bridge the gap of inexperience within the company. This would mean that recent graduates would need to align with an experienced industry professional.

    Such a scheme is not only advantageous to a fresh graduate, but would prove beneficial to an industry worker with valuable work experience, but currently out of a job; or industry professionals that are looking to go into private business and consulting.

    In parallel to the CAC registration programme, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) should have a special category for these youth companies involved in this programme, to subsidise and fast track their certification process.

    The laxity involved in the certification of these companies is by no means a compromise to standard and safety, but based on the premise that these companies will be assimilated and paired with established companies with all prerequisite qualifications, certifications and accreditation should be given.

    Acceptable DPR licensing categories for this programme will be the general category and the major category, with the services to be licensed within these categories left at the discretion of DPR; depending on the qualifications and credentials of the company’s shareholders.

    Upon successful company registration and licensing by DPR, these companies should be registered with NCDMB, as a special “Youth Integration Company”.

    The aim of this status is for these companies to be assimilated into the industry, and for these companies to benefit from a training programme. While NCDMB fulfills its remit of vetting the industry procurement processes to ensure local content requirements are adhered to during the award of contracts, as directed by the Local Content Act; it should take this opportunity to mandate that these Youth Integration companies are paired with the established bidding companies, as a prerequisite for contract award.

    In turn, these youth companies will act as subcontractors to the awardee, and will be required to execute a part of the contract scope. Furthermore, as it is a requirement for all companies operating in the nation’s oil and gas industry to provide a plan and execute training for its local personnel, adequate training plans for these youth companies must be submitted by the contractor, and approved by NCDMB before the award of the contract, or start of the project.

    The contractor shall be required to provide the necessary insurance coverage and necessary guarantees to enable its paired Youth Integration Company (now subcontractor) execute its work.

     

    Labour market integration training, orientation

    There is a catch 22 situation in the sense that oil and gas companies are looking to employ candidates that possess certain skill sets which are attained through industry work experience.

    This puts our graduates in the dark, as no matter their academic achievement, they cannot attain these skills they are not privy to. In order to ease integration of the graduates into the labour force, the onus is on the government to ensure that they are taught these vital skills after graduation.

    This will bridge the gap between the academic knowledge of the graduate and the much sought after industry work place mannerism, etiquette, understanding of processes and procedures. Skills which would ordinarily only come with work experience within an oil and gas company.

    The fact of the matter is that the Nigerian graduates are intellectually competent. Despite the lacklustre, ill-equipped and badly run universities, highly competent graduates are churned out in high numbers.

    Evidence of this is the success and achievement levels of Nigerian graduates who thrive and exceed their peers in post-graduate studies  overseas.

    Despite high academic achievement, the missing ingredient from our youth graduates, which is key to employment by the oil and gas companies, is the work experience.

    Drilling down into “work experience”, what is of most importance to the hiring companies, is familiarity with the industry ethics. The reason oil and gas companies bring in expatriates to man their projects in Nigeria is not solely due to their technical competence, but also their industry ethics.

    The evidence of having worked in varying projects across the world is proof that the individual is knowledgeable in the industry’s code of conduct, business ethics, procedures, processes, and safety standards.

    While this is on a macro level, on a micro level, such processes and standards are company specifics, as individual companies have their specific modus operandi. This is particularly the case with multinational companies with huge operations across the world.

    The aim of such standards is unification of its global operation, where a worker in for instance, Brazil can easily come to work in a project in Scotland with a very short learning curve.

    This is the reason a firm such as Chevron will prefer to hire a worker that has previous Chevron experience, as he or she would know the “Chevron way”.

    As a result of this trend among the oil and gas companies, a recommendation for our government in aiding the hiring of our graduate youths, is for each NNPC Joint Venture, such as Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (MPNU), under their Joint Operating Agreement (JOA), to set up training programmes under their JV.

    The aim of these programmes will be to furnish these youth graduates with the skillsets required to work successfully within their joint venture companies.

    The curriculum would focus on team building initiatives, company policies, procedures and job skills specifically catered to the requirements of the companies. This would enable each student’s easy assimilation into these companies, upon completion of the training and orientation.

    The training would be certified, thereby making each graduate more marketable to companies in the industry as a whole. A key advantage of the JV initiated training programme is the JVs knowledge of their upcoming projects, manpower specific requirements and the skills and disciplines needed for these projects.

    This would ensure that the training programs are fit for purpose and prepares its students for the upcoming projects. With all theses, what is  most important is for the Nigerian Petroleum industry to be stimulated.

    This is what will spur the multiplier effect that would lead to more industry activities, spending on projects and the resultant need for industry personnel; to accommodate our graduate youths.

    The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), looming in the air for years without passage, has created the Achilles heel to any industry’s development; uncertainty.

    The uncertainty of the fiscal regime, and petroleum laws that will be in place, has prevented spending of billions of dollars on new projects in Nigeria, by the International Oil Companies (IOC’s).

    Furthermore, although Nigeria unfortunately missed out on a flurry of industry activities during the era of $100 per barrel oil, it must be more pragmatic now with a lower price for oil, and a glut of the commodity in the world market.

    What is needed is an efficient PIB that secures an appropriate amount of economic rent for the Nigerian government, but yet allows operators to continue a profitable business, particularly in riskier ventures such as deep offshore exploration, new frontier basin exploration and non-associated gas development.

    Such an environment will increase oil companies’ confidence in operating in Nigeria amidst a global downturn in global spending. Government policy is required to stir our industry further down the petroleum value chain, stimulating activity in refining and petrochemicals; to create further value from our oil, in a low priced market.

