Thursday, September 29, 2005

FG bans tokunboh spare parts FG bans tokunboh spare parts CHAMPION Friday September 30 2005  •To buy 15 war planes LERE OJEDOKUN, Abuja IMPORTATION of used vehicle spare parts popularly called tokunboh, has been banned with immediate effect, by the Federal Government. Government also approved the purchase of 15 new war planes, valued at about N32.7 billion ($251.4 million), as part of efforts to boost defence operations by the Armed Forces. The ban on used vehicle spare parts importation, according to government, was meant, among others things, to protect the country from becoming a junkyard, ensure road safety and vehicle worthiness, protect local industries as well as widen capacity of employees in the sector. Briefing State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting yesterday, Information and National Orientation Minister, Mr. Frank Nweke Jnr. said decision to impose the ban followed council’s approval of the draft white paper on the report of a presidential committee on spare parts production. He said government was bothered about the absence of first-class maintenance system, as in past decades, where vehicles could be taken to garages and refurbished with genuine parts. "It’s common knowledge that in the not-too-distant past you could go somewhere, take your car for maintenance and you are told you need this or that kind of spare parts. Then you procure it at great cost, fix it but one or few days after they tell you it has gone bad. "Government is also of the view that there is a more recent development in the context of the fact that we used to have garages by Leventis, UTC, Peugeot, Leyland, BEWAC. Government thought it would be appropriate to try and find out what has gone wrong," he said. Mr. Nweke further stated that other recommendations of the committee, upheld by council include the formulation of policies that could encourage local production of spare parts within two years and the privatisation of Nigerian Machine Tool (NMT) Factory, Osogbo, Osun State. The company, when privatised, he stressed, would spearhead development of machinery and equipment industry for local production of spare parts while a National Metallurgical Laboratory will be established to widen calibration services necessary for self-sufficiency in local production. On the fate of Igbo spare parts dealers, the ministers said government was concerned about them and has therefore, planned to encourage them to form cooperative to enjoy economy of scale and have access to easy bank loans and institutions dedicated to the promotion of small and medium enterprises. His words: "we are aware, for instance, that there is a whole lot of people in this country, especially in the South-Eastern part whose livelihood depends on incomes from their trade in spare parts. Government is also concerned about protecting this category of people. "However, government is of the view that they will be encouraged to form cooperative associations so that they can leverage or consolidate their businesses and enjoy economy of scale to help them prosper, rather than go under," he said. On the new war planes, Mr. Nweke explained that the step was aimed at making the three services of the Armed Forces combat-ready and well-equipped for the task of protecting the nation’s territorial integrity. He said the planes comprise 12 units of F7NI multi-role combat aircraft and associated equipment, awarded to China National Aero Technology Corporation at a negotiated price of $251.4 million. © 2005 @ Champion Newspapers Limited (All Right Reserved). Powered By dnetsystems.net dnet® 7:21:57 PM    comment []

The Nigerian Pensioner Guardian Friday September 30 2005 The Nigerian Pensioner By Folorunso Folowosele The civil servants at the helms deliberately kill off many of their vulnerable retired colleagues annually. They are nonchalant about ensuring disbursement as and when due of gratuities and pensions of their erstwhile otherwise active staff. We shall not in this piece discuss the inadequacy or otherwise of the pensions or gratuities. They forget it is a matter of good luck for any of them still in active service to be able to belong to that group of retirees in the nearest future. They turn verification of those spent citizens to one of the "anti-people policies...that the country (pursues to bring it) down in the human development index of the United Nations (and a fall) in life expectancy...from 51 to 43." In an attempt to prove their inefficiency rather than their efficiency, civil servants call for a head count of retirees of all ages. For every year of grace after retirement, a Nigerian pensioner undergoes verification. The census itself is not a bad step. The pensioner, able or disabled, must personally go to a designated place to present certain documents to identify him or her and the years of his or her service and so on. Oftentimes the pensioner is ignorant of the time for the exercise in any particular year, being of course arbitrary and at the whim and caprice of civil servants. Failure to attend could lead to a denial of pension without scruples. Pensioners, young or old, weak or strong, able or disabled, struggle among themselves to get the attention of the Establishments and Pensions Department in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. Its Records Department always orders the retirees, year in year out, to personally "please bring along the originals of your pension documents to be sighted and ticked." The documents usually include the following among others: Authority for pension/Computation sheet; Letter