Columnists
A House Divided: PIB and the fate of host communities
A house divided is bad enough, misplaced priorities make it even worse.
It has been nearly two weeks since host community representatives from the Niger Delta engaged in a fistfight at the floor of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) public hearing. While some have speculated as to what led to the incident, others have merely watched on, familiar with the typical drama that has accompanied the ageing PIB.
The fracas resulted after the Chairman of the Adhoc Committee on the PIB, Hon Mohammed Moguno had requested for a single representative for the host communities. This did not go down well with the parties, each a representative in his own right. Also, there was the key issue of the 2.5% annual contribution of operators to the petroleum host community trust fund as provided under Section 240 (2) of the PIB.
READ: The new PIB may scrap DPR, PPRA, others
The contention was that this should be up to 10% and should be in form of equity in the oil companies, as the 2.5% proposed was too meagre for the debilitating effect of oil and gas projects, as well as the thankless job of keeping oil and gas installations safe from tampering.
It is unfortunate that even the ostensible representatives of the host communities were unable to come to a consensus even amongst themselves, particularly about issues of leadership and representation. About 24 hours shy of the occurrence of this fracas, somewhere in the Netherlands, the Hague Court of Appeals ruled that Shell is liable for damage caused by leaks in the Oruma in Bayelsa, Goi in Rivers and Ikot Ada Udo in Akwa Ibom and ordered Shell to pay compensation to the farmers who were the plaintiffs.
READ: IOCs reject deep water provisions in PIB
Here, another tranche of compensation payment was soon to be made to the host communities, notably, only about 5 years after the Bodo $83.4 million payment, which some indigenes complained was not properly distributed to the benefit of everyone. Yet, the representatives of the community- or at least those who had postured themselves as such- were back home dividing the house.
A question worth asking might be why the clamour by the host community representatives was not for the Environmental Remediation Fund in Section 103 of the PIB to have a specific percentage (or a base percentage and a formula determined by size of operator’s operations) as opposed to the vague language used in its determination, particularly in the light of the stalled and unfinished clean-up of Ogoni.
READ: Senate President says PIB will increase Nigeria’s oil revenue
The clamour may also have been better directed towards the amendment of Section 233 of the PIB from an almost speculative formula to a specific percentage for the payment required to be made to the decommissioning and abandonment fund, seeing as poor decommissioning and abandonment has continued to be a thorn in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
The host communities seem not to be as concerned about these broader issues as they are about who plays Lion King and how big their share of the oil companies’ cakes can get. A house divided is bad enough, misplaced priorities make it even worse.
Years of contributions similar to the one the host community representatives demanded at the public hearing have gotten the Niger Delta nowhere. From OMPADEC to the NDDC, these institutions have continued to be corruption blocs with an institutional garb, designed to funnel development funds through backchannels for personal enrichment and at the expense of the average Niger Delta indigene, thus further increasing the risk of security threats in the area.
READ: FG assures oil companies of lower taxes in new PIB
Even in cases where compensation has been paid to the communities, typically through their representatives, the average indigene has failed to reap the full benefits of such compensation, while feeling the blunt end of the pollution. It appears there is more than meets the eye to being a representative or spokesperson.
While dividing their house for the world to see, the fistfighters failed to question why NDDC contributions or payments (by whatever name they go) were still a part of the PIB after the NDDC has left a 20-year trail of uncompleted projects, unaccounted monies and general ineptitude.
Why any payments should be made to an institution that has failed to live up to its mandate should be of concern to anyone who has the interest of the Niger Delta people at heart. Perhaps these are just enough reasons to question the ambition of “representation”, and decide whether the Niger Delta house is united enough to see the real issues through and not remain a stumbling block for the PIB.
In instances like this, the oil players and government interests too do not hold back in infiltrating such a divided camp, forming interest groups and incentivising them. It then becomes inevitable that each piper plays the tune of the payer. Whether the actual host community dwellers have their interests served in all of these talks remains to be seen.
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What does my startup portfolio look like? – by Olumide Soyombo
Olumide Soyombo discusses his flair to invest in some of the most prospective startups in Africa.