    Government policies that streamline   the process of licensing and approval of modular refineries, blending plants, and other downstream capital projects and promoting availability of feedstock for these projects is invaluable.

    These projects would create added value, increased revenue, sector growth, and much needed job opportunities for our graduate youths. In conclusion, there is no doubt that Nigeria needs to make active strides to develop its ailing real sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture to increase its growth and create jobs for its fast growing youth population.

    However, in the current state where the petroleum industry is the mainstay of the economy, and unemployment of the youth is at staggering levels, the government must step in with the right policies to guide the industry down the right path, and in parallel, ensure that qualified youths can gain employment in a more efficiently run industry amidst current global challenges

    • Agbowu, a Contracts Advisor in Saudi Aramco and a promoter, Star Delta Energy Services can be reached via email: info@stardeltaes.com; twitter: @GPAStarDelta.

  • Global poultry industry ‘ll rebound, says report

    A positive year is expected for the global poultry industry next year, but the sector needs to recover from the challenges incurred by recent avian influenza outbreaks, according to the most recent quarterly report of Rabobank.

    According to it, key fundamentals for the global poultry outlook for next year are positive. The groups indicated that feed prices are expected to remain low, while competitive protein prices for beef and pork will be relatively high.

    Excessive supply expansion has outstripped continued strong fundamentals – robust demand, ongoing low feed prices and relatively high competitive protein prices – in recent months, after multiple quarters of balanced supply/demand, the latest Rabobank report states.

    This has pressured producer profitability in most regions of the world. Markets in China and Thailand will also likely be impacted by avian influenza (AI)-related import restrictions on breeding stock by the US in 2H 2016, also potentially affecting global poultry markets.

    Looking ahead to 2016, the company noted that key fundamentals suggest a good year ahead for the industry, but whether the industry can really benefit from these positive fundamentals highly depends on supply rebalancing to new market circumstances and on further developments surrounding Bird Flu.

     

  • BANK OF INDUSTRY VISITS LAWMAKERS ON FILM SET

    WHAT is the connection between filmmaking and banking? Cash  obviously. The Bank of Industry (BOI) has financed top film projects, such as Biyi Bandele’s Half of a Yellow Sun, Michelle Bello’s Flower Girl and Kunle Afolayan’s The CEO.  Now the Bank  is supporting Queen Amina, a period story of the legendary Hausa Muslim warrior Queen of Zazzau.

    Top officers of the Bank; Mrs. Cynthia Nwuka, Group Head, Creative Industry and Mr. Okey Madu, Assistant Manager were, last weekend, at Shere, a desert and current set of the movie located in Jos, Plateau State, where more than 200 cast and crew members were shooting a war scene that exemplifies one of the travails of the historical queen, played by Lucy Ameh.

    Produced by Okey Ogunjiofor of the Living in Bondage fame, Queen Amina is the second in production, in the series of more than a dozen film projects which have already received a nod from the development bank under the BoI Nollyfund (BNF) scheme, an initial program limit of N1.0billion in easy-access single-digit interest loans.

    Nwuka and Madu arrived the location in the company of veteran Hausa actor and member of the Advisory Board of NollyFund, Alhaji Sani Muazu, and were received by Ogunjiofor and the director of the movie, Mr. Izu Ojukwu, a notable director of epic movies in Nigeria.

    Ogunjiofor who got N50million from BOI for the project was glad to receive the Bank’s officials, introducing cast and crew members as he conducted his quests round some of the equipment on set.

    It was an unusual site for a typical Nollywood film, with state-of-the-art equipment, soundless generating set, location vans, original props, period costumes, and passionate cast and crew members who were excited by the opportunity to be part of a global African story.

    Ogunjiofor, who produced the acclaimed Nollywood pathfinder, Living in Bondage in 1992 is optimistic that this next major project, although coming 20 years after, will make him more prominent than his first movie.

    “I have researched the story of Queen Amina in the last 20 years, and I’m glad that the opportunity to bring it to life has finally come,” he said.

    Nwuka encouraged Ogunjiofor to be steadfast despite the challenges he might encounter in the course of the movie. “You are likely to encounter some challenges as it is with every production. But when that happens, let us know on time so that we can join hands to block it and move on. Before we got to this level with the Nollyfund, it wasn’t easy. I have always said that if Kene Mparu of Filmhouse did not prove that the feat we have attained with Nollywood now is possible; if Kene didn’t run with this assignment, we won’t be where we are today. So we should make it possible so that others coming behind can take it further,” she advised.

    Ogunjiofor however described the cast and crew as die-hard people who would surmount the challenges of the terrain to ensure a successful output. “We are working, and I can assure you that when you see what we have done, you would beat your chest and say we are in the right direction.”

    On the composition of the actors, Ogunjiofor said: “I’m using all-Northern cast to tell this story. I’m using a mixture of Nollywood and Kanywood to build a bridge. What I did for Nollywood in the South that has created a huge industry is what I’m transferring to the North so when I leave the North after this production, the North will never be the same again because all the people we have trained now on how to ride horses and fight with the sword are not Igbos neither are they Yorubas. They are all from this side and these skills are with them now. We are doing this film right in their presence and a lot of them are getting trained at the same time. So, when we leave they won’t go back to doing less of what they are doing now and I am happy that the superstars of the North are all here,” he said, referring to the likes of Ali Nuhu and Sani Danja. “And we have the permission of anybody who is ‘anybody’ in the North in terms of royal lineage for this story, so there is no stopping us,” he told Nwuka.

