Who can identify Goodluck and Buhari??..... See the pics below
Thursday, 26 February 2015
9:43 am
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Tenaris is the leading global manufacturer and supplier
of tubular products and services used in the drilling,
completion and production of oil and gas and a leading
supplier of tubular products and services used in
process and power plants and in specialized industrial
and automotive applications.
Job Title: Tax Compliance and Internal Control Analyst
1- Nigeria (62802)
We are currently seeking a Tax Compliance and
Internal Control Analyst 1 for our Administration &
Finance department.
Location: Onne, Nigeria
Previous Experience: 3 – 5 years in similar position
Aim of the position: The role holder functions as an
internal tax specialist to the business therefore ensuring
high tax compliance. The role holder is responsible for
the evaluation of complex fiscal legislation in force and
planning the strategy to follow based on the operations
that are carried out, in order to take advantage of all
the possible fiscal benefits and translate them into
resources saving for the company.
Main Responsibilities:
- Calculates transfer prices for intercompany operations
- Designs and implements the Tax Balanced Scorecard gathering all tax information in force and applicable to Tenaris legal entities.
- Records data in the Tax Track Information System
analysing control points which reflect greater tax
risk.
- Assists Tenaris areas in tax and internal control related matters.
Provides support in connection with regulatory authorities’ requests and audits.
Skills, Qualifications and Experience Required:
1. Graduate Caliber plus membership of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN)/Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
2. 3- 5 years post qualification with relevant Tax Management experience in a reputable audit firm or Oil & Gas multinational.
3. Knowledge of Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
4. Proven ability to facilitate, persuade, influence and build credibility with all levels and all functions.
5. Analytical, interpretative and decision making skills.
6. Excellent coaching and relationship building skills.
7. Good communication and presentation skills.
8. Sound IT knowledge in the use of MS Suite especially MS Excel
9. Working knowledge in accounting package-SAP
(All modules).
8:45 am
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The Hobark group provides manpower, offers drilling,
consultancy services and provides logistic support. We
also offer catering services, procurement of manufacturing equipment, and construction equipment for the Oil & Gas industries.
Hobark International Inc is recruiting for the following
positions:
1. Well Services field Supervision Services
2. Maintenance Manager
3. Wireline Site Supervision Services
4. X-Mas Tree Field Supervision Services
5. Desk Assistance Services with Drilling & Completion Dept
6. Premob & logistic supervision Services (DCD)
12:50 am
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The Federal Executive Council chaired by Vice President
Namadi Sambo today approved the establishment of nine
new private Universities in Nigeria. The new Universities
are;
The Augustine University, Ilara, Lagos State;
Chrisland University, Owode, Ogun State;
Christopher University, Mowe, Ogun State; Hallmark University, Ijebu Itele, Ogun
State;
Kings University, Ode Omu, Osun State; Michael and Cecilia Ibru University, Orode, Delta State;
Mountain Top University, Ogun State;
Ritman University, Ikot Ekpene,
Akwa Ibom State and
Summit University, Offa, Kwara State.
When the licenses are issued, it will bring to 60 the total
number of private Universities in Nigeria.
12:23 am
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A Johannesburg man and an adulterous woman found
themselves unable to separate from each other after having
sex in the woman's home last Thursday, this is according
to a report by SA's Daily Sun . When the man and the
married woman got stuck together, they screamed for help,
attracting the attention of many people in the
neighbourhood. Read the full story from Daily Sun below.
The cheater had been warned: “Leave my wife alone! I
have put special muthi in her punani.” But the
cheaters again ignored the warning and ended up
getting stuck together. They found themselves
screaming for help, begging to be separated.
The rumour quickly spread that a cheating man had
died after he got stuck in his lover’s punani. And a
crowd of about 2,000 people gathered at Dena Court
in Yeoville, Joburg.
The police had to be called. People were allegedly
pepper sprayed and the amaBerethe chased people
away with sjamboks. Many people claimed the police
fired rubber bullets.
Priscilla Ndlovu (34) who claims to be a resident at the
same flats told Daily Sun they heard screams from the
room where the woman stays on Thursday night.
“At first we thought it was just the screams of sexual
pleasure, but it turned to be screams for help,” said
Priscilla.
She said they called the security who forced the door open
and saw the naked man on top of the naked woman
pleading for help to be separated, but nobody could force
them apart.”
She said everyone was shocked and afraid of what they
saw.
“We always hear of such things happening but we have
never seen it,” she said.
A family member of the husband of the cheating wife said
the husband had been complaining about his cheating wife.
“He complained she was going out with his friend,” said the
woman.
“I think he locked his wife to catch the man she’s cheating
with.”
She said in Zimbabwe, where they come from, it is a
common way of catching cheating men and women.
“No one will separate them until the husband comes back
from Zimbabwe to unlock them,” she said.
A Zimbabwean who spoke to Daily Sun said locking a
woman with muthi was a common way of catching and
punishing cheating lovers in their country.
By Friday morning, when the crowd saw the ambulance at
the flats they chanted: “We want to see them! Show us the
cheaters!”
