http://www.businessdayonline.com/en News you can trust Thu, 08 Sep 2016 03:03:06 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.4 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/serena-williams-on-to-us-open-semi-finals/ http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/serena-williams-on-to-us-open-semi-finals/#respond Thu, 08 Sep 2016 03:03:06 +0000 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/?p=155185 Picking up from her l0ss last year to Roberta Vinci at the US Open, Serena Williams defeated Simona Halep on Wednesday night in a match ending 6-2, 4-6, 6-3. Serena is bidding for her seventh title at Flushing Meadows and 23rd overall at a major tournament.
2014 French Open runner-up Halep is credited with being the first player to break Williams’ serve in the tournament and the first to take a set off the No1 seed. Halep is seeded N05
]]> http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/serena-williams-on-to-us-open-semi-finals/feed/ 0 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/andy-murray-stunned-by-kei-nishikori-in-five-set-battle-at-us-open/ http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/andy-murray-stunned-by-kei-nishikori-in-five-set-battle-at-us-open/#respond Thu, 08 Sep 2016 02:41:32 +0000 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/?p=155183 Andy Murray’s golden summer run crashed to earth on day ten of the 2016 US Open when he squandered early dominance against Kei Nishikori, whom he had lost to once in eight matches but who found the will and strength to grind out a gruelling five-set win for a place in the semi-finals.
What had looked like a quick night’s work for the world No2 descended into a pain-filled struggle, one marred by controversy, a stray butterfly and his own inability to counter his opponent’s artful play.
Murray hit 46 unforced errors, not disastrous but, allied to a serve that never quite hit the heights of previous matches here, giving Nishikori too much latitude to build his game. Murray had his chances converting eight of 15 break points, but the Japanese world No7 made more of the key moments.
Nishikori, a losing finalist against Marin Cilic here two years ago, was well worth his 1-6, 6-4, 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 win in three hours and 57 minutes on Arthur Ashe Court – with the roof ludicrously shut after a brief drizzle.
Murray will remember it for many ups and downs, not least the let and replayed point called against him in the fourth set – the result of an electrical malfunction in the court’s sound system that set off a loud, distracting noise – which seriously unsettled him and contributed significantly to a dramatic loss of focus and, ultimately, the match.
Nishikori, who drop-shotted Murray to distraction, said: “I tried to hit a little more drop shots than usual. I know he stays back. It worked really well.”
Murray said: “I wasn’t too disappointed. I’ve had a good few months. I’m sorry not to have won but there you go.”
Familiar patterns emerged early. Nishikori smoked his ground strokes from the first rally but the Scot saved three break points and held with an ace. Early in the first set Murray seemed distracted (a phrase oft repeated) by a minor noise from the PA system. He complained to the chair umpire, Marija Cicak, who told him they would have to play through the interruptions. It was a pledge Murray would not forget.
He wrapped up the first set with a 133mph ace and all seemed well. Receiving, Nishikori looked like someone at the wrong end of a shooting gallery.
A few drops of rain threatened a roof closure but they played on after a brief pause. Nishikori heaved his shoulders in frustration and thought about bashing his racket into the court as he threw away his serve for 2-3 in the second.
After a little more than an hour it was not going well for him. But Murray gave up three break points in the sixth game and Nishikori cashed in with a searing crosscourt forehand to break back.
At 3-all, 40-30 on Nishikori’s serve, the rain returned. After 71 minutes of outdoor tennis they closed the roof. When they returned, Nishikori won the point and they were on level terms – with the sun shining outside.What is officially an open-air tournament now presented an important quarter-final as an indoor match and in the next 20 minutes everything changed. Nishikori, revitalised and refocused, upped his game and broke Murray’s serve to level at a set apiece.
An exchange of breaks at the start of the third did not encourage wholesale confidence in either player. A third double fault of the match for Nishikori handed Murray his eighth break point in the seventh game and he happily watched his opponent’s loose backhand stray wide to hand him an unexpected lead.
There was life in Nishikori yet, mind. When Murray sent down his biggest thunderbolt to that point, 135mph, at 40-15, he stood his ground and delivered a stunning return, then fought to deuce. Surely he could not break back straight away again. Yes, he could. After a long and nervous rally Murray shoved one long and his head dropped to his chest in despair.
This was profligacy on a grand scale. Murray needed to rediscover the blinding consistency of the first set, when he looked like running away with the match. Instead he was hanging on.
