Business News
What Atiku Abubakar plans to do to CBN’s Godwin Emefiele
Nigeria’s main opposition candidate for the February presidential election, Mr Atiku Abubakar, said he will remove Godwin Emefiele CBN Governor if elected.
Nigeria’s main opposition candidate for the highly-contested February presidential election, Mr Atiku Abubakar, said he will remove Godwin Emefiele as Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria if he wins the election.
The former Nigerian Vice President disclosed this during an interview with Bloomberg, during which he also revealed another major economic plan – to float the naira.
According to the PDP presidential flag bearer, Mr Emefiele isn’t doing a good job managing the apex bank, hence the need to remove him once his first term in office comes to an end this coming June.
“I don’t think he’s pursued the right policies. We have to have the right people in there.” -Atiku Abubakar
Bloomberg reports that the Head of Corporate Communications at the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Isaac Okorafor, declined to comment on this development.
What could Godwin Emefiele have done wrong to deserve this harsh criticism from Mr Abubakar?
Godwin Emefiele was appointed Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria in 2014 by Mr Goodluck Jonathan, the country’s immediate past President. Jonathan belongs to the same political party as Atiku Abukar.
This brings into focus the fact that Atiku’s decision to fire Emefiele is probably not motivated by politics. Instead, it is purely because the man has not done the job well so far, as Atiku had argued in the interview.
So, what has the CBN Governor done wrong? Let us look at two of his major policies:
Multiple exchange rates
First of all, the CBN under Godwin Emefiele has introduced multiple exchange rates, a move that has been criticised by some people, including some foreign investors.
But despite the criticisms, the CBN has maintained that that the multiple exchange rates are the only way to ensure that forex liquidity is maintained, while simultaneously allowing investors to trade their own dollars at a more market-determined rate.
Banned imports
The CBN has a list of 41 items that are banned from being imported into the country. These items range from raw materials to consumer goods and especially grains, which the apex bank believes can be produced in Nigeria and by so doing, grow the economy.
While this is a good move, no doubt, some have criticised it; saying that it is ill-thought out and counter productive.
It is also important to note that the country has struggled with rising inflation despite efforts by the CBN to control it. Take for instance, the CBN Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has consistently retained key rate at 14% percent since 2016.
As the inflation rate rose significantly in December to 11.44%, chances are the the MPC will retain the 14% key rate when it meets next.
Energy
NNPC says local operators must improve capacity to achieve low cost of oil production
The NNPC has mandated local oil companies to improve capacity to so as to reduce oil production cost.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said that indigenous companies operating in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector must upscale their capacity for global competitiveness in order to achieve the target of reducing the cost of oil production in Nigeria on a sustainable basis.
This was disclosed by the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, at a virtual stakeholder’s consultative summit which was organized by the Senate Committee on Local Content.
According to a press release by NNPC, which was signed by its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru, the NNPC GMD said that there was need to amend the Local Content Act to reflect current realities in the industry.
Kyari, who was represented by the Group General Manager, Corporate Planning & Strategy (CP&S), Mrs Eyesan Oritsemeyiwa, argued that there was a need to have a legislation to resolve the issues of funding challenges faced by local players, stressing that oil and gas business required high technical skills and competence to compete favourably at the global stage.
Speaking further on the need for greater capacity building on the part of indigenous companies, the GMD said the nation’s education system has a great role to play in the development of highly skilled technical manpower, adding that any legislation on Nigerian content development that fails to embrace issues of investment in the educational system was not likely to achieve much.
He said, “In terms of the interaction between industry and education, we think these new bills would present a good model that we should work with. People are the greatest assets of any nation. If you have the best brains in the industry today, as long as you are not getting a good replacement for them from the educational sector when they grow old and retire, then your industry will collapse,”
The NNPC boss pointed out that the nation has made some good progress from the era when there was no single indigenous operator in the oil and gas industry to the current situation where local operators have risen to double digits, stressing that the trend should be encouraged.
He praised the National Assembly’s initiative to review and amend the Local Content Act and urged the committee to ensure that it is carried out in a timely fashion in order for the law to deliver maximum value for the nation.
The GMD commended the legislators for the plan to extend the local content law beyond the oil and gas industry to other sectors of the nation’s economy, stressing that it would open up the non-oil sectors to growth and development.
The local content initiative has been identified as being very critical to the development of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector as the Federal Government plans to reduce the cost of production of crude oil to $10 per barrel in the face of the recent crash in crude oil prices.