Cops were kept busy keeping the crowd at bay.
Three streets were blocked off, causing major traffic jams
and motorists had to use alternative routes.
The ambulance finally raced off at high speed.
It is not known if the couple were inside. Neither the police
nor the paramedics could confirm if the two were taken to
hospital or not.
Sangoma Mathabo Mofokeng said husbands put muthi in
their wives’ punani to lock their women.
“There is muthi that is used by some men to catch cheating
couples,” she said.
12:12 am
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A man met his untimely death after he was hit by a train
while trying to take a selfie with a woman on train
tracks, police in Washington said. Read more as
reported by Scoop :
Kalama Police said that the man of Portland,
Oregon, was struck and killed by an Amtrak
train while he and his friend posed on the
tracks in the middle of a trip from Tacoma to
Portland.
According to the police investigation, the
man stopped at the Kalama River to smoke a
cigarette and take photos with the woman on
the railroad tracks three miles south of
Kalama.
One train approached them around 10:30
a.m. on Saturday, and they moved to the
other tracks. However, the two did not
realize that the Amtrak train was
approaching them.
The train struck the man as he posed for
pictures. The woman was unhurt in the
incident, but the man died at the scene.
Wednesday, 25 February 2015
10:42 pm
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In his interview with ThisDay newspaper published last
Sunday February 22nd, President Jonathan accused
former CBN Governor Charles Soludo of being political
with his claims that N30 trillion had gone missing under
the watch of the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-
Iweala. What President Jonathan said about Soludo’s
claims below and Soludo’s response after the cut…
“So you’ll see that there is a lot of politicking about
some of the serious issues. Not too long ago I read in
one of the papers, I think Vanguard, that former chief
economic adviser to President Obasanjo who also went
to become a CBN governor… Soludo is a professor and
first class material. Yes, making a first class in
economics, he is a brilliant person. His secondary
school records are fantastic. So by all standards he is a
brilliant person. So the Vanguard wrote that he accused
Ngozi; that N30 trillion was stolen under the watch of
Ngozi in four years. Ngozi became a finance minister,
let’s say from 2011 till date. From that time till now, our
annual budget is between N4.3 trillion and N4.9 trillion.
So even if you put all together, it is about 18 plus trillion
naira, & not 30 trillion.
The budget for these four years is less than N20 trillion,
but Soludo said that under Ngozi’s watch they stole
N30 trillion. This is in the papers, social media, stored
in the clouds and will continue to be there. And when
you type it in it will come out that during President
Jonathan’s time they stole N30 trillion. We asked Ngozi
how her colleagues in the World Bank saw the
accusation and she said they were laughing and
couldn’t believe it. There are certain things that you just
cannot believe and if that is coming from somebody
considered to be cerebral like Professor Soludo, then of
course you know what the ordinary person would say.
It is all political”President Jonathan said.
Professor Soludo reacted to this interview by releasing
an article this evening. See it below…
My attention has been drawn this morning to an article
entitled: “Jonathan Replies Soludo over “missing N30
trillion” claim”— extracting from Mr. President’s
interview as published by Thisday newspaper.
ThisDay quoted Mr. President as saying that “Soludo
said that under Ngozi’s watch they stole N30 trillion”
but that since the sum of the federal budget over the
last four years was less than N30 trillion, such an
amount could not have been “stolen”.
According to the President, “it is all political”. I had
earlier stated that I would not make further comments
on the issues until probably after the elections but since
Mr. President has decided to join the fray, I am
constrained to make a further brief clarification.
For me, President Jonathan is a gentleman and a friend
but I have a fundamental disagreement on his
management of the economy. On the issues at stake, I
believe that the pressures of office and the hectic
electioneering campaigns have not allowed him time to
read my articles or that his staff have not explained the
contents to him hence he totally missed the point in his
comments. For the avoidance of doubt, let me clarify as
follows:
1. In my article entitled “Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the
Missing Trillions”, I presented some rough calculations
covering: oil theft, money that ought to accrue to stock
of foreign reserves, unbudgeted oil subsidy payments,
customs duty waivers, leakages through the self-
financing government parastatals, unremitted sums by
NNPC, etc.
I concluded that section of my article by noting that: “I
have a long list but let me wait for now. I do not want
to talk about other ‘black pots’ that impinge on national
security. My estimate, Madam, is that probably more
than N30 trillion has either been stolen or lost or
unaccounted for or simply mismanaged under your
watchful eyes in the past four years”.
2. It is evident that the monies I referred to are “off-
budget”. These are monies that did not make it to the
budget. I find it funny that the Government deliberately
avoided the issues raised above but instead has sought
to divert attention by focusing on the “federal budget”.
Let me state for the record that I believe that the
amount of resources that are either stolen from the
economy or out-rightly mismanaged by government far
exceeds the federal budget per annum.
Ours is about a N100 trillion economy, and I will be
shocked if the government pretends that it does not
know that currently about 10% of the GDP falls into a
‘black hole’ on annual basis.
