business0521

26 BUSINESS DAY
Thursday 21 May 2015
GARDEN CITY BUSINESS DIGEST
PH business school to create world class managers
- Aims to turn workers to business owners
IGNATIUS CHUKWU
There is tension over salaries
owed workers; if governments
cannot pay, is it wrong to hand
over salaries to incoming government
It will be very unfortunate for
any sitting government to do
that. It will amount to an irresponsible
act. If you don’t
pay, and the next governor comes
to clear it, how do you want workers
to remember you? I appeal to all
governors owing salaries to clear it.
Yes, the governments are complaining
of dwindling revenues and
economic hardships but workers
also witnessed the mega rallies
and world class campaigns that
took place this year. Those were not
campaigns of poor people or cashstrapped
governments.
They competed with the best
in the world in terms of cost and
class. It will be difficult for workers
to believe that their salaries should
be withheld on account of poor
economy.
As an economist, it would be
wrong for me not to admit that
revenue has gone down or that oil
prices have gone down by about 50
percent, and so government revenues
must have gone down, but
what have governments down to
reflect it? If they campaigned as if
The three-year old Port
Harcourt Business School
established by the University
of Port Harcourt
(Nigeria’s entrepreneurial
university) is focusing on creating a
corps of world class managers that
could hold their own in any country,
the managers of the school have
explained.
This is said to be in tandem with
the growing status of the Garden City
as the hub of the oil industry, capital
of the Gulf of Guinea, new manufacturing
centre in oil and gas, the host of
the fastest oil-and-gas free trade zone
in the world, and an international
melting pot for entrepreneurs and
business moguls.
A business school is indicated
as a university-level institution that
confers degrees in business administration
or management. A business
school teaches topics such as accounting,
administration, strategy,
economics, entrepreneurship (entrepreneury),
finance, human resource
management, information systems,
logistics, marketing, organisational
psychology, organisational behaviour,
public relations, research methods
and real estate, among others.
The first business school in the
world, ESCP Europe, was founded
in Paris (France) in 1819, now with
campuses in four other countries.
The first in Africa was founded in
Pretoria (South Africa) in 1949. The
Lagos Business School (LBS) founded
in 1991, is perhaps the most famous
in Nigeria, though there are five others
in Lagos alone and a total of 19 in
Nigeria at the moment.
Clifford O. Ofurum, a professor
of accounting/finance and teacher
of Entrepreneury who is also the director
of the Port Harcourt Business
School, in an exclusive interview
with BusinessDay, disclosed that the
University of Port Harcourt Business
School (located off Abacha Road in
the reserved area) in Port Harcourt
strives to be different from the Lagos
Business School and the others in
Lagos.
He explained that the Lagos Business
School is designed principally
for business owners with its executive
(master) class while the Port Harcourt
Business School targets caters for aspiring
workers who want to transform
to world class managers. Thus, the
Lagos school is mostly patronised by
CEOs while the Port Harcourt counterpart
is attracted mostly by workers
who want to climb faster to the top.
He said the Port Harcourt strategy
therefore is to expose those
academic-minded student-workers
to entrepreneurship education and
spur them into the world of Small and
Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and turn
them into business owners.
Ofurum, a highly sought-after entrepreneurial
expert and teacher, said
Port Harcourt was very ripe for one or
more international standard business
schools. The business school idea for
Port Harcourt was conceived by Don
Baridom, the professor of management
and former vice chancellor of
the University of Port Harcourt, but
the present one, Joseph Ajienka, midwifed
it by erecting the buildings and
money was no problem, then, they
must pay salaries as if the economy
is not down.
How do tell workers I represent
to forfeit their salaries because
economy is bad, when they saw
the flamboyant and expensive
campaigns? This would put many
Labour leaders in trouble because
their followers would not take none
of that. This would force many of the
leaders to succumb to pressure of
strike from the members. Whether
strike will get the salary from now
to May 29, as an industrial relations
expert, I do not know.
I leave it to the various unions
to decide whether to go on strike or
not, according to their perceptions.
What I mean by this is, it is their
decision to decide if the governor
they are dealing with has credibility,
then they can try strike because he
may fear for his image and try to
pay, but if they were dealing with
a hard man, no matter how you go
on strike from now till May 29, he
may not budge. All I know is that a
labourer deserves his wages.
I think the various unions should
make salary a priority from now till
May 29, in fact abandon all other
union matters. The FG can decide to
raise a special FAAC to clear it, else
the incoming government would
begin to appeal to workers to bear
Uniport dons pioneering study of entrepreneursy in the Garden City
setting up the structure proper.
It started with some 36 students
for both Masters and Post Graduate
Diploma (PGD) students, but now
has over 250 students in both categories.
