* SWF gets initial $1 billion start-up* Oil savings dip despite high price, output
(Adds details, background)By Joe BrockABUJA, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Nigeria’s finance minister laid
out a timeframe for the launch of the country’s sovereign wealth
fund (SWF) on Tuesday, paving the way for Africa’s biggest oil
exporter to improve the management of often-squandered crude oil
earnings.Former World Bank chief Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the SWF
would be managed by global auditor and consultancy KPMG, which
had already begun recruitment to get a board for the fund in
place by mid-December.”We are proceeding with the implementation of this very
important programme following consultations with the Governors’
Forum because the feedback we have is the Nigerians strongly
support saving for the future and the other core objectives of
the fund,” Okonjo-Iweala told reporters in the capital.”It is also clear given the current challenges facing our
economy and the global financial crisis, we cannot afford to
waste any time.”President Goodluck Jonathan signed a bill into law in May
authorising the SWF but political wrangling has caused delays.The powerful governors of Nigeria’s 36 states have expressed
doubts about the SWF after meeting with Okonjo-Iweala this
month. Some are concerned its implementation will mean there is
less oil money allocated at state level.Okonjo-Iweala said discussions were ongoing with governors
and further money would be put into the SWF only after talks
with the state heads, meaning more negotiations could still
delay the full commitment of oil savings to the fund.The SWF is meant to replace Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account
(ECA), a pillar of IMF-backed reforms launched in 2003 into
which the OPEC member nation saves any oil revenue above a
benchmark price set each year in the budget.Okonjo-Iweala had announced that the 2012 budget would set
the benchmark price at $75 a barrel but she said on Tuesday that
this would be reduced to a more prudent $70 a barrel because of
volatile oil markets.Nigeria exports more than 2 million barrels of crude oil a
day and oil LCOc1 prices were $110 a barrel on Tuesday.Critics of the ECA say there is no clear legal basis on
which to determine how the savings in the account should be
shared between the tiers of government — federal, state and
local — leading to constant political wrangling.An initial $1 billion has been allocated to the SWF from the
ECA, which now contains $5 billion, down from $7 billion in
April this year, despite high oil prices and production.The account contained more than $20 billion when late
President Umaru Yar’Adua came to power in 2007 but by the end of
last year held less than $1 billion as spending was ramped up
ahead of nationwide elections.Nigeria was one of only three OPEC member states not to have
a sovereign wealth fund. The government has said the fund will
provide a firmer legal basis to ringfence Nigeria’s savings.It has three main aims: saving money for future generations,
providing financing for badly-needed infrastructure, and
providing a stabilisation fund to defend the economy against
commodity price shocks.
B.O.B., of Boise, Idaho, has received six reports of children mouthing the detached patch on the single and double strollers.Gagging and choking were reported in two incidents and the backing was removed without injury, the statement said.About 411,700 strollers in the United States and 27,000 in Canada are being recalled. In February, 357,000 units were recalled due to strangulation hazard posed by the canopy drawstring.The agencies said the voluntary recall was being carried out in cooperation with B.O.B.The recall involves all B.O.B. strollers manufactured between November 1998 and November 2010.
The newspaper cited Ian Marchant, chief executive of SSE,
as saying he expected “one or two” of his competitors among the
big six utilities companies to follow suit by Christmas.Marchant had hoped to begin auctioning all of his
electricity as early as Wednesday, but the risk of “swamping
the exchange” meant that it would phase in auctioning, starting
on Friday, according to the FT article.SSE will buy all the electricity required for its customers
from the same source, which may help push down consumers’
bills.At present, the big utilities use their own power stations
to generate most of the electricity they supply to British
homes. In effect, only a relatively small surplus is traded on
the wholesale market.SSE aims to auction 25 percent of its electricity by the
end of November and 100 percent by early next year.