I have been privileged to invest in some of the most interesting Startups in Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
This journey started in 2014 and my approach has always been to just do my thing behind the scenes and support the companies I invest in strategically. However, following the Paystack exit, folks have been curious to see what other companies I have backed, so I have finally decided to share.
I believe we have a couple of stars in here and the next couple of years should be interesting. Please support these companies wherever you see them so that my family can eat o…
Gbedu (Gbedu.live)
Gbedu is a music discovery and streaming service built to dispense the rich sound of Africa. They have created an experience that gives young, upcoming (up and coming) artists the chance to get discovered and earn per stream of their music content.
The startup is connecting Africans to the most extensive catalog g of free localized content, leveraging the power of playlisting, offline, and radio-integration to create new interactions and vast, unique music experience per user locale.
Gbedu is freely accessible to all users and pays every content owner.
Industries: Digital Entertainment, Music Streaming.
Wesbsite: www.gbedu.live
2. PiggyVest
Piggyvest is the leading online savings & investment platform in Nigeria, helping individuals manage their finances effectively.
The platform enables users to save small amounts of money frequently with minimal effort. They automate the process of saving tiny amounts daily, weekly, or monthly; and then allow savers, withdraw for free on only set withdrawal dates, thereby practically making saving and investingpossible for users of their platform.
Industries: Financial Services, Banking, FinTech
Website: www.piggyvest.com
3. Intelligra
Intelligra is the builder of an open platform created for smartphone financing. The company’s platform offers MNO (mobile network operator) integration and lock technology, proprietary credit scoring algorithms, and device lock solution. The platform also offers an in-store seamless onboarding app and integrates device OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer), financiers, and mobile network operators, enabling consumers to access affordable smartphones.
Industries: Financial Services, Mobile Financing.
Website: https://intelligra.io/
4. TeamApt
TeamApt is a financial technology company focused on developing Digital Banking, Business Solutions, and Payments Infrastructure. They are rethinking the needs of consumers, businesses, and the financial industry.
Industries: Fintech, Financial Services
Website: https://teamapt.com/
5. VertoFX
VERTO is a complete F.X. and payment marketplace built for business. VERTO helps business operate efficiently on the international stage. The company makes it possible to open a free U.K. business banks account in minutes with the ability to hold up to 39 different currency balances. Additionally, VERTO gives its business users the ability to make or receive payments in foreign currencies and trade those currencies at lucrative rates.
VERTO provides liquidity and price discovery tools for international businesses. The marketplace provides easy access to exotic and foreign currencies with seamless international online payment services. Mono
Industries: Finance, FinTech, Marketplace
Website: https://www.vertofx.com/
6. Mono
Mono is an API financial technology software designed to become the go-to financial data infrastructure API platform in Africa. The company’s software provides access to financial statements for historical and real-time transactions, balances, bank statements, credit and spending patterns. The platform also make s it possible to initiate direct debit payments and recurring debit. They are enabling users to get an accessible way to check their financial statements and transactions conveniently.
Mono is bringing access to financial accounts across Africa securely and reliably.
Industries: Big Data, Financial Services
Website: https://mono.co/
7. Spleet
Spleet is a Nigerian-based prop-tech startup that offers its users a subscription-based, living solution. Spleet provides access to Shared/entire living spaces with flexible payment options (Daily, Monthly & Quarterly Subscriptions).
They have built a platform and partner with homeowners who want to earn constant (recurring, monthly, and quarterly subscriptions) revenue and homeowners who wish to earn non-recurring income.
Industries: Real Estate, Property Management, Vacation Rental
Website: https://spleet.africa/
8. Migo (Done via a Syndicate)
Migo is a cloud-based platform that allows customers to use loans, make purchases, and withdraw cash without the need for plastic debit/credit cards.
Migo offers a digital Credit-as-a-Service platform to domestic banks, mobile operators, retailers, and payment processors. The platform includes APIs, frameworks, consumer insights tools, and expertise on best practices that enterprise partners can use to build transformative consumer credit services in emerging markets.
