URA to collect oil taxes – Kenya

Kenya Revenue Authority said yesterday oil products destined for Uganda will from Monday be cleared by that country’s tax authorities.

This follows the rolling out of the East African single customs territory at the beginning of the year after approval by heads of state summit last November. The new rules requires all the five EAC members to post customs officials at the point of entry of their import goods.

The directive means that oil companies transporting petroleum products to Uganda will now be cleared by the Uganda Revenue Authority and not the Kenya Revenue Authority as is the case under current transit regime.

Angola LNG to produce and trade 5.2 million tons of liquefied gas

The Angola LNG Company will collect, process and trade, each year, about 5.2 tons of liquefied natural gas, besides producing also propane, butane and condensed gas, at the firm’s premises in Soyo Municipality, in the northern Zaire Province.

Angola LNG is one of the greatest and most modern investments of the Angolan government (USD 10 billion), reads a note from the institution, which reached ANGOP last Wednesday.

This project is intended to be a solution for the reduction of carbon emission and it is considered a source of clean energy.

According to the document Angola LNG Company shareholders are Sonangol (22.8%), Chevron (36.4%), BP (13.6%), ENI (13.6%) and Total (13.6%).

Angola is sub-Saharan Africa’s second main producer of crude-oil.

SURE-P graduate internship scheme illegal – Senate

The chairman Senate special ad hoc committee on the Subsidy Re-Investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P), Senator Abdul Lingi has described the graduate internship scheme as illegal, adding that the scheme is way of looting government funds.

The committee also decried alleged mismanagement of N1.4 billion Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) meant for graduate Internship Graduate Scheme by ministry of finance underDr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iwella.

Ningi, who walkout the representative of the ministry at the meeting, vowed not to appropriate anything for the SURE-P in 2014 budget.

He also added that the ministry did not have the capacity to run such scheme and promised to talk with the President on the matter.

LEADERSHIP recalls that the ad hoc committee in November opened an investigation into the expenditure of N1.4 billion on the Internship Graduate Scheme which is under the supervision of the minister of finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Although no specific date was given by the senators for the minister to appear before them, they, however, requested her to furnish them with the list of all beneficiaries of the scheme, their locations and contact addresses among others.

In a letter addressed to the finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala by the committee chair Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi (PDP, Bauchi), the panel said the ministry expended the said amount between April 2012 to April 2013.

Researchers strategise to convert unwanted carbon dioxide into electricity

Researchers are developing a new kind of geothermal power plant that will lock away unwanted carbon dioxide (CO2) underground – and use it as a tool to boost electric power generation by at least 10 times compared to existing geothermal energy approaches.

The technology to implement this design already exists in different industries, so the researchers are optimistic that their new approach could expand the use of geothermal energy in the U.S. far beyond the handful of states that can take advantage of it now.

At the American Geophysical Union meeting recently, the research team debuted an expanded version of the design, along with a computer animated movie that merges advances in science with design and cognitive learning techniques to explain the role that energy technologies can have in addressing climate change.

Privatized Power Assets: Who Are The New Owners?

Out of the eighteen original unbundled PHCN firms fixed for privatisation, fifteen have now been confirmed with the receipt of take over documents and the physical hand over of assets while three are still pending. Two out of the three, the Afam generating company (GENCO) and the Kaduna distribution company (DISCO); will collect their documents at a later date. With the preferred bidder for the Afam GENCO expected to pay a total of $260m within 6 months, based on a different time-table and the preferred bidder for the Kaduna DISCO, which also has a separate time-table, expected to pay a total of $163m within 6 months. The third, which is the Sapele GENCO, has preferred bidders who have been given an extra three months to complete payment of the balance of $21million of the total bided price of $201million.

Presidency queries PPPRA over alleged N120b subsidy debt

The Presidency has ordered a quick resolution of issues around the delay in the 2014 first quarter fuel importation, **Daily Independent** gathered on Wednesday.
In a swift reaction to Sunday’s warning by the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) of an impending acute shortage of products, a source at the Presidency told our correspondent that an inquiry has been launched into the allegation as part of efforts to nip the fuel scarcity in the bud.
**Daily Independent** learnt that the Presidency, is looking into the allegation that the Federal Government is owing its members N120 billion debts under the subsidy support fund.
Executive Secretary of MOMAN, Thomas Olawore, had explained that N20 billion of the debt is an accumulated interest on foreign exchange incurred on bringing fuel into the country between third and fourth quarter of last year.

Fuel supply: Tackling demurrage, losses with jetty investment

Infrastructure deficit at the Lagos Port’s  fuel jetties is causing delay in petroleum products’ discharge and huge losses in form of demurrage.  Experts, however, say  new investments will reverse this trend, DAYO OKETOLA writes

With a daily consumption of over 31 million litres of Premium Motor Spirit (petrol) in Nigeria, about 12 trillion litres of PMS is imported into the country annually. Fuel jetties at the Apapa, Lagos Wharf serve as the major entry points for vessels bearing PMS, Automotive Gas Oil (diesel), Dual Purpose Kerosene, and Aviation Turbine Kerosene, among other products.

For instance, the Nigerian Ports Authority, on Tuesday, said about 18 vessels laden with PMS, AGO and DPK are among some other vessels expected to berth at the Lagos pilotage district soon.

But experts said the infrastructure constraint faced by these vessels was huge; adding that the inability of the fuel jetties at Apapa Wharf to accommodate large volumes of fuel imports hindered vessels’ effort to discharge at the port. Due to this, some major fuel importers have over the years developed a preference for discharging their products outside Nigerian waters, specifically at the ports in Cotonou, Niger Republic and Lome, Togo.

Corporate governance as business driver for Seplat

The Enron debacle focused renewed attention on corporate governance and organizational failures and successes. Since then a number of studies have shown that there exists a nexus between positive implementation of corporate governance and company performance with many scholars connecting the outright failure of a good number of blue chip organizations to lack of good corporate governance.

This failure, which translates into an inability of organisations to meet expectations of their various stakeholders and investors have often been traced to weaknesses in internal control, operating system, and a lack of commitment to the highest ethical standards.

Corporate governance refers to the way in which companies are governed and to what purpose.

It is concerned with the practices and procedures for trying to ensure that a company is run in such a way that it achieves its objectives.