TheNewsGuru

Tag: Rebranding

  • Special Report: FG moves to curb fleece by foreign missions, soaring debts

    Special Report: FG moves to curb fleece by foreign missions, soaring debts

    The Nigerian Government has constituted a committee to review the number of the country’s diplomatic Missions worldwide and their level of chronic indebtedness.

    Speaking during the inauguration of the committee on Tuesday, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation Boss Mustapha, said the establishment and deliberate composition of the team will enable the Government tackle the root cause of the critical state of affairs of Nigeria’s Diplomatic Missions and its impact on the image of the country.

    It would be recalled that in January, a former Deputy Chairman of the Nigerian Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs Shehu Sani, had alleged that about 60 per cent of Nigerian embassies are on rented spaces and accused diplomatic staff of defrauding the country through rent payments.

    Sani, who formerly represented Kaduna Central, observed although some Nigerian embassies existed as far back as 1960, most of them were still rented, thereby causing a lot of embarrassment to the country.

    “I found out that we have been renting about 60 per cent of Nigerian embassies abroad, and we are still unable to buy a house in those countries. From my observation, diplomatic staff have been fleecing this country in the name of paying rents; they prefer Nigeria to keep renting houses, rather than buying a building as an embassy.

    “In the past, everything about the embassy is in the foreign affairs ministry, but during the era of Mrs Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Ambassadors go to the Minister of Finance for them to be funded. As such, it left the foreign affairs ministry with little or no choice on the embassy other than posting of diplomatic staff,” the former lawmaker said.

    He insisted on the need to buy more diplomatic houses and take stock of repairs of dilapidated Nigerian embassy buildings abroad as part of measures to solve the problem.

    “Everything about the embassy should go back to the foreign affairs ministry. We should have targets, every year, we should buy 10 buildings so that in five to six years, we are no more renting. There are some buildings that we may not need. We have to trade them off and put those ones away,” Sani advised.

    His position corroborated concerns previously raised by the House of Representatives last December that foreign service officers preferred to rent houses than stay in the missions- owned property due to their dilapidated state.

    The House also revealed that over 70 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign missions across the world had, for several years, received zero allocation in their capital budget and decried the indiscriminate postings of foreign service officers above the approved ceiling of the president, which had led to overstaffing and wastage of resources.

    Worried by the unpleasant news about underfunding from Nigerian missions abroad and to eliminate any bureaucratic bottlenecks, the House, through the insertion of Clause 11 into the 2022 Appropriation Act, granted express power to missions to expend funds allocated to them under Capital Components without the need to seek approval of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

    This move was, however, heavily criticised by stakeholders who called for an amendment to repeal the controversial Clause from the Appropriation Act. The Minister of Finance Zainab Ahmed, also said the clause contravened provisions of the Fiscal Responsibility and Finance Act 2021.

    The inaugurated 13-man Presidential Committee headed by retired Permanent Secretary Ambassador Martin Uhomoibi, has only a three-month timeline to determine the current number and categories of Nigeria’s diplomatic missions, identify and classify their revenue generation capacity, level of indebtedness and make appropriate recommendations.

    It would in addition review the understanding and application of critical extant policies, guidelines, circulars, codes, regulations, financial management systems, statutes, among others across Nigeria’s missions with a view to minimising bottlenecks, misapplication and curbing infractions.

    It would identify cost cutting measures and all other steps required to drastically reduce cost of running the country’s foreign missions and review all assets of Nigeria’s Foreign Missions with a view to document and assess their viability as well as give recommendations for sustainability.

    Other members of the Committee are a Retired Permanent Alhaji Sabiu Zakari (Vice Chairman), the Permanent Secretary and Solicitor-General of the Federation Beatrice Edodamen Jedy-Agba; Permanent Secretary, Ecological Project Office, Shehu Ibrahim; retired Permanent Secretary, Ambassador Bulus Lolo; retired Permanent Secretary, Alhaji Saheed K. Y. Adelakun and Ambassador Janet Olisa.

    The Committee also has representatives of Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, the Auditor-General for the Federation, Accountant General of the Federation, Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Foreign Service Advisory Council, Federal Civil Service Commission and National Intelligence Agency.

  • Metro wins six at National Communications Awards; rebranding as Pan-African TV yields result

    Metro wins six at National Communications Awards; rebranding as Pan-African TV yields result

    Metro TV Ghana and its sister organisation, Original 91.9 FM, under the Ignite Media Group, grabbed six honours at the third edition of the National Communications Awards, held over the weekend at the Labadi Beach Hotel.

    In a grand style,Metro TV was adjudged the Best Television Station of the Year. Its flagship programme, Good Evening Ghana,also won TV Programme of the Year, whilst the host Paul Adom Otchere, won TV Show Host of the Year, and Media Man of the Year.

    The Sports Journalist of the Year award went to Michael Oduro of Metro Sports whilst the last award to the conglomerate went to Pomaah Kyekyeku of Original 91.9 FM, as Radio Newscaster of the Year(Local).

    The prestigious awards ceremony was organized by Rad Communications in partnership with the Ministry of Communication and Digitalization,under the theme;‘Transforming Ghana’s economy through digitalization.’

    Touching on the transformation behind these multiple awards for the brand, Managing Director, Ignite Media Group, Kayode Akintemi, indicated that these achievements can be attributed to the rebranding agenda that the new management embarked upon barely six months ago with the objective of positioning the group as a lead Pan-African media organisation on the continent and beyond.

    Adding that the rebranding has affected practically everything the organisation does as it has brought in some new sense of urgency in everything being done and everyone has seen a reason to put a hand on deck to ensure every task is achieved perfectly and within stipulated time.