Industries: FinTech, Financial Services, Credit
Website: https://www.migo.ng/
9. LendMe
LendMe is an online consumer loans platform. Users can choose a loan amount in Naira(₦) and set a repayment schedule. The loan limit of the user increases if the user successfully repays loans. The app is available for the Android platform.
Industries: FinTech, Financial Services, Credit.
Website: https://www.mylendme.co/
10. Bitnob
Bitnob simplifies access to the Bitcoin Blockchain Technology for People to create wealth, grow their wealth and even build and provide support for their businesses. It is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows users in the African Region to buy or sell Bitcoins quickly. One key feature of the exchange is that it enables its users to automatically and periodically save in Bitcoins with as little as one dollar.
Industries: FinTech, Financial Services, Cryptocurrency
Website: https://bitnob.com/
11. Lemonade.Finance
Lemonade Finance is a startup that makes it easy to send money to Nigeria from Canada within seconds. Their platform, available on Google Play and App Store, offers some of the best exchange rates at any given time. What’s more, transactions on lemonade are free, safe, and secure.
Industries: FinTech, Financial Services.
Website: https://lemonade.finance/
12. Brass
Brass is a digital bank that provides small and medium businesses with a suite of products and tools to help them grow. Brass provides bank-backed, fully insured current account services to local companies in Nigeria.Brass makes it super easy for every business to get a current account from any device, cut traditional bank fees and help businesses and people save money.
Industries: FinTech, Financial Services.
Website: https://www.trybrass.com/
13. Trove
Trove Finance is a platform that allows you to invest in stock markets around the world for as low as ₦1,000. Troves allows its users to automate their investments by linking a debit card to the Trove App.
Its Investment app aims to make the process of finding and selecting investments — specifically Stocks & Bonds — accessible and approachable for beginners. With Trove, users can find stock from public companies from Nigeria, and the U.S. Users can also easily access various bonds, cryptocurrency assets, and mutual funds.
Industries: FinTech, Financial Services, Cryptocurrency
Website: https://www.troveapp.co/
14. Gradient Boost
The Gradient Boost is an end-to-end platform training, upskilling, and matching data science talent in Africa to companies. This last mile data science upskilling platform enables companies to build a reliable data science, data engineering, and data analytics talent pipeline of the top data talent in Africa.
They take on talent with strong data science fundamentals and upskill them through mentorship from experienced data scientists.
This enables the young talent to gain strong collaborative skills, soft skills and practical experience. Ultimately, these young talents can prove their abilities to companies looking to hire talent.
Industries: Data Science, Training
Website: https://www.thegradientboost.com/
15. Send.ng
SEND is a Digital freight Forwarder & Customs Broker for African Businesses. Send ships container and air cargo to Nigeria, managing the entire process — from suppliers in China, U.S. & Europe, to the customs clearance and then delivered to customers.
Send is making it easy for people and businesses to ship across Africa and to the world. Their web app, mobile app, and API are used to request their shipping services. They then pick up, package, and ship items through major couriers/carriers. Send.ng provides simple yet not-so-available value-added features like tracking and transparent pricing.
Industries: Logistics, Supply Chain Management, Freight Service
Website: https://www.send.ng/
16. Gloo
Initially, Gloo.ng, a pure-play electronic retailing service dedicated to delivering direct to their clients’ doorsteps, Gloo has now pivoted into the e-procurement space as Gloopro.
Gloopro simplifies purchasing for large enterprises with eProcurement and commerce solutions. As a one-stop platform for large enterprises to optimize the purchasing of material and service inputs not included in their core products or service, Gloopro offers its customers valuable supply-chain visibility.
Additionally, they enable large enterprises to standardize and automate their entire procurement lifecycle across multiple locations with stock reorder level parameterization and budgeting caps.
Industries: Retail, E-Procurement
Website: https://www.gloopro.com/
17. PushCV
PushCV is the largest pool of pre-screened candidates in Africa. PushCV aims to help tackle the unemployment epidemic by providing a platform on which only the best talents are connected to top employers and recruiters.