    The ace producer also spoke highly of his crew members whom he said are experts in their various fields. They include, Izu Ojukwu who is the driver of the whole picture; Peter Kreil, a specialist in lighting and pictures from Austria who is the DOP;  Dagogo Diminas who is handling Make-up and Millicent Jack who is in charge of costumes.

    Ogunjiofor expressed his gratitude to all partners when he said, “Of course we are in collaboration with Clink Studio and our back bone is Bank of Industry, and a little support from with Project Act-Nollywood. So, these are the people who are making my dreams to come true. There are so many other; I have the permission of the Emir of Zazzau because, of course this is his story. Washington has been on this case with me for a long time but I am happy that very soon they will be happy that what they have always wanted to do with me is seeing the light of the day.”

    Nwuka expressed satisfaction at the level of work so far on the project, saying that the passion of the filmmakers can only encourage BOI to continue its support for Nollywood.

    “We are optimistic that filmmakers like you with track record of quality will prove it again. And this can only help to expand the Nollyfund scheme from the initial N1.0billion earmarked. It is our believe that as we produce international standard movies through this partnership, there would be the need to expand our chain of exhibition outlets such as Filmhouse, Viva cinemas, Ozone cinemas and others in the country, even as we get the best out of our accredited indigenous movie studios,” she said.

    Expressing confidence on the project, Nwuka said she was on location to show her Bank’s support for the cast and crew.

    Despite the perceived dearth of auditable business structure among Nollywood practitioners, BoI’s support for the motion picture industry has evolved in a series of joint investments with filmmakers through a well-guided easy-access single-digit interest loans.

    The special product enables Nigeria’s leading movie producers receive financial support to produce international quality films and screen them through various platforms of movie distribution available both in Nigeria and internationally.

    During an interactive session with Bank of Industry’s Divisional Head, Large Enterprises, Mr. Babatunde Joseph, at the just concluded Africa International Film Festival, AFRIFF, he noted that the NollyFund was created to give an opportunity to Nollywood stars and fillmakers to make films, tell their stories and also make profit, while helping them with various distribution platforms in Nigeria and Africa at large.

    Interestingly, the Bank has already accredited some reputable Distributors such as G-Media, Filmone Distribution Company, Silverbird Distribution Company and Genesis Deluxe Distribution Company, as well as  Studio Operators such as Fans Connect Online Nigeria Limited (i.e. Afrinolly), Kingsley Ogoro Productions Limited and 4Screams International Nigeria Limited) to support this initiative.

    It would be recalled that the Bank of Industry had in the recent past, financed creative-industry projects such as Half of A Yellow Sun, Flower Girl, Digitization of Silverbird Cinemas, G-media and establishing of Filmhouse Cinemas, Viva Cinemas and Ozone Cinemas among others.

  • Lafarge, NSE promote best practices in construction industry

    Lafarge, NSE promote best practices in construction industry

    In furtherance of its commitment towards enhancing global best practices in the application of its products, Lafarge Africa Plc has partnered the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) to build the capacity of stakeholders on best practices in the application of the product for construction.

    Indeed, the Lafarge explained that while it has continued to explore innovative solutions through product development, efforts are being sustained to ensure that such solutions are not misapplied and abused.

    Speaking at a technical session and capacity building programme for engineers in Ibadan, Oyo State, Country Head, Infrastructure and Key Accounts, Lafarge Africa, Mike Fisher emphasised the need for Nigerian professionals to adopt best practices in the construction industry.

    According to him, adhering to specified requirements is key in the construction industry, adding that durability and return on investments should equally be assessed when considering infrastructural development.

    “We are not commodity traders but solutions providers as we continually engage stakeholders across the spectrum and at various stages of project development. One of the areas we are addressing is the environment where the products are being applied. Sulphates and chlorides attacks are being addressed using innovative solutions in our products,” he added.

    On his part, General Manager, Independent Power Projects, Lafarge Africa, Lanre Opakunle, explained that the company is exploring new solutions to meet the needs of the environment.

    “We consider engineers as a major stakeholder in the construction industry and that is why we are engaging them on how best to apply our products. The construction industry is evolving and various factors are being considered when erecting a structure. The social impact, energy conservation, concrete requirements, lifespan, exposure to environment are some of the major issues being considered today.

    “Our research and development centre is exploring new products to meet some environmental needs. We are also improving the emissions from the use of the product with a view to addressing health and safety issues. Adopting best practices is expected to aid long term cost saving measures and sustainability rather than going through short cuts,” he added.

    Technical Secretary, Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) Ibadan branch, Adekunle Olaoye noted that the capacity building initiative will further address the challenges in the construction industry.

    “Cement is an engineering material and its application needs to be addressed. Various issues need to be addressed through effective capacity building for stakeholders,” he added.

     

  • Getting graduates employed: the oil, gas industry template

    Getting graduates employed: the oil, gas industry template

    Graduate unemployment, especially among those with the requisite skills set in the oil and gas industry, has been a challenge. To solve this problem and grow indigenous manpower in the country, relevant government agencies such as the NNPC, DPR, CAC and others have a role to play, Gbubemi Peter Agbowu, writes.

    Nigeria is a petroleum rich country, and an oil and gas producing member of Organisation of Petroleum Corporation (OPEC) since 1969. The advent of oil production turned Nigeria from a multi-sectoral economy to a mono-economy, with oil and gas providing about 95 per cent of export earnings and 70 per cent of government revenue.

