₦airaland Forum

God will take care of His own in this country who never looted but have to bear the brunt of gross economic mismanagement.

THE GOVERNMENT IS SO IRRESPONSIBLE THAT THERE IS EVEN NO PLAN B FOR THE ECONOMY!!!

As NOI has confessed as the Coordinating Minister of the economy that all government mobney this year including borrowing has been for recurrent expenditure(Salaries and overhead) with zero allocation to CAPITAL projects constuction companies are now taking a cue of bleak times ahead.

Arab Contractors an Egyptian based construction company has just let go of 80% of its workforce due to lack of payment by the Federal government for ongoing projects. The wave of retrenchment might soon hit the banking sector next. Nigerians be WARNED harsh economic times await.

I dont think Nigerians fully grasp the depths of economic crises we are in. We are even going to post a Current Account deficit this year. This is shocking. Expect more Naira devaluation when we go for foreign loans this year, so sad!!!

Nigeria’s weakening fiscal buffers as a result of the sustained low oil price may result in a current account deficit in the country’s balance of payments this year.

Managing Director/Head, Africa Research, Standard Chartered Bank, Razia Khan made the prediction during an interactive session with journalists in Lagos yesterday. She also forecast that the country would raise capital from the international debt market by the second half of the year to meet some of its obligations.

The economic analysts stressed that policy makers in the country failed to effectively utilise the opportunity created by the high crude oil prices in the past years, saying that it would be difficult for the country to rebuild fiscal buffers in a low oil price environment.

Khan however predicted that crude oil price would average at $76 per barrel by the second half of the year.

“We are going to see oil prices moving higher and there is going to be some overshooting in the second half of the year. We see oil prices averaging $76 per barrel over the course of this year and we think that this means that by the second half of the year, there is a likely hold that oil prices would be $80 to $90 per barrel.

“But that would be only short-lived. We shouldn’t discount the fact that this a very deliberate strategy on the part of Saudi Arabia in particular, to move away from the price targeting. So, for countries for Nigeria, the important take away is that we have moved away from that world of triple digit oil prices and what we would see going forward, is more like a double digits oil prices scenario. “We know about the extent to which Nigeria failed to capitalise properly in the boom years in terms of oil production when the oil prices were high. So, it is not going to be that easy necessarily given the demands from the fiscal side, to rebuild fiscal buffers in a low oil price environment,” she explained.

According to Khan, given the willingness by the federal government not to crowd out the domestic market so much with excessive domestic borrowing, the country might borrow from the international debt market before the end of the year.

We need to pray really hard for this country because we have really entered difficult times. May God help us through this cash crunch, may we not become like Venezuela.

Shell has declared force majeure on exports of Nigeria’s Forcados crude oil stream, a spokesman for the company said on Wednesday.

It declared force majeure on the evening on May 5 following “a series of leaks” in the Trans Forcados pipeline that brings the oil to the export terminal. The pipeline itself is operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC).

Several cargoes of Forcados for May loading were still on offer, with around 189,000 barrels per day (bpd) scheduled for export in six cargoes. The June export programme, with a total of 158,000 bpd, had not yet started trading, sources said.

An overhang of light sweet crudes in the Atlantic Basin has depressed differentials to dated Brent and limited the impact of recent supply disruptions on some West African crude oil grades.

http://nairametrics.com/bad-news-shell-says-it-cant-export-crude-from-forcados-oil-stream/

Africa's richest economy is borrowing money to pay salaries as it struggles through a "difficult cash crunch" brought on by halved oil prices, Nigeria's finance minister revealed.

The news comes as Nigeria prepares to welcome a new government at the end of this month and the country's naira currency remains in a slump, hovering between 180 and 220 to the US dollar. It was trading at 160 a few months ago.

Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala tried to be upbeat in a speech on Tuesday after lawmakers approved the 2015 budget - revised three times because of slashed oil prices that provide 80 percent of revenue for the government of Africa's biggest petroleum producer.

She said "revenue challenges" had prohibited the release of any funds for capital expenditure this year.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/05/150506055148505.html

The minister emphasized that managing the economy since the crash in oil prices had been very tough for her team which had to adopt various strategies to keep the economy running.

She said: “As you know, I have been honest with you since the current economic problems started. I would like to repeat: we have serious challenges, things have been tough since the beginning of the year and they are likely to remain so till the end of the year. We have serious challenges but we also have strengths and if we do the right things we can keep a steady course and emerge out of the current situation.

