Bawss1: And yet Mr President still has maintains that his government is out to fight corruption! The FEC meetings have for a long time now been reduced to a contract sharing meeting and this anomaly must be stopped.
I'm willing to bet that further investigation will reveal that ACT Technologies is a front for someone highly placed in government if not a member of the FEC.

With an address like "15 Ganges Street Minister’s Hill, Maitama, Abuja", you can bet it is a front.

Kobojunkie: Good job @poster. Can we at least try to contact the company ourselves to ensure we are not going to be swindled by UNKNOWNS at the end of the day? This is some exciting issue to investigate, don't you think.

Someone has tried to call the GSM number that the company listed on their site.
No customer service. No extension. Just a Glo number.

Does someone live close to that address in Abuja? Maybe they can take a photo of the "office" and post it here.

FG approves N2.6bn contract for permanent voter cards

Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved the request of the Independent National Electoral Commission to produce 40 million permanent voter cards at a cost of N2.6bn.

The cards are expected to be produced at N65 each.

Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, made this known to State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Maku was joined at the briefing by the Minister of State Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama.

He said the contract, with a delivery period of seven months, was awarded to Messrs ACT Technologies Limited.

He explained that Section 16 of the 2010 Electoral Act, (as amended) mandated INEC to print and issue voter cards to all registered voters in the country.

He said it was in pursuant of that mandate that INEC issued temporary voter cards to the 73 million Nigerians that were registered during the 2011 nationwide voter registration.

The minister added that it was in order to meet up with the requirement of further elections that INEC found it expedient to replace the temporary voter cards with permanent ones.

Maku added that the permanent cards contained security features such as hologram, microtext, guilloche, barcode, fingerprints, contactless/embedded chip with printed voter details and photograph that would last for at least 10 years if well protected.

According to him, the production of the 40 million cards is just the first phase of the exercise.

Culled from Punch Newspapers - http://www.punchng.com/news/fg-approves-n2-6bn-contract-for-permanent-voter-cards/



From the comments -

See ACT Technologies Limited’s website – http://acttechltd.com/

Only in Nigeria can a no-name company with a hastily prepared 3-page website snag such a highly sensitive and expensive contract. Awarded by no higher authority than the Federal Executive Council itself.

There is nothing on the website about who they are, what they’ve done before.

The office address is “15 Ganges Street Minister’s Hill, Maitama, Abuja”. Minister’s Hill. How ironic. I’m sure there is no sign of operation in that office.

May God punish Jonathan and his evil government who are sucking us dry.

Incredible - Tiny David Haye defeats the Giant Goliath after 12 rounds in Germany.

He was the fearsome Beast from the East, the seven-foot Goliath who had never been hurt in 52 fights.

But David Haye says he tamed him like "a tabby cat", dancing rings round the giant Russian who tired himself out, repeatedly swinging wide of an ever-moving target.

This proves that with self belief and dedication, you can overcome all adversities.

Well done David Hayes











More info:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/more-sport/2009/11/09/david-haye-vows-to-unify-heavyweight-crowns-after-defeating-nikolai-valuev-115875-21807941/

Incredible - Tiny David Haye defeats the Giant Goliath after 12 rounds in Germany.

He was the fearsome Beast from the East, the seven-foot Goliath who had never been hurt in 52 fights.

But David Haye says he tamed him like "a tabby cat", dancing rings round the giant Russian who tired himself out, repeatedly swinging wide of an ever-moving target.

This proves that with self belief and dedication, you can overcome all adversities.

Well done David Hayes









More info:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/more-sport/2009/11/09/david-haye-vows-to-unify-heavyweight-crowns-after-defeating-nikolai-valuev-115875-21807941/

Beaf:

Why is this being done by a private company formed by the Northern states. Are they different from us?

A company formed by Northern state govts is a govt parastatal. State govts are charged with the development of their territories. If a group of them decide to cooperate to do achieve this goal, it is all well and good.

I don't see why this is a problem to anyone. If you are concerned about quid pro quo in light of how revenue from the ND region has been shared, recall that the law still requires that all mineral revenue be subject to a revenue share formula .

You forgot the most important resource - people

Singapore has non of the resources listed above yet has the 4th largest economy in the world measured by GDP per capita .Source.