    This is an obvious negative economic trend, known as the ‘Dutch Disease”. Pundits have agreed that for the country to attain its true growth potential, it must rekindle other sectors of the economy; sectors for which it ironically had comparative advantages, in the not so distant past, before petroleum.

    One effect of our mono-economy is the lack of a diverse enough economy to accommodate the ever growing diverse Nigerian population; majority of which are youths.

    The age structure of the populace is as follows: 0-14 years account for 43.2 per cent, 15-24 years account for 19.3 per cent, while 25-54 years age group accounts for 30.5 per cent of our population.

    This results in a youth dependency ratio of 84 per cent (CIA World Fact Book). These numbers vividly show Nigeria’s massive current and future youth population.

    Of this youth cross-section, 50 per cent are unemployed, with graduates of tertiary institutions making about 20 per cent of youth unemployment, and often remain unemployed for upwards of five years after graduation (NISER 2013).

    With the current high rate of youth unemployment, even among university graduates, coupled with the fact that Nigeria’s current predominant economic sector is the petroleum industry, massive strides must be made by the government to get the Nigerian graduate youths employed in this sector.

    In Europe, since the 2008 financial crisis, there has been an increase in youth unemployment, although varied among its different countries.

    One unifying trend, based on research and experience, is that young people who do not get attached to the labour market at an early stage upon graduation, risk being permanently excluded from the job market.

    Such exclusion could have severe consequences not only on the personal level, but also for the long term social and financial sustainability of the country. Nigeria currently faces this dilemma, with a staggering number of its youths plagued with unemployment.

    Furthermore, its university graduates are faced with the usual trend of never being able to find employment, years after graduation. The burning questions are: how do we get these able bodied, qualified individuals into the workforce?

    How do we get a graduate employed in the oil and gas industry; the mainstay of the economy? How can these graduates be ushered from school leaver status to employment?

    The answer lies in Federal  Government’s ability to initiate and execute policies that would stimulate opportunities and assimilation of qualified graduates into the oil and gas sector.

    Nigerian Petroleum Exchange (NIPEx) oversees both the e-marketplace and the Joint Qualification System (JQS) for electronic procurement, contracting and registration of contractors/service providers respectively.

    This has been a welcomed development by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) since its inception, and has helped to ensure transparency in the contracting process and reduction in the contract approval cycle in the oil and gas industry.

    A recommendation is to use the NIPEx process to aid the transition of graduates into the oil and gas workplace. This can be achieved by enabling a process whereby exemplary graduates with outstanding results in oil and gas related degrees are able to register their details into the Nipex portal.

    The system would require validation and attestation of the credentials of these recent graduates. The portal would maintain a high level of “graduate pool”, and will be organised according to their various disciplines.

    When there are Invitation to Tenders (ITTs) issued by the oil and gas companies for various projects, via the portal; depending on the scope of work, most call to tenders require each prequalified bidder to submit its man-power and staffing plan, complete with CV’s, showing the bidding company’s ability to successfully execute the proposed work.

    It is at this juncture that the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS) in conjunction with Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) mandates a policy that man-power from the graduate pool in the portal is assigned to each bidders bid package submitted in NIPEx.

    This ensures that regardless of which bidder wins the contract, it would have absorbed highly competent graduate staff who would get their much needed assimilation into the industry.

    This exercise will be an advantage, not just for the graduate that is being placed, but for the contractor, who sometimes finds it difficult to find quality personnel with oil and gas related degrees. Another avenue is for the government to initiate policies that would easily enable the youths to be part of a registered and licensed local content oil and gas company, and provide measures that would pave the way for these companies integration into the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

    A way of achieving this is for the government to begin a programme which mandates the Nigerian Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to subsidise the costs and simplify the process of company registration for qualified graduates.

    This subsidisation and simplification process will be afforded to groups of youth graduates that have come together to form a company with the intention of operating in the oil and gas industry, with the support of the government.

    To qualify, the group of shareholders in the company must either have the same discipline, forming a specialist company, or have different but complimentary disciplines.

    An important requirement to qualify for this status would be that at least one of the shareholders of the proposed company must have at least 10 years of oil and gas industry experience in the companies proposed area of specialisation.

    This is to bridge the gap of inexperience within the company. This would mean that recent graduates would need to align with an experienced industry professional.

    Such a scheme is not only advantageous to a fresh graduate, but would prove beneficial to an industry worker with valuable work experience, but currently out of a job; or industry professionals that are looking to go into private business and consulting.

    In parallel to the CAC registration programme, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) should have a special category for these youth companies involved in this programme, to subsidise and fast track their certification process.

    The laxity involved in the certification of these companies is by no means a compromise to standard and safety, but based on the premise that these companies will be assimilated and paired with established companies with all prerequisite qualifications, certifications and accreditation should be given.

    Acceptable DPR licensing categories for this programme will be the general category and the major category, with the services to be licensed within these categories left at the discretion of DPR; depending on the qualifications and credentials of the company’s shareholders.

    Upon successful company registration and licensing by DPR, these companies should be registered with NCDMB, as a special “Youth Integration Company”.

    The aim of this status is for these companies to be assimilated into the industry, and for these companies to benefit from a training programme. While NCDMB fulfills its remit of vetting the industry procurement processes to ensure local content requirements are adhered to during the award of contracts, as directed by the Local Content Act; it should take this opportunity to mandate that these Youth Integration companies are paired with the established bidding companies, as a prerequisite for contract award.

