Business, Homes Suffer As Power Workers Down Tools

           

Olusola Bello

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he reform in the power sector, which culminated in the handover of PHCN assets to private investors a week ago, suffered a setback as power workers during the week withheld services because a good number of them were disengaged by the new owners.

The action of the workers has put many businesses and homes in darkness as many could neither recharge their prepaid meters nor rectify electrical faults.

BusinessDay visit to the Yaba Mainland business unit of the Eko Electricity Distribution Company showed that activities were paralysed as many consumers milled around to see if they could recharge or get their complaints sorted out.

It was learnt that most of the workers were on Monday disengaged from their jobs with their severance package fully paid.

Businesses and homes are, therefore, suffering from power outage as a result. The development may also increase the cost of production as some of the businesses may be forced to depend on diesel for as long as it may take to resolve the issues involved.

The workers who have been staying off duty post since Tuesday claimed they were doing so to press home their demand for the payment of the severance package of their members who were yet to be paid by the defunct PHCN.

Aside from this, some of the workers said they were surprised that when they came to the office on Monday, a good number of them were greeted with letters of disengagement while some were also handed letters of re-engagement, a situation they claimed generated tensions which led to their closure of their offices in Lagos and other places.

Some union officials told BusinessDay that they were not permitted to talk, adding that when they went to their offices and tried to demand for the reasons why the new management decided to do what they did, they were confronted with stern-looking security men.

“With the way the security men were doing, we had to ask our members to stay away from office to avoid any confrontation that might lead to casualties,” one of them said.

A senior management staff of one of the distribution stations in Lagos told BusinessDay that the atmosphere was very tense because some of the company’s employees had been given disengagement letters.

Another member of Eko Electricity Distribution Zone said business managers of the various units had been mandated to reach out to the aggrieved workers so the management of the company could find an amicable way of resolving the issue.

However, the management of Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company, while reacting to this development, told customers in its network that the transaction which resulted into handover to a new management did not in any way signify a shutdown of operations.

Kola Adesina, chairman of the company, pleaded for the support of both the workers and consumers to make the current reforms to succeed, adding that the position of the company, together with Nigerian people, was to develop the sector and make it healthy, viable and of ultimate benefit to the customers and the country at large.

He enjoined the customers to pay their bills on time, protect electricity infrastructure, and learn to conserve electricity by switching off appliances not in use.

Source: BusinessDay

FG Approves $300m World Bank Loan for Mortgage Refinancing

 

 

By Tony Ailemen & Onyinye Nwachukwu

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he Federal Government on Wednesday announced its formal approval and receipt of a $300 million (N48.6 billion) loan facility from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank to kick-start the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Corporation (NMRC) due for launch this month.

The IDA loan, which is a World Bank cheap credit, comes at a zero percent interest rate with a 0.4 percent service charge and a moratorium period of 40 years, it was learnt.

The loan was announced after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting yesterday and is specifically to be devoted to the establishment of the mortgage refinancing company being championed by the Ministry of Finance as well as the creation and strengthening of other institutions that will drive the mortgage venture in the country.

The company, which has already got the approval of the regulator – the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) – to set up, will provide low-interest housing loans to middle-income earners in the country to enable them own their own homes.

The MRC is expected to bridge Nigeria’s current housing gap by raising mortgages from an annual average of 20,000 to at least 200,000 in the next three years.

President Goodluck Jonathan had in March this year declared the FG’s intention to establish a mortgage refinance corporation which would be private-sector driven, saying the NMRC would be established under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement and that the partners would include the Federal Government, Nigeria’s local banks and savings and loans institutions, and the multilateral institutions, especially the World Bank which is providing concessional credits of $300 million.

The expectation is that the NMRC would be able to access the capital markets to raise long-term funds via bond issues.

Yerima Ngama, minister of state for Finance, who briefed journalists after the weekly FEC meeting, said the objective of the Nigeria housing finance project was to increase access to housing finance by deepening the primary and secondary mortgage market in Nigeria.

