Curator

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J By Sebastine Obasi The Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria, PETAN, has urged the Federal Government to reduce bureaucracy and cut production cost by 40 percent so as to engender more investment in the nation’s oil and gas industry. In a communiqué sent to the Federal Government at the end of the Offshore Technology Conference, OTC, held in Houston, Texas, PETAN stated that it was imperative to cut red tape-ism, reduce contracting cycle from nine months to six months, address distrust between the international oil companies, IOCs and government, ensure transparency, as well as consistency  and predictability of policies The communiqué by PETAN’s Chairman, Bank-Anthony Okoroafor, added, “We can knock down cost by 40 percent by adopting Brazilian model, standardize facilities, standardize 150,000 barrels, bbl.” “We need to set up consortiums like Bonga South West so that we can sustain build in-country capacities. Collaborate to fund all these project...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J Professor Soludo, ex-Chief Economic Adviser to President Obasanjo and former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, is an intriguing fellow. First, he was once in government at the highest levels. Except in Nigeria, a re-deployment from Chief Economic Adviser, CEA, to the President to Governor of the Central Bank would be regarded as a demotion because the CEA can influence far more by his activities and the policies and programmes he promotes within government than the CBN Governor. He can give advice on matters ranging from fiscal to monetary policy to social re-engineering of society along the lines he advocates. There are several examples in history of economists changing the political, social and economic faces of their countries and even whole continents with their ideas. Jean Monnet was the economist who conceived of the European Economic Union which still shapes global economy till today. Naturally, he started with his contributions to his own coun...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J By Nkiruka Nnorom The first Vice President of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE, Mr. Abimbola Ogubajo, has said that there is an uneven pace of stock exchange demutualisation between developed and emerging markets, with exchanges in Africa lagging behind. He spoke at the 2017 edition of the Building African Financial Markets (BAFM) capacity building seminar in Casablanca, saying that 21 stock exchanges in developed market have successfully demutulaised in the last 10 years following the first demutualisation by the Stockholm Stock Exchange. He, however, said that only five out of 76 exchanges in emerging market jurisdictions have demutualized within the same period of time. “In Africa specifically, out of the 27 exchanges which are members of ASEA, seven namely: the Johannesburg, Nairobi, Mauritius, Seychelles, Rwandan, Casablanca stock exchanges and BRVM are demutualized with several others including the NSE in the process of demutualizing or considering takin...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J Increase carrying capacity in varsities — Stakeholders By Dayo Adesulu THIS Saturday, the more than 1.8 million candidates who registered for the 2017 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examinations (UTME) will jostle for about 850,000 admission spaces. At the end of the admission process, about 950,000 admission seekers will be left out. Sadly, while the number of UTME candidates increases eyear on year, the Federal Ministry of Education is virtually doing nothing in terms of  upgrading the carrying capacity of the existing universities or building more universities to absorb the backlog of admission applicants. This would have made it impossible for candidates who applied for admission and scored 250, to be denied admission. Disqualificationof many applicants As it stands, even if all the candidates score 300 and above, because of the limited spaces, JAMB and various institutions will still have to devise a means to disqualify many applicants. Statistics r...

http://ift.tt/eA8V8J By Johnbosco Agbakwuru THE Federal Government has warned the newly inaugurated Governing Councils of 23 Federal Universities not to interfere in the day to day administration of the universities. Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, who gave the warning while inaugurating members of the governing councils said government will not fail to sanction any member that derails from the mandate given to them. The minister noted that funding has become a great challenge in the smooth operation of the universities but advised members to look inwards and explore the opportunity of engaging the alumni of the universities as it is done in other countries. He also warned against reckless employment of staff without compliance with the approved budgetary ratio for personnel cost. Aminu said, “At this point, it is necessary to point out some areas of potential conflicts and pitfalls encountered by governing councils which in some instances had necessitated government in...