    In turn, these youth companies will act as subcontractors to the awardee, and will be required to execute a part of the contract scope. Furthermore, as it is a requirement for all companies operating in the nation’s oil and gas industry to provide a plan and execute training for its local personnel, adequate training plans for these youth companies must be submitted by the contractor, and approved by NCDMB before the award of the contract, or start of the project.

    The contractor shall be required to provide the necessary insurance coverage and necessary guarantees to enable its paired Youth Integration Company (now subcontractor) execute its work.

     

    Labour market integration training,

    orientation

     

    There is a catch 22 situation in the sense that oil and gas companies are looking to employ candidates that possess certain skill sets which are attained through industry work experience.

    This puts our graduates in the dark, as no matter their academic achievement, they cannot attain these skills they are not privy to. In order to ease integration of the graduates into the labour force, the onus is on the government to ensure that they are taught these vital skills after graduation.

    This will bridge the gap between the academic knowledge of the graduate and the much sought after industry work place mannerism, etiquette, understanding of processes and procedures. Skills which would ordinarily only come with work experience within an oil and gas company.

    The fact of the matter is that the Nigerian graduates are intellectually competent. Despite the lacklustre, ill-equipped and badly run universities, highly competent graduates are churned out in high numbers.

    Evidence of this is the success and achievement levels of Nigerian graduates who thrive and exceed their peers in post-graduate education overseas.

    Despite high academic achievement, the missing ingredient from our youth graduate, which is key to employment by the oil and gas companies, is the work experience.

    Drilling down into “work experience”, what is of most importance to the hiring companies, is familiarity with the industry ethics. The reason oil and gas companies bring in expatriates to man their projects in Nigeria is not solely due to their technical competence, but also due to their industry ethics.

    The evidence of having worked in varying projects across the world is proof that the individual is knowledgeable in the industry’s code of conduct, business ethics, procedures, processes, safety standards etc.

    While this is on a macro level, on a micro level, such processes and standards are company specific, as individual companies have their specific modus operandi. This is particularly the case with multinational companies with huge operations across the world.

    The aim of such standards is unification of its global operation, where a worker in for instance, Brazil can easily come to work in a project in Scotland with a very short learning curve.

    This is the reason a firm such as Chevron will prefer to hire a worker that has previous Chevron experience, as he or she would know the “Chevron way”.

    As a result of this trend among the oil and gas companies, a recommendation for our government in aiding the hiring of our graduate youths, is for each NNPC Joint Venture, such as Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL), Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (MPNU), under their Joint Operating Agreement (JOA), to set up training programs under their JV.

    The aim of these programmes will be to furnish these youth graduates with the skillsets required to work successfully within their joint venture companies.

    The curriculum would focus on team building initiatives, company policies, procedures and job skills specifically catered to the requirements of the companies. This would enable each student’s easy assimilation into these companies, upon completion of the training and orientation.

    The training would be certified, thereby making each graduate more marketable to companies in the industry as a whole. A key advantage of the JV initiated training programme is the JVs knowledge of their upcoming projects, manpower specific requirements and the skills and disciplines needed for these projects.

    This would ensure that the training programs are fit for purpose and prepares its students for the upcoming projects. With all this said, what is of most importance is for the Nigerian Petroleum industry to be stimulated.

    This is what will spur the multiplier effect that would lead to more industry activities, spending on projects and the resultant need for industry personnel; to accommodate our graduate youths.

    The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), looming in the air for years without passage, has created the Achilles heel to any industry’s development; uncertainty.

    The uncertainty of the fiscal regime, and petroleum laws that will be in place, has prevented spending of billions of dollars on new projects in Nigeria, by the International Oil Companies (IOC’s).

    Furthermore, although Nigeria unfortunately missed out on a flurry of industry activities during the era of $100 oil, it must be more pragmatic now with a lower price for oil, and a glut of the commodity on the world market.

    What is needed is an efficient PIB that secures an appropriate amount of economic rent for the Nigerian government, but yet allows operators to continue a profitable business, particularly in riskier ventures such as deep offshore exploration, new frontier basin exploration and non-associated gas development.

    Such an environment will increase oil companies’ confidence in operating in Nigeria amidst a global downturn in global spending. Government policy is required to stir our industry further down the petroleum value chain, stimulating activity in refining and petrochemicals; to create further value from our oil, in a low priced market.

    Government policies that streamlines the process of licensing and approval of modular refineries, blending plants, and other downstream capital projects and promoting availability of feedstock for these projects is invaluable.

    These projects would create added value, increased revenue, sector growth, and much needed job opportunities for our graduate youths. In conclusion, there is no doubt that Nigeria needs to make active strides to develop its ailing real sectors such as manufacturing and agriculture to increase its growth and create jobs for its fast growing youth population.

    However, in the current state where the petroleum industry is the mainstay of the economy, and unemployment of the youth is at staggering levels, the government must step in with the right policies to guide the industry down the right path, and in parallel, ensure that qualified youths can gain employment in a more efficiently run industry amidst current global challenges

    Agbowu, a Contracts Advisor in Saudi Aramco and a promoter, Star Delta Energy Services can be reached via email: info@stardeltaes.com; twitter: @GPAStarDelta.

  • ‘Potential of poultry industry untapped’

    ‘Potential of poultry industry untapped’

    A member representing Illorin East/South Federal Constituency in the green chambers, Dr Abubakar Amuda-Kannike  has  called  for a constructive approach  towards  addressing challenges facing the  poultry industry to  save  jobs  and  promote  economic  growth.

