09102019 - 2020: Buhari presents N10.33trn job creation budget to NASS

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36 — Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2019 WITH HENRY OJELU midweekpersonality@gmail.com 08111813061 (sms only) SYLVESTER CHUDE: From whiz kid to wealth creator If you describe him as a restless person, he would be quick to tell you that his restlessness is for the right reasons. This energeticness saw him carving a niche for himself as a child inventor and innovator. The same creativity led him into pioneering the first radio station in a northern university, Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, Zaria, even when he was not an engineering student. Long before many online stores sprang up, he had pioneered one, ShopNigeria in the e-commerce business. He spends every moment working on new models or pondering the next thing to work on. Sylvester Chude, Managing Director, Cotrack Technologies, a security tracking firm, tells the story of his talents, models and how his firm is creating jobs with its latest innovation, Envio cab in the transport sector. The taxi model which was a success in Abuja aims at taking many unemployed youths out of the streets of Lagos. Background I am the first son of five children of Prof and Mrs Chude. I am a graduate of Economics from Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. I pioneered the first student campus radio station ‘ABU FM’. After graduation, I went ahead to work for a security tracking company, called CoTECH, as a Youth corper in Abuja 2005. From there, I drove the market to Lagos and became the operations manager in 2009. I got married and relocated to Abuja and started family life. A year later, I left CoTech to start something else in e-commerce. I was one of those first entrants in the e- commerce business in Nigeria and my brand name was ShopNigeria. Concept My concept then was how to sell all that is being displayed on a website by creating convenience for people who don't know where to shop. We were trying to create what Alibaba did in China by creating visibility for local people. We started it but couldn’t continue after one year because of financial restraint. At that time, I was called back to CoTech in 2010 following some restructuring in the company. We did alarm security before we decided to go into full scale security. We later changed the name from CoTech and re-registered it as Cotrack. I co-founded Cotrack as a pioneer Managing Director. Focus Our main goal at Cotrack was to retrieve stolen cars in PERSONALITY ETHICS: * I utitlise human power to create wealth * Money is not wealth * The greatest asset is manpower Nigeria and we were able to achieved that to a large extent. I am glad that the company has grown to prove that we can use technologies to bring working solutions in Nigeria. Envio Innovation Envio is my new innovation. Safe transport is the major challenge we are trying to solve in this country. With my background and experience in sitelite tracking, we were able to solve the concerns of public transport in Nigeria. We created what is novel in Nigeria, the first of its kind, and that is to use satellite technology with artificial intelligence to create a fleet management software that can detect mechanical or technical threat to a vehicle that could reduce the warranty of the vehicle. That same technology can tell us when a driver is over speeding, when the engine is stressed, when the driver has departed, and most importantly, it handles the challenge of billing. The people who have vehicles used for public transport have two basic challenges; one is maintenance, the other is billing. When vehicle owners Sylvester Chude give out their vehicles for commercial purposes, getting their money is usually difficult. I know of a driver who always claim his mother has died whenever its time to pay money. In fact, his mother has died four times. They come up with all sorts of reasons to justify why they As an economist, resource for me is not money. Resource is human power. It is about utilizing human power to generate wealth. can’t make payments. So, with the app we have made, that kind of lie cannot persist. We made it in a way that, when a driver fails to make payment on an agreed day, if he wakes up the next day, that car won't start. For the car to start, he is expected to follow the process of using his ATM card, log in to our website with his user name and password, the amount he owes will pop out, then he will pay. He will be told payment successful, then his car will come up. If he doesnt do this, the car will not start. With this, we have solved the greatest pain of every vehicle owner with technology. The second phase is that, the vehicle will have a web page where you can see the state of the vehicle, and, where and when the vehicle was serviced last, and also the engine performance analysis. By doing this, you are putting a check in the life of the driver and the vehicle. We want to encourage private sector investors to invest in this, because that sector is deficient. Challenges One of the greatest challenges I had in the first three months we came to Lagos, was how to survive in Lagos because of the big market. When we did the piloting in Abuja, it was highly successful. But Lagos is a place