The housing demand in Nigeria has expanded rapidly due to current urbanisation trends and the estimated demand annually is about 700,000 units.

After deliberations, council approved that Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the coordinating minister for the economy/minister of finance, should execute the financing agreement on behalf of the Federal Government, Ngama said.

The council also directed the attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice to issue legal opinion required to render the project effective.

Explaining the technicality of the loan, he said that FEC approved the access of the $300 million loan from the World Bank IDA which is the soft-borrowing arm for developing countries.

“The facility is going to be used to meet the government’s objective in the proposed housing finance project. The Nigeria housing finance project is aimed at increasing access to housing finance through primary as well as secondary mortgage market in Nigeria,” he said.

“Right now we only have primary mortgage institutions. So we are going to establish a mortgage refinance company that will benefit from this. Hence $250 million will be devoted to the establishment of the mortgage refinance company. The remaining money will also be used for three other companies for the Nigeria housing finance project.”

Ngama said the establishment of mortgage guarantee product targeted at the lower income borrower would gulp $25 million, adding that the guarantee would enable people who otherwise could not provide adequate collateral to access loans. He further said there would also be $25 million which would be lent to microfinance banks so that they too could provide housing finance.

“We know that one of the major issues that constraining the development of our mortgage industry is lack of technical competence as well as capacity building. So $10 million will be devoted to capacity building and also as technical assistance. This would give them the capability to drive the mass housing scheme,” he said.

Source: BusinessDay

Google Delays Construction Of £300m HQ

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oogle is delaying its move into a new £300m headquarters in King’s Cross while designs are redrawn to provide an “even better building”.

Current plans from architect AHMM include a swimming pool and a running track on the roof and space for as many as 5,000 workers.

BAM Construction was due to start on site early next year but that will now be pushed back with the completion date delayed from 2016 to 2017 at least.

Sources close to the company told The Telegraph that plans will be resubmitted for new permissions to be granted but Google is unlikely to hire new architects.

A source close to the project said: “There was nothing wrong with the old designs – it would have been a great building – but we just decided to be even more ambitious.

“We are still completely committed to the project, which is good for Google and good for the UK too.”

Joe Borrett, Head of Real Estate and Construction at Google, said: “We have a great plan for the new building at Kings Cross, but we want to challenge ourselves to do something even better for Google, Kings Cross and for the local community.”

Source: Construction Enquirer

Ethiopia Plans Africa's Biggest Dam

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thiopia’s ambitious plan to build a $4.2 billion dam in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, 40 kms from its border with Sudan, is expected to provide 6,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for its population plus some excess it can sell to neighbouring countries. Dubbed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, it will be Africa’s biggest dam and will depend on water from the 6,700-km Nile River, the world’s longest river.

But Ethiopia must first resolve matters with Egypt, which, along with Sudan, claims the rights to the river following a 1929 agreement. That agreement excluded other countries along the Nile River trajectory, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Egypt fears that the dam will suck up water flows to the country and severely affect its domestic consumption.

About 86% of the Nile River’s water actually originates from Ethiopia, a point the country is underscoring to press its case. In addition, it says that independent experts believe the dam will not affect water flows to Egypt. “There should not be any concerns about a diminished water flow,” Alemayehu Tegenu, Ethiopia’s minister of water and energy, told the Associated Press news agency.

Such assurances have not calmed Egypt’s fears. In early June, then-president Mohammed Morsi directed his foreign and irrigation ministers to get more information from Ethiopia on the dam’s impact on water supply to Egypt. Although President Morsi took a cautious approach, some Egyptian politicians were demanding a stronger response.

Many observers, however, believe that the countries will find a compromise point that will allow Ethiopia to complete the project by July 2017 and also ensure that there is no impact on water flows to Egypt’s population.

Egypt also recently launched a water transportation route that will connect it with nine other East African countries: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

Managing trans-boundary water resources is not always a complicated matter. Since 1994, for example, Angola, Botswana, and Namibia have successfully managed water supplies from the 1,100-km Okavango River that runs through all three countries. They signed an agreement to coordinate water sharing and sustainable use, and even set up the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission to monitor the agreement.