    Amuda-Kannike , a former  Kwara  state Commissioner for Works and Transport said the poultry industry is the largest segment of the agricultural sector, contributing more to the nation’s gross domestic product and   providing  employment for many  Nigerians  throughout its value chain and related industries.

    Addressing the National Poultry Show in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Amuda-Kannike said the industry supports many businesses and provides a strong platform for rural development, as well as the government’s zero-hunger goals, as it is the main supplier of a protein diet.

    The inability of the  industry to meet growing national demand, he noted, reflected the need for more investment to improve efficiencies and competitively.

    According to him, the value chain is filled with small scale players  and a few large companies.

    This, he  explained is not  helping the  industry  to  explore  the  benefits associated with the economies of large-scale production, as well as integrated supply chains that reduce production costs, ensure high throughput levels and diversify products to improve risk management.

    Though the number of broilers slaughtered and poultry meat produced have increased in recent years, he  noted  that  Nigeria  still does not produce sufficient quantities to satisfy demand, with the shortfall addressed through imports. Poultry imports, particularly chicken, have posed a major problem for the domestic industry, especially in recent years and particularly for smaller producers.

    Technically, he said broiler growers are efficient compared with international producers. But when feed costs are introduced into the equation, he said the growers are generally found to be less competitive. As a result, within a global context, he said the economic efficiency of local producers does not compare as well as their technical efficiency, largely due to higher production costs.

    To this end, he said the industry is struggling to remain competitive.

    According to him, the industry faces several significant challenges that have hindered its competitiveness and growth potential. The principal ones pertain to rising feed costs, rising electricity tariffs and access to reliable supply, access to finance and markets exchange rate fluctuations and, among others.

    Considering its pivotal role in the economy, particularly employment and food security, he said the industry’s long-term sustainability needs to be prioritised.

    He said it is vital to improve the competitiveness of various segments of the value chain, especially those aimed at lowering feed costs.

    Strong emphasis, he noted, must also be placed on industry transformation to enable producers and processors attain economies of scale, gain market access and achieve sustainable competitiveness.

  • ‘Saving the poultry industry is worth doing’

    A member representing Illorin East/South Federal Constituency in the green chambers, Dr Abubakar Amuda –Kannike ,says revamping  the    poultry industry will  save  jobs  and  promote  economic  growth.

    Dr Amuda-Kannike was addressing the National Poultry Show in Abeokuta, Ogun State .

    He said  poultry industry is the largest segment of the agricultural sector, contributing more to the nation’s gross domestic product and   providing  employment for many  Nigerians  throughout its value chain and related industries.

    Amuda –Kannike, a former Commissioner for Works in Kwara State, said the  industry supports many businesses and provides a strong platform for rural development, as well as the government’s zero-hunger goals.

    The inability of the industry to meet growing national demand, he  noted, reflected the need for more  investment to improve efficiencies.

    Currently, he  observed that  the   value chain is filled  with  more small scale players   and  a few large companies,thereby  hampering  the    industry   from  exploring   the  benefits associated with the economies of large-scale production.

    Though the number of broilers slaughtered and poultry meat produced have increased in recent years, he  noted  that  Nigeria  still does not produce sufficient quantities to satisfy demand, with the shortfall addressed through imports.

    Poultry imports, particularly chicken,he noted,has  posed a major problem for the domestic industry, especially smaller producers.

    According to him, the industry faces several significant challenges that have hindered its competitiveness and growth potential. The principal ones pertain to rising feed costs, rising electricity tariffs and access to reliable supply, access to finance and markets exchange rate fluctuations and, among others. Within a global context, he  said  local producers do not compare  with their  international  counterparts due  to low  level  of   technical efficiency, and  relative  higher production costs.

    He  said it is vital to improve the competitiveness of various segments of the value chain, especially those aimed at lowering feed costs,adding that   industrial transformation  will  enable producers and processors attain economies of scale, gain market access and achieve sustainable competitiveness.

  • U.S to assist Nigeria to develop retail food industry

    The United  States (U.S) government has assured Nigeria of its  readiness  to  support   current  efforts on food security to  enable consumers enjoy stable supplies and reasonable food prices.

    Speaking with journalists in Lagos before the commencement of Retail Food Development Conference with Building Capacity to Create and Sustain Superior Performance in the Retail Food Business in Nigeria as its theme, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA’s) Regional Agricultural Counselor for Nigeria, Ghana, Benin, Cameroon and Liberia, Kurt Seifarth said U.S will grant aid to help increase food production and ensure that the food chain works.

    He said the USDA had explored a number of tangible measures which, if implemented, would have a significant impact on food security and directly benefit consumers.

    According to him, supermarkets and other retail outlets  have key roles to play in feeding the population as  part of the food value chains, adding that it has become necessary to strengthen safety controls to help smallholders engage with large retailers on wider markets for their agricultural products.

    He said smallholders and large commercial retailers need an enabling environment with adequate training, storage infrastructure, new skills and methods with which to improve the resilience of their production systems.

    He commended the Federal Government for containing the outbreak of bird flu, adding that it demonstrated the  preparedness of the government to combat poultry  health emergencies.

    According to him, the bird flu impact on U.S was devastating with the  incidence and spread of high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI)  growing faster than expected.

    He noted that quick action and good biosecurity measures were the keys to control highly pathogenic avian influenza, adding that the U.S was quite unprepared for the avian influenza outbreak.