It renders academic, community
and consultancy services because
the university system began with
teaching, then research, and now
community service, he explained.
Ofurum said: “If you need business
support, then think of the Port
Business School. It is ideal for workers
in this region. We groom workers to
run their SMEs, share ideas, and go
back home to experiment them.” He
said some couples are studying there,
having found the rare benefits.
The expert agreed that there was
an attitude problem to business in
tive programme is not a good ground
in this place but research is attractive;
they want the academic side.”
On the future of the Port Harcourt
Business School, the director said the
industrial sector was about to fly higher
in the region, leveraging on oil and
gas. “Companies here have enough
potential to grow due to new zeal for
enterprise and hunger for diversity.
One day, the Port Harcourt Business
School will do segmentation between
entrepreneurs and academics.
The view is that Port Harcourt
Business School has huge potentials
to grow because it is the only one between
Lagos and Port Harcourt, and
between Abuja and Port Harcourt,
except ESUT Business School. Some
say most of the students that have
been patronising the Enugu Business
School were from Port Harcourt. Ofurum
said: “We control the share of the
market. We may sound quiet but the
population is growing, making us to
raise entry points.”
There are two business schools
in Warri (Delta State), one in Akure
and Ilorin, and a micro, small and
medium enterprise (MSME) business
school in nearby Owerri, Imo State
capital. Yet, the Port Harcourt Business
School seems to take over the air.
The expert believes that Nigeria needs
the impact these schools would make
in grooming real business people,
entrepreneurs and investors of all
categories.
The professor warned that, “We
must understand that this country
needs millions of SMEs to grow instead
of needing few corporations to
employ millions.”
‘Why workers will not accept handover of salaries!’
Chika Onuegbu, chairman of the Rivers State wing of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), is regarded as the powerhouse of Labour in Rivers State and a strong
force in Nigeria’s labour movement. The industrial relations expert also spoke with IGNATIUS CHUKWU explaining why Rivers State must repeal the Pensions Law, now.
Chika onuegbu, TUC boss
certain parts of the country including
Port Harcourt, especially on how to
treat capital. He however said: “We
emphasise the need to start with
any capital available, even N10,000
to N100,000. This region is not full
of business consciousness; there is a
hunger to land big job and grow from
there, but we are in the task of changing
the orientation of the people of
this region to know that business is
the only way to make people or the
poor to grow big.”
Ofurum said the University of Port
Harcourt did what he called ‘conception
mapping’ and found out that the
students in the region want to grow
on the job. “We are making them to
imbibe SME interest, to do business
by the side. For this reason, the execuwith
them. This would annoy the
workers and it would not augur well
for the next government, to start off
with labour anger.
I advise Goodluck Jonathan
and Muhammadu Buhari to act as
statesmen and put heads together
and solve this matter. It is not good
for any of them. If FG pays and states
do not pay, pressure will move from
down to up. It calls for urgent action
between Jonathan and Buhari to see
how they can calm the crisis.
What is Labour proposing as
solution to increasing wages, to
sack workers, cut salaries
Let there be an engagement
between Labour and Government
at all levels. There may be areas
governments have not looked into,
some cost-cutting may be needed,
instead of sack of workers. We
workers believe that corruption and
waste take away 40 per cent of budgets.
You do not start government
by cutting salaries and sacking;
else they run into labour crisis and
would be distracted.
There is need to engage the workers
because they know where money
is being wasted. I told you that
we did it in Rivers State when the
government wanted to sack some
directors. We met the governor and
revealed things about people earning
wrong scales. On this score, we
reached a deal with him, thus; if we
could prove it, government would
use the savings to reengage the
directors. It worked out.
This is what the governments can
do. The revenue loss is huge and
action is needed now. The straight
jacket method of sacking workers
or cutting salaries is lazy. There are
options.
Final word here is, engage the
workers. They will show you the
solution.
Why are you moving with force
on the quest for amendment of
the Rivers State Pension Law,
can’t it be done by the incoming
parliament
I think the issue here is, if it can
be done now, so why wait? I have
had informal discussions with some
of the lawmakers, and we agreed to
wait for the elections to be through.
So, the elections are over and we
want the law repealed and amended
to meet current realities.
We promised to bring it in the
form of a bill to save time, so they
can just add or adjust here and
there and pass it. We are doing this
because the workers are losing as
it is. Right now, the subsisting pension
law which is the 2014 Act has
been repealed which had contribution
rate of 7.5 percent for both the
employer and employee, making
15 percent.
Now that the law has been
changed, we think the government
and Labour should act to harmonise
it (2014 Pensions Act) to the present
rate if 10 per cent by employer and
8 per cent by employee, making a
minimum of 18 per cent.