Water is a huge issue in Africa. Up to 300 million Africans still don’t have access to safe drinking water, according to the World Bank. The UN in 2010 declared access to clean water a fundamental human right. Drought in the horn of Africa has caused thousands of deaths, killing 260,000 people in Somalia alone from 2010 to 2012, according to the US-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which provides information on food insecurity.

African countries are making mixed progress towards the Millennium Development Goal drinking water global target, which is to halve by 2015 the number of people without access to clean water. While North Africa has attained up to 92% water coverage, sub-Saharan Africa has only managed 63%, states the 2013 Millennium Development Goals report. The report adds that in sub-Saharan Africa improvements have mainly been in the urban areas, while in the rural areas about 40% of households still don’t have access to safe water.

With 2013 declared by the UN as the International Year of Water Cooperation, African governments, development agencies, citizens and others will have to formulate and implement policies to ensure efficient water management.

Written by Pavithra Rao

Estate Developer Tasks African Leaders On Policies For Affordable Housing

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hairman of the First Rotech Group, an estate development firm, Chief Austin Oguejiofor has asked African leaders to develop housing policies that will encourage estate developers to help the process of providing affordable housing accommodation to their citizens in the continent.

Oguejiofor, who made the call at the commissioning of over 2,000 housing units at the Luxury’s Place Estate in Abuja, noted the huge housing deficit facing the sub-region and said that the trend was unprecedented.

He warned that except various governments in the continent take the issue of provision of housing serious; development would continue to elude Africa.

He argued that shortage of housing was one of the factors responsible for the poor environmental quality across the sub-region, adding that, “in the twenty first century, millions of Africans are still homeless while many others are living in indecent houses.”

According to him, even where houses are available, affordability remains a major challenge in Africa, because of factors such as poverty, lack of long-term financing, land management systems and rising cost of building materials.

To address this trend, the real estate mogul advised further that governments should appropriate key issues in housing development, particularly, management of grants from the World Bank to the major players in the sector.

Oguejiofor noted that housing and urban infrastructure had not been a high priority for international donors apart from the World Bank which he said, had been the largest donor in the sector.

He recalled that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) implemented the successful Housing Guarantee, HG, loan program for almost 30 years until it was discontinued in 2000.

He argued that, “if key players are allowed to utilize such grants from the World Bank, the Sub-Saharan Africa will experience demographic changes where people will be moving to the cities at unprecedented rates, and Africa will be more urban than rural by 2030.

“African cities will have to accommodate more than 300 million new residents over the next 25 years. Urbanization in Africa, unlike in other regions of the world, has not reduced overall poverty.

“In African cities and towns, poverty rates have actually increased and in several of the region’s most populous countries, urban poverty rates are now close to those in rural areas. Efforts to reduce overall poverty must therefore increasingly focus on urban, not rural, areas.

“To address the challenges posed by the unprecedented deficit, African national and local governments and their international development partners, working with the private sector, must create the political will; make essential policy reforms; significantly upgrade human and institutional capacity; and mobilize a quantum increase in financial resources for urban areas for housing and essential urban services.”

Housing, he said was a key component of urban development.

“Improved housing is not only a desirable goal in its own right, but it also contributes to economic growth, social development, improved governance and enhanced security and stability”, he added.

According to him, housing, construction and upgrading are major sources of employment, particularly for the unskilled poor. Improved housing and urban services, he argued could also have a major impact on the health of the urban poor.

He said: “They can play a constructive role in the strengthening and spread of community, civic, and democratic values, which in turn enhance social stability and personal security. Failure to deal with housing issues will lead to the continued growth of slums and poorly serviced informal settlements on the urban periphery.

“The efforts of African governments and international donors have barely impacted the need for new and improved housing and for essential urban services, particularly for low and moderate income families. Very little new housing is actually being built or improved by the formal sector.”

On legal encumbrance, he charged African countries to tackle important legal and regulatory constraints that have traditionally restrained private sector housing production.

 Source: The Will