Buhari’s Speech At The Signing Of The 2016 Budget

Published

4 years ago

May 6, 2016

Chris Pemu

It gives me great pleasure today to sign the first full-year budget of this administration into law. I thank the leadership of the National Assembly, in particular, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and indeed all members of the National Assembly for their cooperation in making this a reality.
The budget is intended to signpost a renewal of our commitment to restoring the budget as a serious article of faith with the Nigerian people. This Administration is committed to ensuring that henceforth the annual appropriation bill is presented to the National Assembly in time for the passage of the Act before the beginning of the fiscal year.
Through the 2016 budget, aptly titled “Budget of Change’’, the government seeks to fulfill its own side of the social contract. The Budget I have signed into law provides for aggregate expenditures of N6.06trn. Further details of the approved budget, as well as our Strategic Implementation Plan for the 2016 budget, will be provided by the Honourable Minister of Budget and National Planning.
I shall be speaking in more details about the Budget, its implementation and the over-all national economic and social policies of the Government in my address on May 29th, God willing.
In designing the 2016 budget, we made a deliberate choice to pursue an expansionary fiscal policy despite the huge decline in government revenues from crude oil exports. This is why we decided to enlarge the budget deficit at this time, to be financed principally through foreign and domestic borrowings. All borrowings will however be applied towards growth-enhancing capital expenditures.
The signing of the budget today will trigger concerted efforts to reflate the Nigerian economy, a key element of which is an immediate injection of N350bn into the economy by way of capital projects. To illustrate our renewed commitment to infrastructural development, the 2016 budget allocates over N200bn to road construction as against a paltry N18bn allocated for same purpose in the 2015 budget.
Despite the current difficulties we will work extra-hard to achieve our revenue projections. Our revenue generating agencies are coming under better management and are being re-oriented. The implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) is expected to contribute significantly to improving transparency over government revenues.
Our determined fight against corruption is resulting in improvements in the quality of public expenditure. The work of the Efficiency Unit, as well as other public financial management initiatives, are also contributing in this regard. The continuing efforts to reduce recurrent expenditures should hopefully free up more funds for capital expenditure in 2017 and beyond.
As I said in my New Year message, living in State House does not in any way alienate me from your daily struggles. I read the newspapers and listen to the TV and radio news. I hear your cries. I share your pains.
We are experiencing probably the toughest economic times in the history of our Nation. I want to commend the sacrifice, resilience and toughness of all Nigerians young and old who have despite the hardships continued to have hope and confidence of a great future for Nigerians. But permit me to say that this government is also like none other. We are absolutely committed to changing the structure of the Nigerian economy once and for all.
We are working night and day to diversify the economy so that we never again have to rely on one commodity to survive as a country. So that we can produce the food we eat, make our own textiles, produce most of the things we use. We intend to create the environment for our young peoples to be able to innovate and create jobs through technology.
I cannot promise you that this will be an easy journey, but in the interest of so much and so many we must tread this difficult path. I can assure you that this government you have freely elected will work with honesty and dedication, day and night to ensure that our country prospers and that the prosperity benefits all Nigerians. God bless Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Oando loses Chief Legal Officer

Published

2 hours ago

June 5, 2020

Ruth Okwumbu

Chief Legal Officer of Oando Plc, Ngozi J Okonkwo is dead.

Adewale Tinubu, Group Chief Executive Officer of Oando Plc announced this via a tweet.

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#RIP Ngozi J. Okonkwo, Chief Legal Officer, @Oando_PLC #RIPNgoziOkonkwo pic.twitter.com/CVgCiyADVY

— Wale Tinubu (@AdewaleTinubu) June 4, 2020

Until her death, she was the Chief Legal Officer of Oando Plc, having joined the company as Head, Legal Services of the company in 2009.

According to a tweet from one of her nephews, she battled cancer for a while, recovered before having a relapse during the recent COVID-19 crisis.

She went hard all the way, she was going to beat the cancer and do it in style. Unfortunately she was a citizen (read denizen) of a country determined to kill its children.

— Deno Landing🦍 (@zvko_) June 4, 2020

Before joining Oando, she worked as Junior Counsel with F.O Akinrele & Co., and also with KPMG Professional Services (previously known as Arthur Andersen) as Manager in the Tax, Regulatory and People Services unit and Head of indirect tax services.