    “We are in a season where were we are rebranding, pushing boundaries and doing some great new things. Our intention as an organisation is to do everything required to announce our new arrival as authentic, reliable, dependable and an organisation with integrity that is true Pan-African Channel.

    Since I took over as MD of the group in June, we have done everything necessary to reposition Metro Tv especially as Pan-African channel and we started working aggressively to remove all contents that did not seat well with our goal and introduced more robust programmes toward the goal,” he said.

    He emphasized that within a matter of two months, reviews and remarks from the public pointed to the fact that people have noticed the reformation going on and are quite impressed significant turnover.

    Additionally, existing contents such as news bit, news flash, news night, among others started taking new turns and twist to stories that were not usually with what people used to see. Development journalism was given prominence and a disaster like the Keta Tidal Waves was given enough coverage to ensure the public is well informed and that the station becomes the voice and eyes of the people.

    Furthermore, the MD reiterated that beyond infrastructure investment under the new management, there have been a massive continuous investment in human capital in terms of training and development of staff, as well as bringing on board more experienced personalities.

    Competition/Long Term Goal

    With regards to local competition in the industry, he indicated that the dream is to grow beyond borders and become big on the continent like the CNN, BBC and Aljazeera, therefore it is not in competition with the other TV channels doing well currently on the local terrain.

    “We have the personnel just like the BBC, CNN, Aljazeera and the others. And so, we can also do exactly what they are doing and even more if only we would put our hands to the equipment that we have got.

    So, we do not have a reason to be worried about competition with the current top two or three on the local market,” he said.

    Pan-African Vision

    Mr. Akintemi stated that Ghana has always been regarded as the gateway to Africa and historical precedence showed how its first president Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, lived for Africa and was known as the true champion of Pan-Africanism. Therefore, a true Pan-African channel is more befitting of Ghana than any other country.

    However,he indicated that it first has to win in the country before it can move on to other countries on the continent, hence the agenda is to first win on the local market and be recognized as such before crossing borders.

    Metro TV, he said will be building on partnerships and depend on collaborations with other top media organisations across the continent to deliver a true reflective content of what is happening in each state on the continent.

  • Air Peace is leading Nigeria’s re-branding, says Anambra State government

    Air Peace, Nigeria’s leading air carrier, is leading Nigeria’s re-branding on the global stage, says the Anambra State government.

    In a statement today in Awka, the state capital, the Anambra government noted that there “is no individual or organization anywhere in the world helping as much as Air Peace to re-brand Nigeria in the comity of nations, starting with the global aviation industry”.

    The statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Mr C. Don Adinuba, the state government cited the airline’s plans to commence operations into Mumbai, India, next month as “the latest brave effort by the firm to position the country strategically on the global scene”.

    “All Nigerians are impressed by the fact that a few months after Nigeria and India signed a bilateral air service agreement (BASA), our own airline has taken far-reaching steps to make Nigerians benefit reasonably from the deal”, declared the state government which noted that, though 25 foreign airlines operate into the country, some from multiple destinations, Nigeria has been utilizing not more than 10% of its air agreements with other nations on account of limited capacity.

    Air Peace began international operations last July 3 with direct flights into the United Arab Emirates, charging passengers from Lagos to Sharjah and Dubai about half of the fares by foreign airlines on the same route.

    The airline, which commenced scheduled passenger flights in 2014 a year after incorporation, scored a bull’s eye on September 14, 2018, when it signed in the residence of the American consul general in Lagos a deal worth billions of dollars with Boeing Corporation to purchase 10 brand new planes from the world’s foremost aircraft manufacturing company which is based in Seattle, Washington State.

    “Air Peace has proved to be an excellent Nigerian brand in the West African sub region where it has been operating successfully without any serious incident for the past six years”, Commissioner Adinuba asserted in the statement.

    If not for Air Peace, according to the Anambra State government, Nigeria “would have been getting next to nothing from its bilateral service agreements (BASAs) with 92 countries in all regions of the world”.

    “Air Peace has enabled Nigeria to become recognized lately in global aviation”, said the state government, “unlike in the last few years when there was not one single indigenous air carrier able to compete strongly with foreign operators.

    “Even the few indigenous airlines which ventured to operate on international routes were using only one wide-body aircraft each, which put them in a terrible position because any time there was a problem with the operating aircraft, it would affect their entire international operations which, in turn, affected their passengers awfully.

    “In contrast, Air Peace acquired three Boeing 777 planes before starting international operations, and this has ensured that its international passengers are not stranded whenever any of its machines is not available for any reason.”

    The statement quoted Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra State as stating that “it is truly heartwarming that Air Peace uses the latest equipment in the aviation industry like the best foreign airlines, its pilots and other crew members are trained, skilled and experienced as those of foreign carriers and it services its planes in the same place as the leading international aviation firms, yet its fares are pocket friendly”.

    Chief Obiano, according to Commissioner Adinuba, deplored the practice where foreign airlines force Nigerians travelling from Lagos or Abuja to London, a six-hour journey, to pay higher than those flying from Johannesburg in South Africa to London, which typically takes nine hours.

    The governor lauded Air Peace for “its acute patriotism”, urging it to quickly draw a time table when it will start direct flights into London, Houston, Guangzhou and Johannesburg.

    “Nigerians and other West Africans are waiting impatiently to fly Air Peace to these places because of the competitive fares but also its excellent safety record and the quality of its in-flight and ground services”.

    Reiterating an earlier call to make the airline Nigeria’s flag carrier “instead of wasting time and funds by promoting another firm,” Governor Obiano remarked that “Air Peace has truly become an excellent Nigerian brand which is making every Nigerian proud”.