The Federal Government has provided the sum of $350 million as the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund to help support local participation in the oil and gas sector.
Local Content: @NNPCgroup Advocates Capacity Upgrade for Indigenous Operators
In order to achieve the target of reducing the cost of oil production in Nigeria on a sustainable basis, @NNPCgroup says indigenous companies operating in the…
More here 👉https://t.co/XoSyeHKNUS pic.twitter.com/iTtJhtJXzD
— NNPC Group (@NNPCgroup) September 26, 2020
Energy
NNPC signs gas development and commercialization deal with SEEPCO
NNPC and SEEPCO have signed a gas development and commercialization deal.
The state oil giant, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has signed a gas development deal with Sterling Exploration and Energy Production Company (SEEPCO).
The agreement between the 2 oil firm is for the development and commercialization of gas from Oil Mining Lease (OML) 143 that could help reduce gas flaring in the country.
The disclosure was contained in a press statement that was issued by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of NNPC, Dr Kennie Obateru, on Saturday, September 26, 2020, in Abuja.
According to the statement, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Malam Mele Kyari, while speaking at the agreement-signing ceremony which held at the NNPC Towers, described the execution of the deal as a great milestone as well as a testament to NNPC’s commitment to facilitating the nation’s transformation into a gas-powered economy.
Kyari disclosed that the deal would not only help reduce gas flaring and its environmental hazards but would also promote gas production and utilization in the domestic market.
The NNPC boss also commended SEEPCO for its unwavering commitment to gas development and commercialization in the country which has led to the establishment of a Special Purpose Vehicle that will help expand gas utilization in the country as a cleaner, cheaper and more reliable alternative form of energy.
On his part, the Chairman of SEEPCO, Mr Tony Chukwueke, described the deal as an essential partnership that would help the company fulfil the pledge it made to support the efforts of the Nigerian government to eliminate gas flaring by monetizing it.
He commended NNPC and the Group Managing Director for ensuring the execution of the agreement which he described central to the achievement of the company’s cardinal objective of boosting the production of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), condensate and dry gas for the Nigerian market, adding that the company has invested about $600 million for that purpose.
This is coming at a time when the Federal Government is shifting focus to gas utilization as an alternative source of energy especially with the increase in the retail pump price of petrol. This is one of the various initiatives by the government as represented by the NNPC towards providing alternative sources of energy.
Energy
Buhari reappoints 3 Chief Executives of agencies under Federal Ministry of Petroleum
3 Chief Executive Officers of agencies under the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources have been reappointed.
President Muhammadu Buhari has renewed the appointment of 3 Chief Executive Officers of parastatals under the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources with immediate effect.
The appointments that were renewed by the president include that of Dr Bello Aliyu Gusau as the Executive Secretary of Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Ahmed Bobboi as the Executive Secretary/Chief Executive Officer of Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF) and Simbi Wabote as Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
The disclosure was made through a series of tweet posts by the presidency on its official Twitter handle on Friday, September 25, 2020.
The statement disclosed that the renewal of the appointments followed recommendations to the President by the Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Timipre Syla.
It stated that Dr Aliyu Gusau was credited to have run the PTDF successfully in the past four years, keeping faith with the Seven Strategic Priorities he had introduced in January 2017.
These are Domestication, Cost cutting, Sustainable funding, Efficient internal processes, Linkages with the industry, Utilization of centres of excellence, and Pursuit of home-grown research.
It also stated that Bobboi got his reappointment for having run PEF in a way that made it a key and strategic player in the administration’s oil and gas reforms, especially in stabilizing the supply and distribution of petroleum products across the country, among others.
Going further, it stated that the NCDMB boss, Wabote, won his pips for managing the NCDMB and completing its headquarters building. Wabote was also credited to have initiated many landmark projects that were widely commended by industry players.
STATE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE
PRESIDENT BUHARI RENEWS APPOINTMENTS OF PTDF, PEF, NCDMB BOSSES
President @MBuhari has renewed the appointments of Chief Executive Officers of agencies under the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
— Presidency Nigeria (@NGRPresident) September 25, 2020
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Samson T.
January 17, 2019 at 9:53 am
This is very unreasonable, asides the other negative parts of this government, the CBN Governor has done a very good job in managing the country’s currency. Look at how bad other countries fared last year due to the rising dollar from the interest rate hike in the US. I completely disagree with Atiku on this
Abdul
January 17, 2019 at 7:33 pm
The biafrauds are yet to say anything on this.