“As a result of the 50 per cent decline in oil revenues, the country has faced a difficult cash crunch and the Federal Government has focused on keeping the economy stable and the government running through a series of measures. We have front-loaded the borrowing programme to manage the cash crunch in the economy.

“In January we had a deficit in terms of the money we had and the expenditure we had to carry out. So we had to borrow to add to what we had. In February, it was the same.

“In March, we were able to have more internally generated revenue that enabled us to offset but in April, we had to borrow to cover up some gap. This is how we have been managing the economy on a month-by-month basis.”

Okonjo-Iweala said the Federal Government had already utilised more than half of the budgetary provisions for borrowing in the year, in the first four months to pay salaries and provide funds for overheads.


This is what NOI is trying to warn us about that there is serious fire on the Mountain!!

http://news.yahoo.com/oils-bull-run-hides-deep-disconnect-crude-traders-145851012--finance.html

However, data from OPEC and the International Energy Agency show the world is still pumping 1.5 million barrels per day more crude than it consumes. Traders say they are seeing increased evidence of crude barrels struggling to find a home.

Traders in Azeri Light crude, usually one of Europe's favorite grades due to its high quality, said some 10 cargoes from the May tanker loading program are struggling to find buyers, just two days before June volumes are due to go into the market.

As a result, the Azeri price premium to benchmark dated Brent is the weakest since December, when it hit a five year low.

In the North Sea, Norwegian Ekofisk crude fell to its weakest since August last year due to a significant number of unsold May cargoes, despite June program already trading.

The worst situation, however, is in Angolan and Nigerian crude, which has struggled in the past two years due to the U.S. oil boom.

Traders said around 80 million barrels of Nigerian and Angolan crude oil are on the market with at least a dozen May-loading cargoes still available.

Indian refiners, which had bought large quantities of Nigerian oil in March and April, are now turning to cheaper Iraqi Basra and Venezuelan crudes.

"Near term oil market fundamentals continue to look dire, particularly in the Atlantic Basin, with Nigerian, Mediterranean and North Sea differentials all weak," analysts from London-based Energy Aspect consultancy said on Wednesday.


"In the short-term, futures prices do not necessarily reflect accurately the physical market."


The deep disconnect between the oil futures and physical markets looks similar to the events of June 2014 when the physical market weakness became a precursor for a futures price crash.

.

Kayode Fayemi has already mentioned that APC does not support the fuel subsidy and would want to see it removed.

The IMF agenda for removal of subsidies of all forms in emerging economies is now in full effect in Nigeria. Why can't we fight the corruption than removing a vital social buffer

Let us wait and see if NLC will go on strike because of this fuel price hike!!

It is true

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Tuesday, blamed the fuel scarcity currently witnessed in some parts of the country on the strike action embarked upon by the members of National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) over their disagreements with major oil marketers.


The NNPC in a statement signed by Mr. Ohi Alegbe, Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, said the strike was in protest of the huge amount NARTO and PTD members claimed they are being owed by major oil marketers.

- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/04/nnpc-blames-fuel-scarcity-on-narto-ptd-strike/#sthash.5g6JhMmx.dpuf

This is the reason for the sudden fuel scarcity, petrol is now deregulated, prepare for INFLATION!!

The senate approval of the budget on Tuesday, however confirmed the non inclusion of fuel subsidy provision in the document but contained N21bn for the funding of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme.

He confirmed that the executive did not make provision for subsidy in the 2015 budget and that the National Assembly left it the way it was presented.

He said, “There was no provision in the budget for subsidy but I believe there should be provision for it especially since there was already, a disagreement between the oil marketers and the federal government over subsidy payment.”

http://www.punchng.com/news/senate-passes-n4-9tr-budget-for-2015/

The Senate on Tuesday, passed N4.493tr budget for the 2015 fiscal year, about five months after it was presented by the Minister of Finance/Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The national budget, which was earlier passed by the House of Representatives last week, was N51bn higher than the N4.425tr submitted to both chambers of the National Assembly by the federal government.

The senate approval of the budget on Tuesday, however confirmed the non inclusion of fuel subsidy provision in the document but contained N21bn for the funding of the Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme.

The senate, in passing the budget, slightly reduced the N2.607, 601, 000, 300 proposed by the executive to N2.607, 132,491,708 as recurrent expenditure and simultaneously scaled down the capital expenditure from N642,848,999,699 estimated in the proposal to N556,995,465,449.