Educated people are greatest resource of all.

netotse:

the bolded is true sha, and FYI the LASG has precious little to do with the legal hurdles that prevent the generation and distribution of power its more of a FG thing

Bro, I agree with you. That's why on one hand, we need to support them in increasing their national footprint and influence in the National Assembly, and on the other hand, hold them to account in Lagos to make sure that they don't become an anti-people, anti economic growth party. If the latter happens, we'll lose on both fronts.

netotse:

@DjNiyi
k. . .i get you
B.T.W the crap actually also includes the fact that we pay through our noses and the excuse is that the business environment in naija is crap

I understand what you mean and that's the more reason why the Lagos State govt should focus on removing the legal hurdles that prevent it (or any private sector operator) from generating and distributing power to industries in the state.

This focus on increasing taxes without measuring the economic impact on consumption and job creation is dangerous.

Even if we accept that the tax proceeds are being utilised as best as they can (which is doubtful given the ridiculous commission paid to Alpha Beta Consulting), it is important to determine that every N1 paid as tax is not better spent by taxpayers as opposed to the government.

netotse:

but isnt it the govt's job to create an enabling atmosphere for the businesses?
without that atmosphere, we would end up replicating the crap in the GSM sector.

The crap in the GSM sector i.e. dropped calls, poor network quality, inability to migrate phone numbers across networks etc is caused by poor govt regulation. It won't be fixed by increasing taxes or a state sponsored mobile network. Remember NITEL/MTEL?

Creating an enabling atmosphere is brought about by (1) enforcing property rights, (2) creating a secure environment, and (3) developing infrastructure.
(1) and (2) are for the govt to focus upon and solve
(3) can be solved with private sector partnership not increasing the tax burden.

Empower us by getting out of our way, not increasing our obstacles. You can't even build a road for free without settling the govt!

yommyuk:

think it does make sense cos there's a lot of inequality in the country. If I pay my taxes, why should other people not pay theirs since we all equally benefit for the infrastructure that is almost not there!

This is the point that is not getting thru to some people on this thread.
We are all expecting Fashola to maintain the projects he had begun. Where will the money come from?
Let everybody pay their dues so that when u are driving in your imported Jeeps on a good roadS, your conscience will say YES I AM PART OF THIS.
DO your OWN BIT.

A sensible government should focus not on eliminating "inequality", but on eliminating poverty. They are not the same thing. The former is a socialist/communist ideal whilst the latter strives to move more people into the middle class.

How do you do this? Jobs
How do you create jobs? Support businesses and encourage entrepreneurship
You can do it by decreasing taxes not increasing it.

Bridges, new roads etc can be (should be) built by private sector partners if you concession toll rights to them. You can even structure the deal such that in exchange for collecting tolls on the main arterial/highway roads, they must build and maintan a number of smaller non-tolled collector/local roads.

As many have noted, the government's strategy smacks of double-taxation, and implies that only the government can solve our problems. Remember the goal is to reduce proverty by creating jobs and only businesses can create jobs not the government.

Dude, 

What's with the LARGE FONTS?

I posted this article because I felt the government is overstepping their bounds by enforcing anti-people, anti-economic growth policies. It is also meant to encourage a healthy debate about the government's actions.

It is however not meant to descend into the murky throes of dangerous tribal politics.

Cut out the "oduduwa cohort" reference and perhaps you'll come across as an intelligent individual.

Most ppl dnt understnd the principle of economicss, Lagos state is widely populated nd so therefore the govenment incure more expenses and so therefore need more moenyy in order to carry out more major projects, This tax on suv's is jus to send a signal to the rich!!!, we r coming for youu, its a progressive tax system , the more you earn the more you payy, der r too many richh ppl in Lagos nd Lagos being the financail hurb, dey wud try to get more moneyyy to do thingss!!!!!simplee, i fink it a very good idea thoo!!!!!!, pay for traffic workerss, build more roadsss, put the basic infrstructures in placeee, revive the rail system in lagoss!!!>, so ppl dnt complainnn, ts for the benefit of a better Lagoss!!!!!

This is the most short-sighted statement I've ever read in Nairaland.

Advocating for a model where the rich are heavily taxed or are forced to move out will create massive unemployment. Penalising the rich is a flawed economic model that did not work in pre-90s China, Russia, Zimbabwe etc. We need to encourage more people to create jobs and we cannot do that by taxing them dry. People create jobs not the government.

Absolute Power Corrupts.

The Lagos State Government is clearly drunk with power and is increasingly unaccountable to the residents of the State.