We have not added figures based on counterfactual
analysis such as the cost to the aggregate economy of
bad or misguided economic policy. For example, in
today’s Thisday newspaper, a headline news reports
that “Aliko Dangote, Africa’s Richest Man, Loses $7.8
Billion as Naira, Stocks Plunge” while reporting that “In
dollar terms, the devaluation has knocked more than
$40 billion off the value of Nigeria’s economy”. Of
course, most people predicted that oil prices would
soon fall but we were caught unprepared, and today,
the parallel market exchange rate is N225 to the dollar.
Thus, the kind of analysis in today’s Thisday is just one
little example of the kind of collateral damages–‘costs’
or ‘losses’– that mismanagement foists on the system.
To repeat, my article did not focus on the federal
budget: the mismanagement of the consumption budget
and its unprecedented debt accumulation (with low
value-for-money expenditures) are entirely different
matters.
3. What I found particularly disconcerting as a Nigerian
from the comments I read is the fixation to validation
from the World Bank. According to Mr. President, “we
asked the Minister how her colleagues at the World
Bank saw the accusation”. I shook my head in
disbelief. It is instructive that no one asked what
Nigerians thought or ‘how Nigerians saw it’ but rather
what was important to government was the impression
of the World Bank. If this is the mind-set of our leaders,
then ordinary citizens have real cause to worry.
Well, I have read several editorial comments of Nigerian
media and they do not agree with the ‘impression’ of
the World Bank official. I read a similar comment by a
high government official stating that World Bank
officials and CNN had told them that government was
doing well and therefore who else could question them.
But neither the World Bank nor CNN conducts
comprehensive independent surveys on the economy—
they comment based on the data they are given— and
their subjective “opinions” cannot substitute for hard
facts.
The World Bank is not a statistical agency. I can
provide a long list of countries that World Bank reports
praised as ‘star performers’ and they slumped into deep
crisis almost immediately after. Check out the World
Bank and IMF reports on the US and other countries’
economies shortly before the unprecedented global
financial and economic crisis in fifty years (the Great
Recession of 2008/09).
Actually for many countries once they start getting such
‘praises’, then perceptive officials begin to worry.
Nigeria is probably the only country where its
government officials quote the World Bank while
ignoring data from its own statistical agency!
A serious concern is that while government relies on
external validation (opinion) as ‘proof’ of its
performance, it is selective in the process—accepting
the positive ones and disparaging the negative ones.
Our recent exchanges illustrate the point. In my first
article (26th January): “Buhari Vs Jonathan: Beyond the
Elections”, I argued that “the economy seems to be on
auto pilot, with confusion as to who is in charge, and
government largely as a constraint.
There are no big ideas, and it is difficult to see where
economic policy is headed to. My thesis is that the
Nigerian economy, if properly managed, should have
been growing at an annual rate of about 12% given the
oil boom, and poverty and unemployment should have
fallen dramatically over the last five years”. No one has
credibly challenged the above, except what the
Financial Times of London described as a “furious
response by the Minister”. But, the influential
Economist Magazine of London and New York Times
agreed with us. According to the Economist editorial
(7th February, 2015):
“… as Africa’s biggest economy stages its most
important election since the restoration of civilian rule
in 1999, and perhaps since the civil war four decades
ago, Nigerians must pick between the incumbent,
Goodluck Jonathan, who has proved an utter failure,
and the opposit ion leader, Muhammadu Buhari….
The single bright spot of his rule has been Nigeria’s
economy, one of the world’s fastest-growing. Yet that
is largely despite the government rather than because
of it, and falling oil prices will temper the boom. The
prosperity has not been broadly shared: under Mr
Jonathan poverty has increased. Nigerians typically die
eight years younger than their poorer neighbours in
nearby Ghana”. I gave the Government an “F” grade on
economic management, and the Economist described
its performance as “utter failure”.
The Economist also basically agreed with me that the
re-basing of the economy and its observed ‘growth’
have nothing to do with government policy. Again,
government has not credibly challenged the above or is
the Economist’s view also ‘all political ’? Government
simply waved it off. My point is that if Government has
to rely on the “impressions” of external bodies, then it
should be consistent and comprehensive.
4. In conclusion, let me re-state that I firmly stand by
my earlier statements. These are weighty statements
which I weighed carefully before issuing. I appreciate
that this is an election time and so attempts would be
made to trivialize, or either play politics with, or divert
attention from, them. In a serious society, we should
have had a good debate on these matters as they could
provide some of the building blocks in trying to pick the
pieces after the elections.
Part of our citizen duty in a democracy is to raise such
issues and demand for answers. In the meantime, I
grant that our leaders are busy with campaigns but
these issues won’t go away until we have a transparent
resolution. Be assured that after the elections, we will
be back with even more questions!
10:21 pm
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Shown below is a photo of members of Boko Haram captured by
Chadian soldiers yesterday in Gamboru, a border town
between Chad and Nigeria. 207 of the militants were killed
during the gun battle.
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