where somebody spends many hours on the road and productive work time is lost in traffic. By the time people get to work, they are already exhausted and yet still have official work to do. So, I asked myself, how do I manage this kind of people? In our office, we created pictures of different challenges we want to solve in Nigeria. One says; 'there is love in sharing'. The truth is, if that man doesn’t give his car, a driver will not get a job, and the car owner will not make extra income. Even users will have problem of moving about. So, we decided to create a customer s u p p o r t programme, designed to reward the people who recognize what we are doing as a value, and are willing to support it to solve the problem of p u b l i c transport by introducing people to it and making it known. We paid them 10 per cent as royalty, because they are also solving a problem. This is about us solving our own problems ourselves, and earning from it. If we can all work with this mentality, then Nigeria will grow. Another challenge right now is getting partnership with state governments. Most state governments are looking for internally generated revenue and don’t have the funds to invest into the transport system. This is a means where they could get income steadily through tax. Our taxi model is designed for the grassroots so we are open to partnership. We also need investors. We are now open to the public. In fact, our philosophy for Envio is; business for the people, by the people and of the people. This is because, in as much as we make 10 per cent of payment from the owners, we share that payment with everybody, including the driver and the government through tax. Conviction As an economist, resource for me is not money. Resource is human power. It is about utilizing human power to generate wealth. It is however unfortunate that in Nigeria, the most potent resource which is the 'human', is not being properly utilized. This is what we are tapping to solve our economic problems in Nigeria.
NESG REPORTS Vanguard WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 9, 2019 — 37 *President Muhammadu Buhari 25th Nigerian Economic Summit: FG plans new measures to boost revenue from mining Stories by Michael Eboh The Federal Government is making arrangement to plug revenue leakages in the nation’s mining sector. It also plans new measures to sure up revenue from the oil assets in the Joint Venture, JV partnership and completion of the Ajaokuta-Kaduna- Kano, AKK, gas pipeline. Speaking in Abuja, at a roundtable session of the 25th Nigerian Economic Summit, NES, Minister for Mines and Steel Development, Architect Olamilekan Adegbite, disclosed that the Government was considering engaging young graduates, training them and assigning them to the field to help in monitoring volume of minerals evacuated at different mining sites and the amount of revenue due to the government. He noted that federal mining officers in some states of the federation only have a few staff and they are expected to monitor mining activities across the whole state. He stated: “For instance, in Ogun State, which is the quarry capital of the country, people are there engaging in quarrying, breaking stones and all that. The government is supposed to receive royalty from this. It is supposed to monitor the volume going *Kyari *Adegbite *Akinwuntan out. The minerals are loaded in 30- tonne trucks. For every truck that goes out, government is supposed to receive certain amount of royalties. But then there are discrepancy in how much that was received and what went out. “We also realised that the rules are in place, what is required is monitoring and enforcement. We are now proposing something, which we could get young graduates, send them to get certain experience, we pay them The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, yesterday, disclosed that buyers of the divested assets of its Joint Venture, JV partners have all failed to make meaningful impacts and contributions to the development of the assets, almost ten years after their sale. Speaking in Abuja, at a round-table on “Rethinking the future of the Extractive Industry,” at the 25th Nigerian Economic Summit, NES, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, expressed disappointment over the minimum wage and we assign like about 20 to every mine officer and they can monitor, thereby generating more revenue for the government. That is what we are thinking, it is not crystallised yet.” He further stated that the Federal Government was working on harmonising and creating a linkage among the three critical agencies in the Nigerian mining industry, the Mining Cadastre Office, the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, NGSA, and the Mining Inspectorate. He said the Federal Government IOCs sold divested oil assets to incompetent operators --NNPC AfCFTA: How Nigeria can benefit, be competitive — Ecobank CEO Chief Executive Officer of Ecobank Nigeria, Mr. Patrick Akinwuntan, yesterday, warned that Nigeria would not enjoy the benefits of the African Continental Free Trade Area, AfCFTA, unless it addresses the issue of poor electricity supply, low skilled manpower and challenges to the ease of doing business in the country Speaking at a roundtable session, tagged, AfCFTA: ‘Capitalizing on Opportunities ‘ at the 25th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, Akinwuntan disclosed that when the agreement fully comes into effect, the size of the Nigerian economy compared to its peers in the African continent would not matter and would not be a determining factor in attracting investments and dominating in trade. According to him, what would matter would be the competitiveness of the country and businesses operating in the country, while he noted that all sale of the JV assets to the new partners, noting that if the NNPC had a foreknowledge of the incompetence of the buyers, it would not have consented to the sale of the assets. Going forward, he said the NNPC had rolled out stringent conditions for the divestment of assets by its JV partners, while he cautioned its partners against proposing the divestment of their stakes to firms who are not capable of improving the fortunes of the assets. The NNPC chief executive noted that henceforth, firms who are seeking to efforts should be geared towards making the country commercially competitive. He emphasised the need for the country to pursue human capacity development, as with the AfCFTA, education would not matter much, but a major issue, according to him, would be the skills and capacity of the country’s manpower to help it compete effectively across the continent and across the globe. Akinwuntan further stated that Nigeria’s epileptic power supply situation would be an impediment to our competitiveness, as countries that have the capacity in electricity generation and distribution would export electricity to Nigeria. He said: “All ports in Nigeria, seaports, railway, airports and others, must be favourable for people to move their goods and services. It is about attracting other parts of Africa to do business with us. Today, it is faster to ship goods from Europe to Apapa than to move goods from Apapa to Ikeja. “Nigeria is bordered by Frenchspeaking countries and most of us do not know how to speak French, whereas majority of the educated people in these French-speaking countries can speak English. If we want to compete under the AfCFTA, we must be bi-lingual, we must at least, learn to speak French.” The Ecobank chief executive added that Nigeria must see the entire Africa as a market, and focus on changing the cost and ease of exporting goods and services from what it is currently. Also speaking, Chief Executive Officer of Flour Mills of Nigeria Limited, Mr. Paul Gbededo, disclosed that Nigeria cannot export goods and services if our products are not able to compete globally price-wise. He argued that the AfCFTA was an opportunity for Nigeria to up its game, as well as ensure that it is competitive in pricing and quality. He said, “Manufacturing firms should be able to improve on their capacity and effectiveness. Nigeria should look beyond its borders and utilise more of its capacity.” was digitalising all its operations in the Cadastre Office and the NGSA to allow real-time monitoring from anywhere in the world, of licence holders, activities of each miner across the country. “Just from your computer, you can see the operations of the Mining Cadastre Office, MCO, you can see what areas are free if you want to invest and what areas are already taken by licences. By the time we conclude all these, all our operations would be opened and everyone can see them anywhere in the world,” he explained. acquire the assets of its JV partners must be able to manage the assets, attract financing and must be able to operate the assets. He said, “In the last ten years, many of our partners have divested assets from the joint venture; some of the Production Sharing Contracts, PSC, have looked for other PSC contractors to join the business. “For the JVs and without exceptions, all the divestment from our partners to all the companies we are now working with, did not deliver the value that we expected. Many of the assets went down; most of them could not add any production to the baseline. That is the reality that we have on ground now. “If we can roll back time and go back to 2010 up till 2012, NNPC would not grant those consents, if we had known this, because what the consent you are granting means is that they are bringing in a partner who would help you work the assets. If we know today that this cannot happen, we would not have consented to it. At that time, we did not have a choice, but today, we are in the best position to say no when we want to; we have a government that would tolerate us, support us and had insisted that we must do things correctly. “Today, if you bring a partner who is on paper, an upstream operator, after the divestment is set, we will say no to it. That is the reality. It would also apply to our partners. This is a clear message to our partner, do not propose sale to people who cannot manage these assets, who cannot find financing and who cannot operate these assets. “Indeed, the NNPC has the option of either pre-empting the transaction or to decline the consent If we are not convinced, especially if you are not able to give us the partner that would be able to do business as we expect.”
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09102019 - 2020: Buhari presents N10.33trn job creation budget to NASS

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