of first appointment/Gazette; Letter of retirement issued by the state government (if applicable); Letter of last promotion; Pensioner's Identity Card; Two colour passport photographs. Sometime in August this year, it was yet another verification of pensioners. Right there farther away behind me on the queue was a former director of lands at the Federal Ministry of Works being pushed here and there as he made every effort ensuring orderliness of his colleagues. Ninety nine per cent of those on the line were hardly in the service when the youthful-looking retired director was in the public service. As for me, he had retired from the Federal Service before I got there. The conduct of the verification exercise that I'd witnessed since joining the Federation of Nigeria Federal Pensioners has always been very shoddy. Verification forms are always not very easy to come by. Pensioners, often on queues leading to nowhere, have been known to pass away during the ritual of completing the verification. Confusion galore pervades every step of the verification. In the end, the majority of the pensioners always have to find their way to Abuja from their base in the states to complete the exercise. It was not different last August. The incessant verification is no more than a punitive exercise for the hapless pensioners. I am always moved by the plight of the disabled pensioners particularly those affected by old age and require human assistance to move around. One would think that an identity card and a passport photograph (if necessary) should be sufficient documents to confirm a pensioner's continued existence. Verification exercise should not be punitive. Some retirees, above 65 years say, could be visited in their houses for verification purposes once in two years if necessary. Pensioners that retire outside the country must not be denied their entitlements on this ground. The world having become a global village, the Establishments and Pensions Department should set up a website for pensioners to keep in touch. Verification form, updated from time to time, should be available on the website. Pensioners would complete, fax or mail it to the department as might be requested. Crude procedures of verification would serve as a boomerang. We must begin to treat our pensioners with dignity. Folowosele is a Registered Surveyor and Town Planner       BUSINESS SERVICES Property Appointments Money Watch Market Report Capital Market Business Travels Maritime Watch Industry Watch Energy Report Insurance Compulife © 2003 - 2005 @ Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Rights Reserved).  Powered by dnetsystems.net dnet® 6:12:01 PM    comment []

Taming a grown monster: Obasanjo Friday September 30 2005 EDITORIAL/OPINION Taming a grown monster By Okey Ndibe JUST when Nigerians think that their nation could never slip into a direr state, their government appears set to disabuse them. The tragedy-in-progress that is President Olusegun Obasanjo's statecraft is on the verge of a defining cataclysm. Nigeria's emperor-in-chief and his coterie strut the stage in insouciant arrogance while their scorched kingdom seethes with deep unease. If you ask Obasanjo, Nigeria could not be in sturdier shape. But the so-called ordinary Nigerian has a dimmer, bleaker view of things. The same day the world heard about the arrest by the London Metropolitan Police of Governor Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State came an even sadder news of a nation blundering into doom. A report in The Guardian of September 16 had the title: "World Bank rates Nigeria second poorest nation." Written by Chinedu Uwaegbulam, the report's opening paragraph said it all: "Yet another World Bank report has put Nigeria at the lowest rung of the world's development ladder. The new publication, released at the ongoing United Nations summit, offers new estimates of total wealth, including produced capital, natural resources and the value of human skills and capabilities, which show that many of the poorest countries in the world are not on a sustainable path. It cites Nigeria as a resource-dependent nation, which could have produced capital five times higher than it did in 2000, if only it had made a moderate effort to save." Nigeria's shame, as The Guardian's report insinuated, is to haunt the list of nations with the lowest scores in social and developmental indices. Nigeria, a nation that pundits as recently as the early 1970s selected as likely to emerge as an economic juggernaut, now shares dubious company with countries like Liberia, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad and Niger Republic. And guess what? When it comes to quality of life, most of these nations have bragging rights over Nigeria, the once swaggering and self-named giant of Africa. According to The Guardian, Ethiopia was the only country bested by Nigeria in the study. It is a sad, sobering picture of prodigal wastefulness and unforgivable betrayal by the tribe of rogues entrusted with husbanding the nation's affairs. Nor is there any mystery about the source of this portrait of a nation over-achieving at failure. With leaders and prominent citizens with the visionlessness and wretched moral fund as the likes of Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida, Sani Abacha, Adolphus Wabara, Tafa Balogun, Atiku Abubakar, Francis Arthur Nzeribe, and Alamieyeseigha, that's the kind of giant our nation is bound to be: a tired, diffident, tottering being, an object of mockery in the comity of nations. That this grim report of Nigeria's ultimate disgrace appeared alongside accounts of