New anti-people, anti-economic progress, anti-self determinism policies emanate from this government.

We are blinded by the propaganda of new roads and street lights and we no longer see the rape of our liberties.

We need a strong opposition (not necessarily a change of governor) at the next election. A real opposition that can bring this AC government to account.

A one-party state is not good for Nigeria, and is certainly not good for Lagos State.

Culled from BusinessDayOnline - Source

Slams N0.62m tax on luxury car

In what appears to be a new  strategy devised to lure every taxable Lagosian to declare their earnings for personal income tax, the Lagos State Government through its Internal Revenue Service (LIRS) has started taxing luxury cars.

This approach, Business Day authoritatively gathered from the LIRS which is their best of Judgment approach targets using Lagosians expenditure to evaluate their earnings/income, thereby administering personal income taxes on them.

The LIRS had written a letter signed by one Hakeem Abiru, coordinator (informal sector 1), to a Lagosian (name withheld) a copy of which was made available to BusinessDay seeking the payment to tax liabilities to the tone of N627,899.25 kobo on her new car (Toyota Rav 4 Jeep) with a stated registration number.
Part of the letter dated September 11, 2009 states: “Ref: Personal Income Tax Matters. Demand Notice on Liabilities for years 2006-2008.
“Further to our earlier letter dated 10th June, 2009 duly served on you on 24th of June, 2009 in respect of your new car (Toyota Rav 4 Jeep) with registration number …, your failure to respond to the above letter within the statutory time limit has since rendered this assessment notice final and conclusive by virtue of section 66 of Personal Income Tax Act Cap 8 LFN 2004.

“Accordingly, and pursuant to section 76(1) and 77 of the same act, you are required by law to effect payment of the assessed liability N471,750:00 plus 10 percent penalty (N47,175:00) and 21 percent interest (N108,974:25) totalling N627,899:25 (Six hundred and twenty-seven thousand, eight hundred and ninety-nine naira, twenty-five kobo only) within seven (7) days from the date of service of this demand notice to Government coffers through any of the designated banks without further delay using the following codes: Agency Code: 4250003; Revenue Code: 4010002. Failure to comply with the above, this office will not hesitate to impound the vehicle involved and also prosecute you to enforce payment.” 

Section 38 of the Capital Gains Tax Act (LFN 1990) which made provision for Motor Cars states that “a mechanically propelled road vehicle constructed or adapted for the carriage of passengers shall not be an asset for the purpose of this Act unless it is a vehicle of type not commonly used as private vehicle and is unsuitable to be so used.” 

When BusinessDay reached Abiru on phone through the corporate communications department of LIRS to confirm if the letter actually emanated from his office, he affirmed its authenticity, saying the letter targets bringing the owner of the car to declare his or her income.

When BusinessDay contacted some tax experts on the new dimension to tax drive taken by Lagos State to evaluate residents’ earnings, Eben Akinyemi, partner, Tax Ideas, noted that it is within the rights of the LIRS to assess people to tax on their best of judgment. According to him, “such judgment could be based on the expenditure of the tax payer. In this instance, expenditure would be seen to demonstrate earnings/income.”

He, however, queried the rationale for taxing a car or the threat to impound the vehicle as contained in the letter. “No tax is payable in respect of a car in itself because
the owner must have paid customs duties, Value Added Tax (VAT), import duties, licensing permit. There is no personal income tax or capital gains tax attached to vehicles. What basis should the LIRS impound the vehicle in question?” Akinyemi said.

According to the tax expert, the car itself should not be assessed to tax based on the law. “The car may be used as a basis to estimate a best of judgment assessment of the owner’s income, but the car itself is not liable to tax under Personal Income Tax Act (PITA) or Capital Gains Tax Act (CGTA),” Akinyemi said.

He said the onus is on the person assessed to object within the provision of both Personal Income Tax Act (PITA) and Capital Gains Tax Act (CGTA).
“Firstly, where someone buys an asset out of his savings on earnings on which proper tax has been paid, no further tax should be payable on the income. This would typically apply to those in paid employment, whose employers had deducted Pay As You Earn (PAYE) in their income. Here, any issue relating to additional assessment should be raised with the employer. Secondly, in the case of a housewife who has no income of her own, whatsoever, and then receives a gift or an asset from her husband or relative, this should definitely not fall under the ambit of Personal Income Tax Act (PITA) because gifts are subject to tax under Capital Gains Tax Act (CGTA). Specifically, Section 39 of the CGTA (2004 LFN) exempts motor cars from Capital Gains Tax.
Section 40 of CGTA (2004 LFN) also exempts gifts and disposal of gifts.