    He said the country was so shocked by the outbreak that it introduced a high surveillance programme with stringent biosecurity measures.

    The outbreak experienced in America which came to an end in June, was the largest animal disease outbreak the country has ever experienced.

     

  • Fed Govt must buy insurance for industry to grow

    Fed Govt must buy insurance for industry to grow

    The insurance sub-sector of the financial services industry in Nigeria is not contributing enough to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). The new Group Managing Director, Standard Alliance Insurance Plc, Bode Akinboye says insurance could increase its sectoral contribution if the Federal Government shows leadership by buying and paying for insurance policies. He says the sector should take advantage of the telecoms sector to reach out. He also speaks about the acquisition of strategic shares of the company through Gemrock Management Company Limited; ongoing process to merge the life and its non-life companies.  Omobola Tolu-Kusimo met him. 

    How can the insurance industry be made to drive Nigeria’s economic growth?

    One of the areas of challenge for us is distribution and you ask yourself, what has happened to telecommunication companies which from nowhere just took over every area of the economy. Insurance practitioners have a lot of work to do. We need to engage and train the workforce particularly those people popularly called agents or quasi employees in large numbers all over the country. We need to use them as a mechanism not only to popularise insurance but to generate that large numbers in small quantities, little premium but wisely spent.

    We need to make plan on the telecommunication sector so as to reach out to customers thereby using mobile devices to support our service delivery. Employment generation is one major key area in the industry. If you create employment and you succeed by generating more income, then you would have been in a very good position to get huge pool of investible fund that can then be allocated to different investment from Treasury bill which is government investment. In other countries, insurance companies are major stakeholders in the industry and Nigeria should not be an exception. Insurance companies can exist in mortgage resolution in Nigeria by helping to create residential houses for people, not only by investing but by creating product by mortgage default insurance that will enable people that may not have enough contribution to go into mortgage. Insurance would give guaranty on their behalf to mortgage institutions. These are areas that would properly position the insurance sector. This way, members of the public and all of us would benefit through impactful activities of the institution.

     

    We have a new government in Nigeria and fortunately, we also have a new Commissioner for Insurance, heading the regulatory body, NAICOM. Incidentally, the regulator is also talking about change. What kind of sector do you foresee in the next two or three years?

    I foresee an industry that would be a significant contributor to the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) and to national economic wellbeing. This could only happen if the change mantra from the Presidency trickles down to the industry. This means that first, government must become the number one customer of the industry and they must walk the talk. Government must buy insurance and pay for it and every other person will follow. One of the reasons why investible fund in the economy is low today is because insurance is not working. You can see what has happened to pension scheme. From almost nothing, they now have N5 trillion under management. It shows what government can do when its agents decide to go and enforce laws which is what the National Pension Commission (PenCom) has done. In our industry today, we have compulsory insurances such as Third Party Motor Insurance, Group Life and the others. Government should buy and enforce this policies and the industry will never remain the same. We believe in the quality leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari and that is why we voted for him. We believe he stands for change; he represents that change and we are expecting to see the change in the industry. We have a regulator who is very good and given that he will also key into the change mantra of the Federal Government; we expect that he would be able to encourage them as the main adviser to government to comply with the law. What makes insurance not to work today is the absence of law and order. We want government to deal with law and order in relation to enforcement and compliance with insurance laws and see what will happen to the industry. If these issue is taken care of, in the next two years we will have a solid foundation in the industry and leverage to begin to address the issue of service in new product on operation of investment capacity in the economy.

     

    The Commissioner for Insurance and other experts in the industry have identified market indiscipline and unethical practices among operators as part of the problem killing the growth of the industry. It is a fact that some insurance companies sell third party motor policy pegged at N5000 for as low as N1000. What is your take on this?

    The situation is like an industry that has engaged in self-destructive process. When you look at Potter five forces analysis that talks about value creation, there are different players in every sector. Where one side is taking much more value than the other, that industry is set to die. We want an industry where value creation is reasonably evenly well spread and that is not the case with us. Today Nigeria happens to be the only country in the world where we get the cheapest form of insurance for the poorest service. This is just a natural process. Nigeria is the only country in the world where motor insurance with the comprehensive insurance is based on one flat rate irrespective of the car you are driving, where you live, where you work and what you do. The issue of premium rating is a fundamental problem that is facing the industry and that is why we must commend NIACOM for wanting to look into some companies. The Commission has the authority under the law to approve rate for every insurance company and so it has asked the industry to agree on a rate and submit to the Commission to sign on. Once this happens, it becomes illegal to operate outside of that guideline. We must have a minimum flat rate that cannot be flouted because even the banks have interest and fixed rates approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). This is why banks don’t run business anyhow. Our business is supposed to be scientifically driven. It is supposed to be based on the geography of data. This will help us when we are to pay claims and enable us pay the claims as at when due. NAICOM has said each company in the industry should appoint people that will scientifically determine this rate and recommend to them for approval. My submission is that there must be minimal rate for us to survive as an industry.

     

    It is more than two years now that the ‘No premium, No policy cover’ became effective in the industry. How is it working for the industry?