Push CV is focused on the features that matter most to an employer and hence, the job seeker. Through continued iteration on complex employment problems, they seek to provide continuous improvements to the service that already makes thousands of people find their dream jobs a lot faster, safer, and more seamless.
Industries: Recruiting
Website: https://www.pushcv.com/
18. Bento
Previously verifi.ng, Bento has metamorphosized into more than just a payroll and H.R. platform to help companies in Nigeria manage their employees’ salaries. Today, Bento has expanded beyond pension, healthcare, and taxes to provide a platform for salary earners to manage what they consume and how they consume.
Bento has provided healthcare and salary advance services by partnering with a healthcare provider, Hygeia, and money-lender, Zedvance. Moreover, it aims to do much more, for instance, helping parents pay their children’s tuition monthly and pay rent monthly.
Industries: Financial Services, Employee services
Website: https://bento.africa
19. Leadspace
Leadspace is an alternative commercial real estate startup aiming to create shared infrastructure for entrepreneurs and founders of small & medium-size businesses.
They provide co-working spaces for entrepreneurs/founders of small and medium businesses, mid-level corporate executives, Independent freelancers, remote workers, and creative artists.
Industries: Co-working
Website: https://theleadspace.co/
20. PowerCube
Powercube builds clean energy systems that can provide homes with more than 16 hours of power a day with subscriptions as low as N7,000 ($20) monthly. User can control each system with a mobile application that allows them to determine how much power they want to use.
Powercube was started to relieve small homes and businesses from using generators while providing the highest degree of certainty on bills due.
Industries: Clean Energy
Website: http://www.powercube.ng/
21. Accounteer
Accounteer is a cloud accounting platform for small businesses. A business owner can create invoices, track expenses and follow up on their finances with ease. Accounteer integrates with external services like banks, e-invoicing platforms and e-commerce.
Industries: Financial Services, MSME
Website: https://accounteer.com/
22. Blackbet
Blackbet is a product-driven Africa sportsbook operator. The company has ambitions to expand and delight the global gaming community by bringing safe, imaginative and innovative sports play to a new generation by simplifying the platform and delighting new customers play-by-play.
Industries: Gambling & Casinos
Website: https://www.blackbet.ng/en/
23. Fantastic.ng
Fantastic.ng is a free-to-play gaming platform focused on sports fans (hence the name Fantastic). Their platform offers its users an experience similar to sports betting and rewards without requiring any payment.
The sports gaming platform runs on a freemium model that allows users to play for free or buy ₦100 token to access premium games with higher rewards.
All rewards are paid in a digital currency called Fan Coins (F.C.s). These F.C.s are then used in the Fan Shop to purchase various items, including airtime, food, phones, laptops, and get cash back.
Currently, the gaming platform offers a Football Manager, Predict & Win and Sports Quizzes.
Industries: Gaming
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Website: https://www.fantastic.ng/
24. Engage
Engage is a customer messaging platform that helps businesses grow and improve customer retention. It is messaging based on the end user’s journey, preferences, and actions through your business application.
Engage is able to achieve this by segmenting your customers based on their attributes (e.g., gender, location, plan, age) and their actions (e.g., used up data bandwidth, canceled subscription, scheduled an appointment, submitted feedback), and allowing you directly “message” these segments or create automation.
Industries: Artificial Intelligence, Business Development, Messaging
Website: http://engage.so/
25. Koa
Koa is an app-based platform that helps its users save and grow their money at the tap of a button, making it easier for them to reach their financial goals, starting out from Kenya.
With Koa, users can save for what truly matters to them. Their application helps users break down their goals and save towards them daily, weekly or monthly. Additionally, users with a Koa grow the account, gain interest on the amount they have saved over a set period.
Industries: Finance, Savings, and Mutual Funds
Website: https://withkoa.com/
26. Paystack (Exit)
Paystack is a payment platform that enables businesses in Africa to accept payments by anyone, anywhere in the world, from multiple local and global payment channels, including credit cards, debit cards, money transfers, and mobile money.
Additionally, Paystack provides tools to help its business users retain existing customers and acquire new ones.
Industries: Financial Services and Payments
Website: https://paystack.com/
Article culled from Medium
