The federal government plans to begin the privatisation of four of its state-owned oil refineries before the end of the first quarter of next year, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke has said. “We would like to see major infrastructure entities, such as refineries, moving out of government hands into the private sector,” Alison-Madueke said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Africa in London. Speaking further, she said:
Updated 6 Years ago

Following the insistence of the major Oil Marketing and Trading (OM & T) companies involved in the importation of petroleum products that the federal government should pay interest rate for its failure to pay fuel subsidy within 45-day cycle stipulated under the Petroleum Support Fund (PSF) scheme, the government has yielded to their demand, THISDAY has learnt. This is coming as the Federal Ministry of Finance at the weekend commenced massive payment of the outstanding subsidy to ensure seamless supply of petroleum products across the country during the yuletide.
Updated 6 Years ago

Sony's PlayStation 4 is off to a hot start. Consumers in North America bought more than 1 million PS4s within the first 24 hours of the new $399 home video game console going on sale Friday. That's the fastest start for a PlayStation system so far. Shuhei Yoshida, president of Worldwide studios for Sony Computer Entertainment, posted the news on Twitter Sunday. As often happens when a mass release of a high-tech product occurs, a few consumers get a lemon. Some PS4 owners reported that their new console would not output video and had a flashing light, entertainment news site IGN.com reported.
Updated 6 Years ago

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a new call for competitive bid to supply 1,750 metric tonnes of locally produced rice in Haiti, by farmers’ organisations for the school feeding programme. The call marks the beginning of WFP's commitment to increase its local procurement activities for this year and next year, in support of government objectives to increase local agricultural production, in order to reduce food insecurity and malnutrition, while increasing accessibility to markets for farmers. “Through these supplies, WFP aims to invest in a sustainable supply system for the country to help increase the income of the producer members of peasant organisations,” said the WFP Representative in Haiti, George Heymell.
Updated 6 Years ago

Francis Bacon's painting "Three Studies of Lucian Freud" became the most expensive work of art ever sold when it fetched $142.4 million in one of the biggest auctions in history. Bacon's 1969 triptych, never before offered at auction and carrying a presale estimate of about $85 million, easily eclipsed the $119.9 millionEdvard Munch's "The Scream" achieved in May last year at Sotheby's. The auction of 69 works of postwar and contemporary art also took in $691,583,000, including commissions, far above the estimated $480 million to $670 million. That makes it the richest auction in history, eclipsing Christie's sale of contemporary art in May, which totaled $495 million. The sale set yet another significant record—for a price achieved at auction by a living artist—when Jeff Koons' large sculpture "Balloon Dog (Orange)" fetched $58.4 million. The price beat the high presale estimate and smashed the previous record for a living artist of $37.1 million, set by Gerhard Richter's "Domplatz, Mailand (Cathedral Square, Milan)" in May.
Updated 6 Years ago

China will steer local governments away from the pursuit of economic growth at all costs and beef up their powers to punish polluters as part of a campaign to reverse the damage done by three decades of unchecked expansion. In wide-ranging economic and social reforms unveiled last week, the ruling Communist Party said it would put more emphasis on environmental protection when assessing officials, and would also hold local authorities directly responsible for pollution. The document, which also pledged to relax its "one-child policy" and further free up its markets, said China would draw an "ecological protection red line" that would limit the economic development of environmentally vulnerable regions.
Updated 6 Years ago

ABEOKUTA — The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, has said high level corruption, inadequate infrastructure and rising unemployment, among others, in the country have been the bane of development. The CBN also stated that in spite of the impressive macro-economic performance, it has failed to translate to development. The Deputy‑ Governor (Operation), Mr. Tunde Lemo stated this in his speech presented, weekend, at Egba Economic Summit in Abeokuta, the OgunState capital. According to Lemo, the CBN had intervened in the challenges by providing N300 billion power and airline intervention fund and another N200 billion commercial agriculture credit scheme with a view to boosting the economy.
Updated 6 Years ago

Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson has ordered the immediate disbursement of N500m as compensation to owners of buildings marked for demolition in the state. Dickson said the compensation would pave the way for the construction of the second flyover bridge in the Tombia/Etegwe area of Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital. The governor, who gave the order on Saturday during the on-the-spot-assessment of the project sites, urged those whose property would be affected to bear with the government. He appealed to the affected property owners to see the development as a necessary sacrifice for the ongoing infrastructural development of the state.
Updated 6 Years ago

The Federal Government has generated a funding pool of N9bn for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises across the country as part of the implementation of the National Enterprises Development Programme. A statement by the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment on Sunday quoted the minister, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, as saying this during the inauguration of the NEDEP and the Bayelsa State Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Council, in Yenagoa. The Bayelsa State MSME Council comprises representatives from the Bayelsa State Government, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria, Central Bank of Nigeria, National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control, the Nigerian Association of Small Scale Industrialists, Bank of Industry and Industrial Training Fund, among others.
Updated 6 Years ago

Pavel Durov, who has built Russia’s largest social network, is known as being a bit of a recluse. As the world grew fascinated by the resiliency of Durov’s website VKontakte, which has so far successfully fended off advances by Facebook in Russia, the founder shunned countless opportunities to speak publicly. Before last month, the Mark Zuckerberg of Russia, as he’s known, had appeared on stage at just one technology event in Europe. Now, Durov is breaking his silence. He was interviewed in front of a captive audience on Oct. 22 at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in San Francisco. The next week, he made a surprise appearance on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt Europe in Berlin and networked at an after party in a nightclub in Mitte, the city’s tech-hipster neighborhood.
Updated 6 Years ago