Nishikori mirrored Murray and handed the advantage back with a lazy backhand. There now was no telling where this match was going as Murray stepped up to serve for a 2-1 lead. The serve, it seemed, had become a liability for both of them but Murray thrashed a winner down the line at the first opportunity.
Midway through the point at 1-1 and 30-40 on Nishikori’s serve in the fourth set, the umpire yelled “Let. Replay the point” after more outside electrical interference on her sound system. Murray, desperate for a break, dumped his backhand and was livid with himself and Cacik. He was even less impressed when he butchered his return of an 81mph second serve and not at all happy when Nishikori drop-shotted him to hold.
It was a significant interruption. Nishikori consolidated his hold by breaking for 3-1. Murray, who was was still seething, lost 12 of the next 14 points and, when Nishikori lobbed him on the charge to lead 4-1, a minor crisis loomed.
Another noise interrupted Murray’s shot at 30-0 in the sixth game – aided by a pesky butterfly in his sight line – and, saving two break points in a tortuous struggle, he found himself 1-5 down.
In five-setters Murray was 23-7, Nishikori 13-5 but the mood here was different and Nishikori broke in the first game of the fifth set to send a strong wave of anxiety through the Scot’s box.
Like a welcome breeze in the desert, Murray held and broke to 15 for parity as Nishikori cracked under sustained pressure. Yet, with uncanny predictability, a double fault from Murray helped Nishikori back into the lead.
After Nishikori, 40-0 up, steered a simple volley into the net at 4-3 and 40-30, Murray scrambled a break point and took it. The sixth seed was looking nervous for the first time in at least an hour.
Nishikori held to stay in the match at 4-5 as Murray’s energy dipped. A weary double fault – Murray’s third of the match and second of the set – gave Nishikori his 13th break point in the 11th game – and he did not waste it, reaching for a miracle save volley to land in
the unoccupied court.
Nishikori hit his fourth double fault to give Murray hope, trailing 5-6 after nearly four hours. Murray returned long and then Nishikori had two match points. A final dumped backhand ended the agony for the Scot and brought a relieved smile for the Japanese player, who now gives himself a chance of a second shot at the title.
The Guardian
]]> http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/andy-murray-stunned-by-kei-nishikori-in-five-set-battle-at-us-open/feed/ 0 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/fg-set-to-clear-backlog-of-power-contractor-debts/ Thu, 08 Sep 2016 00:20:25 +0000 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/?p=155171 Nigeria is set to clear a backlog of debt owed to power contractors from the previous administration which had led to the abandonment of over 900 containers of transmission equipment at the ports. Government has further resolved some land and contractor disputes slowing down power sector projects and is working on others, said Babatunde Fashola,…
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]]> http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/stock-market-routes-to-negative-close-amid-pressure-on-heavyweights/ Wed, 07 Sep 2016 23:55:22 +0000 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/?p=155154 Except for positive developments that could trigger investors’ buy decision at the Nigerian bourse; the market may close the week on a negative note following sessions of increased pressure across heavyweight stocks. At the start of trading this week, Nigerian equities market had witnessed consecutive negative closes across key sectors, prompting many market watchers’ belief…
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]]> http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/would-you-vote-for-change-again/ Wed, 07 Sep 2016 23:51:03 +0000 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/?p=155128 During the past few months I’ve found myself growing increasingly more upset with PMB’s administration; so much so my left eye twitches whenever any cabinet minister make statements. But why? And more importantly if I were to go back in time would I vote for PMB again? Indeed it’s the latter question that irritates me…
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]]> http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/the-politics-and-cost-of-regulation-in-nigeria-1-2/ http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/the-politics-and-cost-of-regulation-in-nigeria-1-2/#respond Wed, 07 Sep 2016 23:50:58 +0000 http://www.businessdayonline.com/en/?p=155127 As part of my contribution to BusinessDay’s “The face of recession series”, I am republishing a three part series about the politics and cost of regulation in Nigeria, which I believe, is at the root of the current economic crisis in Nigeria.
With hindsight, we now know that most of the African elite that participated in the struggle for independence did so not for the often repeated altruistic reason of emancipation of their peoples and societies, but more out of the desire to inherit the powers and privileges of the departing colonial rulers. Once they replaced the colonialists, their major preoccupation shifted to consolidation of their positions and hold on power. To do this effectively, they had to weaken or even destroy all oppositions to their rule. Consequently, most of them proceeded to abolish well-established institutions of restraints, imprisoned or completely eliminated opposition figures and banned party competition altogether.