    It is one of the best things that has ever happened in the industry. Before now, companies lends premium and they barely collect 40 per cent of it. Insurance company’s balance sheet was carrying large amount of unpaid premium that are never paid for. Yet claims were coming from customers and they insist that you must pay. In order to bridge this gap, the regulator decided to go in accordance with what the law says which is no premium, no cover and it made sense. Insurance is a line of pulling of risk and this means you must pay your own part of the whole rate of the premium. So what the regulator wants is that before you issue any cover, premium must be received. It is good for the industry; it is good for the customer. The customer can now demand for the payment of their claim and get it as at when due while the underwriter also has the money to invest ahead of any casualty. The industry can now really defend the income they have been paid unlike what we used to having the past.

     

    You were out of the insurance industry for a while and now you are back sitting as the Group Managing Director of Standard Alliance Plc. Can you tell us what brought you back?

    I worked here in Standard Alliance from 1997 to 2009 and that was almost 13 years of non-stop activities and at that point, I thought I needed to go and refresh myself. I went to school and was also working to look at the industry. Five years after, there was an opportunity to come back as an investor manager and so I took advantage of the opportunity and came back.

     

    There is board change in the company and you are a new investor. There has also been shakeup among workers which led to some them being laid off. Can you shed more light on this recent development within the organisation?

    Basically, we came in here with a lot of investors and the objective was to put money in the company and have strategic interest that must be able to influence the direction of how the business is going to be managed and that involved the board and the management composition. Today, we have a new board of directors that is more or less made up of predominantly new members and we also have a new management which I am heading as a result of the new investors. There is a transformation going on and so we needed to look at people we inherited. We have met with people on ground to redeem the system. We also employed more people. We tried to inject the change mantra into the system to achieve the transformation. We are also trying to attract new workers within the financial service sector and other related sectors to help in positioning the institution. Presently, new senior hands have been hired in retail, investment portfolios, corporate strategy, quality process and technology.

     

    How are you dealing with the issue of profit making which is critical to the shareholders of the company?

    We have dealt with the issue of people which is the most important asset that can be used to drive any system in the insurance or banking sector. So how do we service our internal customers first? How do the departments relate to one another in order to be able to collectively service their external customers in streamlining their processes and documenting their processes? Having dealt with the issues of processes and product, we had to look at which product do we take out to the customers and the medium channels of getting to them. This company is almost 20 years old. We have customers that have remained in this institution through both the thick and thin and are still very satisfied with the company no matter the challenges. Presently, we are going back to the basic which is our customers. We have reassured them that we will continue to delight them. We have also backed up our return with action by paying claims mostly inherited. Confidence has being restored and business has started in the top line because we have dealt with the issue of processes. It means we have also streamlined these stages and minimised the cost of running the business. The natural thing that follows is profit when your top line is still relying on growth and you manage your cost at the barest minimum.

     ‘The issue of premium rating is a fundamental problem that is facing the industry and that is why we must commend NIACOM for wanting to look into some companies. The Commission has the authority under the law to approve rate for every insurance company and so it has asked the industry to agree on a rate and submit to the Commission to sign on. Once this happens, it becomes illegal to operate outside of that guideline. We must have a minimum flat rate that cannot be flouted because even the banks have interest and fixed rates approved by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’

    You are in the process of merging the non-life company to the life company. Why did you take the decision?

    Standard Alliance Insurance has a subsidiary which is the life insurance company, SA Life Assurance Limited while we are also doing general business. These two businesses are similar with different focus. Life is more on long term and non-life general is more on short term business and we believe that if it means combining the two businesses together to bring stability, then it is the way to go. By bringing the two businesses under the same balance sheet, you will have a structure of one board instead of two different boards and one branch per location instead of multiple branches for each of the branch. Perhaps management team is marginalised because you will have one managing director instead of two, we can have the life team, technical team and the general team. At the end of the day, you have one person coordinating the two sides of the business and you also have share facilities, shares support services, share technologies, share administration and this brings massive savings which goes straight to improve the Company. This is why we are merging the businesses together. We believe companies that are doing pretty well in the market today such as Leadway, AIICO, Mansard have this kind of structure.

     

    Can you shed more light on the merger? At what stage is it now?

    We have commenced the process of the merger. It is a process that regulatory authorities must approve. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved it and our regulator, the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has given us a no-objection approval and we are moving to the next stage which is to submit our application to Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to get approval for the merger.

     

    What should customers and shareholders expect from the company going forward?

    Going forward, you will see a combined force with a team that is ready to offer customers so many products from life to non-life. There will be a more coercive force out there giving quality service and with improved top line and bottom line. We expect to see a more progressive and prosperous company by the end of the year, an investment that would be worth the while for our shareholders. We want to be a dominant player in the insurance sector. The sector is still at a developmental stage in Nigeria and is contributing less than five per cent to the nation’s GDP. In South Africa, the contribution of insurance is about 15 per cent of GDP while the United States and others are between 20 and 25 per cent. So you can imagine if we can move our contribution from 0.5 per cent to 10 or 5 per cent, companies that have performed well can become number one which is open to everybody because the room for growth is massive. So only those who are ready to run the race will be able to determine in five or 10 years’ time. We are working hard, we are here with the new energy, new team that is focused and committed to do their best. This is the time for people to look at insurance stock because penny stock will become mega stock. Historically, when a sector is at the kind of level that insurance is presently is the right time and only those who can take the risk will bear the reward.

     ‘We believe in the quality leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari and that is why we voted for him. We believe he stands for change; he represents that change and we are expecting to see the change in the industry. We have a regulator who is very good and given that he will also key into the change mantra of the Federal Government; we expect that he would be able to encourage them as the main adviser to government to comply with the law. What makes insurance not to work today is the absence of law and order’