The Chairman, Joint Senate Committee on Appropriation and Finance, Mohammed Maccido, explained that the details of the figure approved by senate in the document were not different from the version passed by the House of Representatives last week.

He confirmed that the executive did not make provision for subsidy in the 2015 budget and that the National Assembly left it the way it was presented.

He said, “There was no provision in the budget for subsidy but I believe there should be provision for it especially since there was already, a disagreement between the oil marketers and the federal government over subsidy payment.”

Good News, the USDA has just listed Nigeria among the Top 20 economies by 2030. Anybody going long on the capital market is going to get really really rich by then.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-10/the-world-s-20-largest-economies-in-2030

Get ready for a new economic order. In the world 15 years from now, the U.S. will be far less dominant, several emerging markets will catapult into prominence, and some of the largest European economies will be slipping behind.

That's according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's latest macroeconomic projections that go out to 2030, displayed in the chart below. The U.S. will just barely remain the global leader, with $24.8 trillion in annual output.

The gray bar represents the $16.8 trillion gross domestic product projected for 2015, and the green bar shows how much bigger the economy is expected to be 15 years from now. The country, worth 25 percent of the world economy in 2006 and 23 percent in 2015, will see its share decline to 20 percent.

China's GDP will grow to more than twice its size today, helping the Asian powerhouse to almost entirely close its gap with the U.S.
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Prepare for harsher economic times

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/post-election-bond-rally-stalls-on-naira-concern/206371/

Nigeria’s post-election bond rally is stalling as foreign investors wait for a devaluation of the naira before buying the nation’s debt.

Yields on benchmark naira bonds due March 2024 have climbed 61 basis points in the past three days after plunging 118 basis points on April 2, the day after Muhammadu Buhari of the opposition All Progressives Congress was announced the winner in a presidential election.

Investors including Morgan Stanley, Aberdeen Asset Management Plc and Landesbank Berlin Investment had cut their local bond holdings in the last quarter of 2014 as the price of crude oil, Nigeria’s main export and source of more than two thirds of government revenue, fell by 37 percent during the period. “Political risks have diminished but the other risks are still in place: a very low oil price and pressure on the naira,” [/b]Bloomberg quoted Lutz Roehmeyer, who oversees Landesbank Berlin’s $1.1 billion emerging-markets debt portfolio to have said.

“[b]You can still expect a devaluation. I see a lot of local-currency investors waiting for that to happen before they re-enter Nigeria.” Buhari, 72, a former military ruler who lost three previous election bids, will be sworn in on May 29. Nigerian assets soared after Jonathan conceded defeat on March 31, easing investors’ concerns of a disputed result in a country marred by a history of election-related violence. Nigeria’s average government bond yields fell 81 basis points to 14.47 percent on April 1, the lowest since December 12. Most of the demand came from domestic investors, who don’t have to take the naira’s exchange rate into account, according to head of research at London-based Ashmore Group Plc, which manages $64 billion of emerging market debt,Jan Dehn.

While the central bank’s measures have helped steady the exchange rate, they have reduced liquidity and left the naira overvalued, according to a money-manager who helps oversee $12 billion of developing-nation debt at Aberdeen, Viktor Szabo,which firm hasn’t resumed buying naira debt. “The currency hasn’t adjusted sufficiently,” Szabo said. “It’s the turn of the central bank to act. If the move is sufficient –- we’re probably talking to above 220 a dollar –- we’d be inclined to get involved with the local bonds.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-26/germanwings-co-pilot-deliberately-destroyed-airplane-identified-28-year-old-german-c

In one of the most chilling segments of this morning's press conference describing what was found on the cockpit voice recorder, screams were heard from passengers and crew as the realisation of what was about to happen struck them all.

Prosecutor Brice Robin's findings state that when the German Captain left the cockpit - following what appeared to be - the 28-year-old German co-pilot (who was alive to the end) refused to re-open the door and began an "intentional", "controlled", and "steady" descent as he "seems to have sought to destroy the plane." Nothing indicates that this was a terrorist incident.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11491587/Airbus-A320-crashes-in-French-Alps-with-148-people-on-board-live.html

We heard the captain ask the co-pilot to take control, then we hear the noise of a seat that goes back and a door open, we can assume he went to relieve himself.
The co-pilot was alone. It is at this moment that the co-pilot manipulates the buttons of flight monitoring system to action the descent of the plane.