Akinyemi stated: “PITA however requires every one to file tax returns. It does not exempt the unemployed. Also Section 37 of PITA (LFN) imposes a minimum tax of 0.5 percent of total income on any one with no chargeable income. Therefore, there is no income. 0.5 percent of total income will yield a nil tax.” 
Section 39 of Capital Gain Tax Act (LFN 1990) which also provides for gifts stated: “Subject to the provision of this Act, where a person disposes, by way of gift, an asset acquired by him by way of a gift or otherwise (not being an acquisition on a devolution on death), the person making the disposal shall not be chargeable to capital gains tax under this Act by reference to that disposal. In this section, GIFT has the same meaning as in section 7 (2) of this Act.”

Pay Per Day(PPD) Advertising is a process that allows advertisers to buy ad inventory from publishers/bloggers on a per day basis.

A lot of bloggers sell their inventory this way because it basically guarantees them a fixed income regardless of the number of impressions or clicks.

Aductions is an advertising company that offers this pricing model to all their clients.

Other cool advantages:

1. There is an option when registering your ad space that allows you to continue monetizing your site via Google Adsense, Adbrite or any other ad network if an advertiser hasn't procured your inventory on the platform. Basically, there is virtually no risk since you can still keep making money. It's called the 3rd party ad option and you will see it when you are creating your ad space.

2. You can withdraw your funds immediately an ad has been served to your ad space. For example, if an advertiser buys and serves 10,000 impressions at $1 CPM to your ad space, you can withdraw your $10 minus commission the same day.

The payment system is all automated. You sell your ad space, ad gets delivered to your site, you initiate a payment request, you get paid immediately. Period.


Try us out today at Aductions.com

Here are some reviews from bloggers that use Aductions:

http://xbrain.biz/2008/02/09/earn-more-money-with-aductions/

http://crenk.com/2008/02/08/how-to-monetize-your-site-with-pay-per-day-ads/

http://www.johnchow.com/aductions-provides-truly-transparent-advertising/


DJNiyi

No problem mate. I understand what you meant. Its always good to get these questions because it helps us to improve our system and our message.

For what its worth, I'll keep everyone updated on our progress.

We are excited about Aductions and we are just happy to be working on what is going to be a big success.

I think you've misunderstood what we mean by transparency in the online advertising context. To be transparent, we link advertisers to publishers directly. They submit their bids to the publishers directly. As far as I know, Google's model doesn't allow them to do that.

On the issue of what publishers are paid, it is a function of the quality of the publisher's site and how much advertisers are ready to pay.

Generally speaking, in our journey so far (building Aductions), we've come across many great people from different parts of the world that are ready to support us and help us build traction. Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to lend a hand but such is life, so we are not complaining.

Hmm,  it seems like some comments have been deleted from this thread.

One minute I saw a comment saying "Who cares about transparency. Na transparency we go chop", and the next minute, the comment had been deleted.

Anyway, to whomever it was, I'll say this - "transparency IS VERY important". It underpins everything democracy and fairness stands for. It ensures that we see the wood for the trees and we don't get cheated.

When it involves money, it is especially important that a blogger, website owner, or any business owner know exactly what the buyer is paying for their product before the middleman takes their cut, regardless of how much is listed in the check that they send to you.

It is like Tuface not knowing how much his record company is earning and just being happy for being paid something.

tundewoods:

Dominic Essien of Seed Media Limited is a friend of mine.His company has the sole rights for both MSN Hotmail & Yahoo Africa when it comes to online banner advertising.

I'm sorry i can't publish his contact details on the forum,i'm sure he wouldn't like it.However i guess you can google his name to find out more about him and his organization.

Cheers Tunde,

This is precisely what I was looking for. I'll try to contact him asap.

If anybody else knows an online advertising agency in Nigeria, or is running one, please let me know.

Thanks in advance. I appreciate your help Tunde.

The Aductions Advertising Platform has a feature that allows you to buy and sell advertising spaces for a profit.

For example, let's say the cost of advertising on this section of Nairaland is $1 per click, you could buy 100 clicks, pay the owner of the forum then sell the clicks to an advertiser for $1.50.