Alamieyeseigha's apprehension by London police struck me as poetic juxtaposition. The Bayelsa governor, returning from Germany where he'd undergone some medical procedure, was picked up at Heathrow Airport to answer allegations of engagement in money laundering. Men like Babangida, Obasanjo, Atiku and Alamieyeseigha like to flaunt their foreign medical trips in the face of sick, hopeless Nigerians. Incapable of guilt, shame or even a sense of irony, serving and retired public officials never pause to consider their culpability in the utter collapse of their nation's health care system. Contemptible fools, they fail to figure out two simple truths. One, that exiled and displaced Nigerian doctors are some of the best physicians practising in Europe, Asia, and North America, the locations favoured by Nigerian politicians in search of physical succour. Two, that the modern medical facilities and highly trained medical personnel they rush abroad to take advantage of are a product of serious health planning and social vision by foreign leaders. Instead of emulating such purposeful leadership, Nigerian officials make a profane fetish of stealing whatever is within sight, and much that isn't. They bask in the scandal of breaking all world records in graft and corruption. They relish the pauperisation of their nation and citizenry, the better to dazzle impoverished Nigerians with the gaudy accoutrements purchased with their loot. I have said it before but it can't be said too many times: Nigeria's peculiar tragedy is to be ruled by men and women who, in marginally decent societies, would be behind bars for life! The result is predictable--and pestilential. Nigerians' condition continues to slip into unimaginable squalor even as their blind "leaders" massage corruption with tepid hostile words but invent novel ways of perpetuating an ethos based on starching public funds in private pockets. According to The Guardian, Ethiopia was the only country bested by Nigeria in the UN study. On the list of nations ahead of Nigeria in the study are Madagascar, Chad, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Nepal, Niger, Congo Republic, and Burundi. Nothing could be a starker illustration of the gap between the nation's direction and the inflated rhetoric emanating from Obasanjo's propaganda machinery. Despite its ramped up efforts to paint itself in bright colours, this government has methodically traded in the stock of deceit, hypocrisy and folly. Far from disavowing the execrable legacies of past governments, this president has become adept at the mimicry of the past, including a faithful renewal of the lease on corruption. Nigeria's unflattering performance in the UN study holds up a mirror to this dispensation's profound failures. Given the bleak import of the UN report, why did it fail to engender a furor in Abuja? Why did no member of the National Assembly table it for discussion? What accounts for the report's virtual burial in an impregnable tomb? Two answers suggest themselves to me. One is that Nigeria's ruling elite are hardly nudged into consciousness by news of this significance. To be roused from their lethargy is to rise to the challenge of envisioning a different, vibrant nation. Why, such an idea is anathema to the majority of Nigeria's public officials. As for the nation's legislators, very early in the life of this "nascent democracy" they established a reputation for catatonic alienation. For many of them, nothing but the smell of crisp naira notes (or, better still, dollar or pound sterling) can wake them up. Another answer is that Nigeria is in the grips of its favourite pastime, in fact its game de riguer: the tussle for power. Many Nigerian pundits see Alamieyeseigha's arrest in the light not of a fight against corruption but a baser feud between Obasanjo and Atiku over who will run the power show beyond 2007. Nigerians can't quite agree whether Obasanjo is positioning himself to illegally hold on to power after his current term ends in two years. Even so, there is unanimity that Obasanjo wants to deny his vice president a shot at the presidency. Obasanjo was seen gloating over the humiliation of Alamieyeseigha, a man known to be firmly in Atiku's camp. Why, many Nigerians are asking on Internet fora, does this president apply a selective principle in exposing corrupt officials? Obasanjo has many governors close to him, including Peter Odili of Rivers and Chimaraoke Nnamani of Enugu. Are the president's acolytes paragons of cleanliness and probity? Of course not, as any Nigerian would tell you. Atiku and other PDP officials have themselves to blame. They watched akimbo as President Obasanjo methodically amassed power and emasculated dissent in their party. They let him appoint and dismiss party officials at his whim. They stood by as he euphemised his cronies' treasonable actions in Anambra state as no more than "a family affair." They assented to his choice of Maurice Iwu, a man tainted by his association with the Uba clan, as chairman of the nation's electoral body. Now the monster they permitted to run roughshod over their party and nation has set its sights on them. It is as much their task as that of other Nigerians to confront the monster they helped create and to tame it. That, or watch themselves and the nation become its hapless victims.       BUSINESS SERVICES Property Appointments Money Watch Market Report Capital Market Business Travels Maritime Watch Industry Watch Energy Report Insurance Compulife © 2003 - 2005 @ Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Rights Reserved). 6:05:47 PM    comment []