Friday, 28 March 2014

Power game between the Financial Reporting Council and the Suspended Central Bank Governor

Firstly let me summarize the issue between financial Reporting Council and the suspended Central Bank Governor.
The Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria alleged that the Central Bank of Nigeria under the leadership of the suspended governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, spent N500bn as intervention fund in various sectors without obtaining the approval of its Board or the Federal Executive Council.
It also alleged at a sitting in Lagos in which the suspended governor was scheduled to appear that the bank under his watch spent N10bn to renovate five palaces of traditional rulers in the country under its education intervention projects.

Why I call this a game is because Sanusi, refused to appear before the panel, which is currently investigating the activities of the CBN under his watch. Sanusi, said the invitation was in bad faith, and he has also sued the FRC.

Now I have to ask : Why didn’t the FRC have this panel before the suspension to hear Sanusi out?
I feel the panel should have held before Sanusi was suspended from office.



 

Thursday, 27 March 2014

Question of the day

There is an ingoing investigation into  the   alleged  financial excesses of the Minister of Petroleum Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke. It was   also learnt in Abuja that Alison-Madueke   chartered a third jet for her use, besides the two already in the records of the committee.

The Solomon Olamilekan-led committee is  investigating the expenditure of  N10bn on a Challenger 850 chartered and maintained for  the minister’s use.

Is it Justifiable for a minister to spend billions of naira to charter aircraft?

Who approved the funds?

Was the money appropriated by the National Assembly?

What aspect of our laws allows a minister to fly in chartered aircraft overseas for her private or official trips?
 
kindly drop your comments

Instagram has overtaken Twitter to become more popular with US smartphone users

Nearly 35m Americans used Instagram at least once a month last year, compared with 30.8m using Twitter’s mobile app, according to estimates from E-Marketer, the research group.

Mark Zuckerberg announced this week that Instagram had hit 200m monthly active users worldwide, having grown more than sixfold since he acquired it in 2012. Both sites were developed for mobile users first but Twitter has a greater desktop userbase, with 240m active monthly users.
The Instagram app, popular with teens who enjoy its flattering visual filters, has helped Facebook keep hold of a younger audience who are tiring of the main social network.

Culled from the Financial Times
Click here for more details

KFC and other international food brands in Nigeria.

Global expansion has been key for Yum. The KFC owner generates about a quarter of its revenue from its international business unit and posted system sales growth from the division that was twice as fast as the whole last quarter.

KFC, which sells Nigerians fish burgers and vegetable fried rice in addition to the chicken that made it famous, is currently the biggest international rival, having opened 25 restaurants since first entering in 2009. Domino’s and Cold Stone Creamery followed in 2012 and now plan to add about five outlets a year across the country and Lagos.

Nigeria “presents opportunities in the form of substantially less penetration than developed markets and the ability to establish a dominant brand and market share,” said Sara Senatore, a New York-based analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein& Co.

Overall, low poverty still restricts the number of international chains that can enter, since modern fast-food prices are quite expensive and beyond the reach of most,” said Euromonitor analyst Victor-Serge Ajibola.

At KFC, a three-piece chicken meal with fries or rice and a drink costs 1,800 naira, or nearly $11.
Layzell said it costs twice as much to open a Nigerian KFC than a South African one, but that exponential growth on the continent is going to come from outside of South Africa, which is already KFC’s fifth-biggest market.
The challenges of Nigeria aren’t deterring Domino’s and Cold Stone, which have a combined 15 shops currently mostly dotted around Lagos, said Jean-Claude Meyer, who runs the local franchises in Nigeria.

“In 20 years’ time, we expect to be in every corner of the country,” Meyer said, though currently they are focused on Lagos. He called the current expansion plan “pretty conservative” for a country with a population that is more than half the United States.



Culled from Bloomberg.com
To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Kay in Lagos at ckay5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Vernon Wessels at vwessels@bloomberg.net; Celeste Perri at cperri@bloomberg.net Paul Jarvis