It is similar to how the stock maket works. You speculate, buy low, sell high.

As demand increases for the Nairaland's ad spaces, the price will go up, and since you've already bought those clicks at $1, you will make a profit when you sell it.

It is another new way to make money legitimately online.

SOJ:

checkout www.enownow.com
They r an online advert agency

Thanks.

I thought enownow.com was a content portal. I went to their advertising section but it only contained the rates for advertising on their site.

I'm actually looking for the agencies that design web campaigns for the banks and help them buy the ad spaces on selected websites.

Any takers?

The reason why I'm looking for Nigerian ad agencies is because we want to get a steady stream of local advertisers to advertise on the Nigerian websites that sign up. This is actually a good thing for Nairaland and other sites that are coming up.

Spelsrus,

Very nice work. Well done.

Quick question - how are you monetizing the site? Why don't you register on our new ad search engine  www.aductions.com/register/?
We can help you get some site targeted adverts from Nigerian advertisers.

DJNiyi

Hello everyone,

Quick question - are there any advertising agencies in Nigeria that help companies advertise online?

I've seen adverts for Nigerian banks (usually IPO related) on Hotmail. I assume their ad agencies helped them secure those placements/

Does anyone know one can find any of these companies that specialise in online advertising for Naija companies?

Much appreciated.

. . . and they say technology is just for nerds . . .


Rank    Company             Market Cap (Bil)   Ticker
1         Exxon Mobil          $505                    XOM
2         General Electric     $415                    GE
3         Microsoft              $333                    MSFT
4         AT&T                    $251                    T
5         Google                 $217                    GOOG
6         Procter & Gamble $215                    PG7     
7         Bank of America   $213                    BAC8     
8         Citigroup              $209                    C

http://biz.yahoo.com/paidcontent/071031/1_316401_id.html?.v=1

Lol. true.


I guess what I mean is their top management seem to have lost it. They keep losing market share to Google, keep missing their quarterly earnings estimates, and consequently a lot of people have lost money on their stock. One guy recently called their stock the "Yahoo Yahoo" stock. Just recently, their CEO resigned (read: got forced out) and founder, Jerry Yang had to step in. The jury is still out on whether he can turn the company around.

All in all, they are exhibiting attributes of a slow moving giant, that's devoid of innovative ideas and is on its way down. There are even rumours that Yahoo may be acquired!

Thanks for the kind words guys. We really appreciate the support.

We've been shooting for the 6th but practically speaking, we may have to delay it by 2 more days or something. This is largely because we got our Paypal approval a bit late. We had to do all sorts of verification just to get our business account approved. Now, we just need to integrate our code with their backend. Once we do that and we get an "ok" from them, we are good to go.

On a funny note, my brother took a tour around the area last week to see the complexes of Google, Ebay, Yahoo etc. From what he said, everybody thinks Google's office is just one large building. In fact, it is like a whole street of mega complexes. Very very intimidating. One interesting point he mentioned though. When he was at Google, he saw loads of young people (twentysomethings) coming out of their buildings, some jumping on bikes. However, when he was at Yahoo, he saw a lot of old men coming out of their buildings, some with pot bellies. lol. What a marked difference! No wonder Yahoo seems to have lost its direction.

Thanks. I decided to practise what I preach.

I'm still coding away as I write, and suffering from acute jet lag. We came to Silicon Valley all the way from Lagos to get the business of the ground and hopefully, everything will be successful.

Afam:

If anyone feels too strongly about the state of software application in Nigeria and the person is good enough let the person develop one and we shall make use of the application.

I'm doing just that my bro. Check it out - www.aductions.com.

Hello Guys,

My buddies and i are looking for participants interested in signing up for a beta test of our newly developed Aductions Ad Exchange.

This Ad Exchange is a global online trading platform where advertisers, affiliates, publishers and speculators can buy and sell targeted ad spaces in a manner very similar to the traditional stock exchanges. The Exchange also has the capability of serving ads to websites based on the criteria set by the advertiser and publisher.

Another cool element about this Advertising Exchange is that just about everyone can participate and profit from this ad trading process. Meaning, you don't have to necessarily be an advertiser, affiliate or publisher to trade ad spaces for profit.

You can visit www.aductions.com to learn more and also sign up for the beta test.

Thanks in advance.

Screenshot below:

The most comprehensive mortgage finance links in Nigeria are available at http://www.geeplaces.com/geehomes/mxml/lenders.html