But these measures alone were not sufficient to guarantee the new authoritarian rulers’ hold on power. They had to find ways to control the economy, to determine who gets what, when and how; who deserves to be helped to flourish and who must be smothered and crushed. Thus began the policies of economic controls or what some scholars refer to as the ‘control regimes.’ These basically include state control and regulation of trade, state distorting and manipulation of interest and exchange rates and state industrial regulation through creation of monopolies or oligopolies. These policies do not only reduce the rate at which economies could grow and distort key prices in the macro economy, but they are also economically very costly and could lead – and indeed led – to many state collapse in Africa.
However, despite succeeding regimes knowing of the disastrous consequences of these ‘control regimes’, quite a number of them still choose to retain them for, as Robert H. Bates, a Harvard renowned political economist argues, the policies generate huge political benefits for African authoritarian regimes, provide elites with sources of income and furnished means for transforming even declining economies into political organisations, enabling politicians to recruit political dependents, willing to fight – if necessary – to keep them in power.
In Nigeria, this control regime, as against the popular belief that discovery of oil and the oil boom, was responsible for the gradual decline of the agricultural sector and the stoppage of cash crop exports. This can be seen from a careful study of the management and collapse of the commodity marketing boards. The board was set up during the periods of the great depression and the World War II to be the sole buyers of agricultural produces – cocoa, palm produce, groundnut and cotton – with the aims of stabilizing prices of products and using the bulk of the surplus funds accumulated for the benefit of the farming community (according to the establishment laws, 70% of the trading surplus were to be used for price stabilization while 7.5% was to be used for the development of the agricultural industry. Surpluses were generated when the marketing boards used their marketing powers to keep the prices paid to farmers well below the prices set by the world market. Of course, since agriculture was the mainstay of the economy and generates the greatest volume of foreign exchange, these marketing boards became the richest single unit in the economies of the countries where they were operating. Following World War II and the commodity boom that followed in the 1950s, these boards’ financial resources grew to exceed those of West African governments.
Nationalist leaders – who had by this time gained control of their regional governments but found it difficult to raise taxes to fulfil their campaign promises – naturally began to see in the marketing boards the solution to their financial problems. For instance, Chief Awolowo, Premier of the Western region describes the regionalization of the marketing boards as ‘a miracle’. Hear him:
…when as a result of the alliance between the Action Groups and the NCNC (its principal opposition) the Commodity Marketing Boards which were controlled by the Federal Government were regionalized, and allocation of revenue was made mainly in accordance with the principle of derivation. By means of the former, an accumulated reserve of over £34 million was transferred to the Western Region, and as a result of the latter our revenue rose from £6.39 in 1953 – 1954 to £13.20 million in 1954 – 1955…since the introduction of these financial resources, our revenue has been on a steady increase.
The moment the marketing boards were regionalized, the goals for which they were established – price stabilization and development of the agricultural sector – were abandoned and the finances of the marketing boards effectively became ‘trade taxes’. Through various draconian measures devoid of probity and accountability, the funds were diverted into public coffers by the various regional governments to execute their state-led de
velopment programmes such that even when the prices of commodity products fell drastically in succeeding years, the independent governments of Nigeria and Ghana for instance, instead of stabilizing producer prices from the huge surpluses earlier generated, passed on the full burden of the drop in price to the producers. Initially, it began as loans, but as the appetite of the local political elite expanded, the laws establishing the marketing boards were altered altogether to effectively turn them into fiscal arms of the governments.
This, however, did not stop with independence. As Billy Dudley noted, between 1957 and 1962, Nigeria, for instance, consistently recorded balance of payment deficits one year after another ranging from £35 million to £72 million. These were made up by a systematic whittling down of the reserves accumulated in the past by the Central Produce Marketing Board. This was the trend in most African states and it explains why most African economies and public finances collapsed with the collapse of commodity prices in the world market beginning from the 1960s.
Of course, when commodity prices collapsed, the marketing boards could not stabilize the prices for the farmers. Farmers were obliged to produce and sell below production costs. It did not take long before the farmers also abandoned the farms. Although, crude oil came to the rescue of Nigeria, for the majority of Africa states, the economic and fiscal collapse was immediate and world-record breaking. They had no option than to go begging the International Financial Institutions (IMF and World Bank) for help. It started as a trickle, but later became a flood.
Christopher Akor
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