The action of this altitude can only be deliberate. We hear the captain then speaks via an interphone to speak to the co-pilot, no response of co-pilot, he taps on door, no response from the co-pilot, all we can hear is the sound of breathing, until impact suggesting the co-pilot was alive until impact.
Air traffic control tried to get through via 7700 but couldn't get through. Air traffic control even tried to contact other planes to try and contact the plane, but no response.

Alarms sounded to signal to crew the proximity of the ground, then we hear banging of someone trying to break down the door
The pull up alarms to pull the plane up went off.

Just before the final impact one can heard what appears to be the first impact of the plane on a mountain top.
There was no message of distress type or mayday recevied by air traffic control, and no response to all the air traffic controllers.

The interpretation is 48 hours after the crash, I take precautions, but for us investigating...the most plausible and realistic is that the co-pilot by a deliberate decision refused to open the cabin door to the captain and actioned the button ordering the loss of altitude.

There was a deliberate desire to destroy this plane. Apparently the co-pilot was breathing normally. He said absolutely nothing after the captain left the cabin.

11.50 Brice Robin, Marseille prosecutor, has said it appears that the German co-pilot crashed the plane deliberately and he was alive at the point of impact.

Maybe they need to start prosecuting journalists for treason

It shows us how political these issues can become.

That is very true. The press are so unpatriotic. All in the name of politics. Its regrettable

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/03/defeating-boko-haram-with-mercenaries/?utm_source=&utm_medium=twitter

He wrote a lot of LIES, this is the truth by OGA beegeagle at beegeagle.

Your article signposted a new low in unethical journalism and was notorious for its deliberate obfuscation of facts, pursuant to your undisguised mission of writing to tarnish reputations. My modest guess is that, as is typical with most skewed narratives emanating at this time, it was written to give a fillip to your political preferences.

Personally, I have followed your work since you undertook a Kano-Lagos train ride for the now-rested “BBC AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE”. That was a great report whereas this diatribe appears to have been badly jaundiced by a preference to deploy ethno-regional gimmickry.

Here are the facts:

So of all 42 towns were liberated in Adamawa, Yobe and Borno and it is the backwater that is Dikwa which was the nunc dimitis of the war, just because Chad operated there and you clearly wrote to discredit the FG and the Nigerian military?

If President Deby said they spotted Shekau at Dikwa, you think the Nigerian Army at far away at Mafa, Marte and Monguno stopped the Chadians from killing him? That sounds like puerile conjecture. It was just another hollow claim made by a megalomanic President Deby and the Chadians have been caught more than once telling white lies about their role in the war. How many times have Nigerian troops spotted or killed Shekau/one of his doubles? Did that mark the end of the insurgency? So why make it seem like the war would have ended had the Chadians been allowed to slay Shekau? Such incongruent extrapolation is emblematic of the sort of incoherent buccaneering journalism which many compromised Nigerian journalists subscribe to.

I put it to you, Malam Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, that neither President Deby nor his military spoksman, Colonel Azem, can be described as being ‘credible war communicators’. They routinely peddle falsehood to make themselves look better than they really are. PROOF? Here we go.

At the end of January 2015, Chadian troops claimed to have liberated MALAM FATORI.

See

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2015/01/chad-troops-drive-boko-haram-nigerian-town-150130131849254.html

Only a week thereafter, Boko Haram staged their first-ever attackings in Niger and that was when they hit Bosso and Diffa..from, wait for it, supposedly liberated Malam Fatori.

http://www.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0LA1G520150206?irpc=932

Indeed, Malam Fatori had not been liberated at all for again in March 2015, Malam Fatori was apparently ‘liberated again’ but this time, by a joint force Chadian and Nigerien forces.

http://www.thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2015/03/09/chad-niger-troops-flush-boko-haram-out-of-2-nigerian-towns/

So the Chadian military were caught lying about battlefield gains. And they lied again. For indeed, they also claimed to have taken the town of DAMASAK in conjunction with Niger’s troops.

http://www.nigeriatell.com/news/bharam-chad-niger-troops-liberate-nigerian-towns#.VQp_PxzTWj8

That was also a lie which was exposed by Radio France International a few days after when they reported that Damasak was still in Boko Haram hands. And as if to confirm that, the Nigerian Army which you maligned so terribly, stepped in to reclaim Damasak only last weekend, in the face of flailing attempts by JOINT Chad and Niger forces to capture the border town from Boko Haram. There goes your ‘valiant’ Chadian Army.