She obtained LLB (Hons) from University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1997 and BL from the Nigerian Law School, Lagos in 1999. She was a member of the Nigerian Bar Association, honorary fellow of the Association of Fellows and Legal scholars of the centre for International Legal Studies, Austria, Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, United Kingdom and Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, Nigeria.

Economy & Politics

NNPC diversifies into housing, power; plans to beat crude production cost to $10 per barrel

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has announced that it is building up business portfolios in the housing, power, and medical sectors.

Published

4 hours ago

June 5, 2020

Ruth Okwumbu

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To cushion against the volatility in the global crude market and strengthen profitability, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has announced that it is building up business portfolios in the housing, power, and medical sectors.

This is one of several measures the corporation is taking to sustain revenue generation for Nigeria, and cope with the boom and bust cycles which are gradually becoming a feature of the global crude oil market.

NAN reports that this was contained in a statement from the Corporation Chief Operating Officer, Ventures and Business Development, Mr. Roland Ewubare, and signed by NNPC Spokesman, Kennie Obateru.

According to Ewubare, the NNPC will establish Independent Power Plants using the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline network, and consolidate its presence in the power sector.

The statement reads in part; “NNPC is creating an energy company that would have portfolios in renewable energy; we have initiatives on solar that is ongoing.

“We have got biofuels agreements with some state governments that would soon be activated. We do have a lot of non-core businesses that are aggregated under the Ventures and Business Development Autonomous Business Unit of the NNPC.

“This would be expanded through effective collaboration and partnership with the private sectors,”

Lower costs, more profits

As part of moves to improve profitability, the NNPC also announced plans to drive crude oil production cost down to 10 dollar per barrel by Q4 2021,

This according to the statement would be done by systematically and gradually beating down logistics costs.

The Corporation’s revenue took a major hit in 2020 due to the slump in global oil prices, and this in turn affected the Nigerian budget given that oil proceeds account for a significant fraction of her income.

“When you have a low commodity price regime, as the case now, the only way we are able to squeeze out some reasonable cash and financial gain to the nation is by curtailing and constraining our costs in line with the GMD’s aspiration to push for a 10 dollar per barrel cost of production,” Ebuware said.

There is also an ongoing collaboration with selected partners to commercialise flared gas in order to preserve the flora and fauna of the country.

This would be done by converting it to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) and Liquefied Natural Gas, for sale to consumers.

The NNPC is partnering with private developers to reduce the housing deficit in the country and also partnering with medical centres to provide innovative healthcare for Nigeria.

Business News

Microsoft Teams’ rival, Slack shares drop on withdrawal of full-year billings guidance

Slack reported steady revenue growth 50% in Q1 2020, compared with 49% recorded in Q1 2019 on an annualized basis this brought in more customers

Published

7 hours ago

June 5, 2020

Olumide Adesina

Slack shares dropped as much as 17% yesterday after the company’s reported first-quarter earnings.

Investors and stock traders were not happy with Slack’s annual revenue forecast of $855 million to $870 million, up just slightly from Slack’s projection in March stock analysts, on the average, estimated $856.5 million, according to data obtained from Bloomberg.

“Slack’s withdrawal of full-year billings guidance looks conservative to us and likely suggests a pull-forward of revenue amid faster new-customer additions due to remote work,” Mandeep Singh, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, wrote in a note yesterday.

Slack grew revenue 50% in Q1 2020, compared with 49% recorded in Q1 2019 on an annualized basis.

However, Slack reported steady revenue growth during Q1 2020 brought in more customers, as organizations sought to keep communications going with their newly remote workforces during coronavirus pandemic. It had earnings per share of 2 cents loss per share, adjusted and adjusted revenue of $201.7 million

Slack, in a statement, yesterday reported that it added a record 12,000 paid customers Q1 2020 as against two prior quarters when it added about 5,000 new customers. Slack’s top competitor, Microsoft’s Teams, has also experienced growth in recent months.

“What you saw with Zoom, what you saw with Teams is a great indication that this is not apples-to-apples and that the products are not truly competitive with one another,” Butterfield the Chief Executive Officer of Slack told Investment analysts on a conference call yesterday.

Paid users spent over 120 minutes per day in Slack at the end of the quarter, up from below 90 minutes one quarter earlier.

“I can’t care about the stock price on the level of individual days,” Butterfield said when asked about the reaction to earnings. “I just wouldn’t be able to do my job. I care about where the share price is five years from now and 10 years from now. This is just a very volatile time.”