It is again emblematic of lazy journalism for you in Nigeria to sit behind your desk and unashamedly quote a decidedly dubious Adam Nossiter of New York Times who writes his fiction from faraway Senegal.

Be that as it may and even as you are a professional journalist whereas I am a humble citizen journalist, I have reached out and sought the perspectives of those you term ‘mercenaries’. If only buccaneering Nigerian journalists would take a cue therefrom instead of quoting the AFP, AP and Al Jazeera all the time.

https://beegeagle./2015/03/18/boko-haram-and-mercenaries-in-borno-the-myth-the-reality-hearing-it-from-a-pmc-operative/

That is what is going on in Borno at this time. So why make it appear as if the ex-paramilitaries of Namibia’s Koevoets it is who have now become the storm troopers in Borno? I put it to you, Ishaq Modibbo Kawu, that the trainers/advisers in Borno are predominantly ex-soldiers drawn from the apartheid-era South African Defence Force and the South African Air Force of that same epoch. Koevoets are a footnote to the story but I am not surprised that you sought to amplify that bit of falsehood way beyond its relevance and factuality, all in a calculated attempt at misinforming Nigerians and smearing the Nigerian military.

Be it known to you that as of Monday 16th March, a total of 42 towns had been liberated in the mission area. Nigerian troops fighting ALONE and without your Chadian mentors, cleared all of Adamawa and Yobe States while the Chadians only took Dikwa and Gamboru. Along the line, a joint Chadian+Nigerien force took Malam Fatori while that joint force only managed to take Damasak following an intervention by Nigerian troops. The fact is that our Nigerian troops have done more than 90% of the fighting yet you make every minor battle seem like it was the main event. WHAT is the strategic relevance of DIKWA? Because Chad operated there? Is that historical backwater desert town more strategically important than the garrison towns of BAGA, BAMA and MONGUNO which have been retaken by Nigerian troops?
Your contemptible kind of cash-and-carry journalism deserves to be consigned to ignominy. It is not worth anybody’s time but you needed to be led to the bright light.

In closing, be it known to you that the same BBC which you worked for have sent in a Nigerian youth to see and report from the mission area.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-31902503

I am sure you are constrained to believing your former paymasters or you worked for them in the belief that they are not credible? I doubt that.

FACTS must remain SACRED in the reportage of this war.

I am talking about Hillary Clinton, the immediate past US Secretary of State!!!

“Recent evidence suggests Secretary Hillary Clinton and the State Department not only knew of the extent, but also deliberately attempted to obfuscate the issue in order to avoid having to make the designation of Boko Haram as a FTO, including downplaying the State Department’s own Country Reports on Terrorism (CRT),” Vitter wrote to Secretary of State John Kerry then.

“Inaccuracies within official documents make it clear that the State Department misled Congress and the American people. Evidence suggests that there was an internal decision by the Office of Coordinator for Counterterrorism to downplay official, legally required, intelligence data in order to purposefully avoid making the determination,” the senator continued.

Boko Haram, founded in 2002, began its campaign of attacks in earnest in 2009 but wasn’t put on the terror list until November 2013 — on the eve of Nigerian activists coming to Congress to testify about Boko Haram’s crimes and demand the terrorist designation. The State Department’s listing of Boko Haram and its offshoot, Ansaru, was so sudden the morning of the House subcommittee hearing that the submitted testimony of Emmanuel Ogebe, a Nigerian lawyer and human rights activist, still included a plea for the U.S. to finally add the Islamist groups to the list.

“We are concerned that it took them too long,” said Ogebe said, who put in his prepared remarks that “part of the State Department’s response has been to deny the religious motivation of a rabid jihadist group that has repeatedly declared its goal of overthrowing the state and establishing a radical Muslim theocracy; to downplay the repeated threats to America going back several years by claiming this is all ‘local’; presenting arguments rationalizing terrorism by psycho-analyzing the emotional disconnect between the central government and northern Muslims who fuel the terrorism.”

Even after a February 2012 promise by Boko Haram to assassinate the U.S. ambassador, the State Department kept the Nigerian terrorists off the list.

Vitter has suggested that Clinton’s deep donor ties to Gilbert Chagoury, a major Lebanese-Nigerian land developer who has given millions to Democratic campaigns, the Clinton library and Clinton Foundation global initiatives, could have accounted for some of Clinton’s reticence in the terror designation — a recognized terrorist group operating in the region, after all, makes more than a dent on local economies and investors get scared off.