The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo worldwide, has said that nobody can declare a state of emergency in Anambra because of the recent insecurity in the state.
Ohanaeze spokesman, Alex Ogbonnia, who stated this while reacting to the Attorney General and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami’s insinuation that the Federal Government will declare a state of emergency in Anambra State because of recent killings, said that what is happening in northern states was much more and the Federal Government had not declared a state of emergency there.
Ohanaeze said though there was crisis of insecurity in the South East, instead of the Justice Minister to proffer how the security operatives could counter it and stop the situation, he was contemplating state of emergency, describing it as “funny and embarrassing to Ndigbo.”
“Looking at it from genuine point of view, you will see that we have had more killings in Borno, Yobe, Plateau, Benue, Katsina, Niger and even in Kaduna State. He will be there they count their killings in scores and in hundreds, this one in Anambra is just a few persons and somebody is contemplating state of emergency. When they were being killed in hundreds yet elections were held in all those states and now we have a few killings you are contemplating state of emergency.
“Dr. Akunyili was killed about five days ago and as first step you are talking of an emergency. This one, instead of thinking of how to contain and counter such gruesome killings, the first suggestion that come from an Attorney General is State of emergency. Above all Ohanaeze had already known even before now that we are in doubt if some of the crimes being committed here, is our boys really have the strategic capacity to commit them.
“Like going to police station discharge all the people in the station and burn it, going to prison yard discharge over 1,000 inmates and no persons caught. Some of these things we begin to wonder whether our people have the strategic capacity to commit these crimes and go undetected.
“So this development is very strange and is coming at a point where every person is thinking that is time for Igbo to produce president of Nigeria. We are looking at that people are trying to disarticulate the South East, create a false impression that they are not in unity, they are ungovernable, they are in crisis and to that extent they cannot produce a president for Nigeria. All these things we are thinking about but we will disappoint them,” Ogbonnia said.
Ohanaeze spokesman disclosed that the South East leaders had devised means to counter the impression, adding, “We have appealed to our Archbishops and Bishops and traditional rulers, and Town Union President Generals to start engaging the youth so that we will disappoint them by making sure that Anambra and other states become calm. And being calm, we will disappoint them by holding election peacefully in Anambra.”
So those who say that they want to make South East ungovernable will soon be disappointed, “because we are wiser.”
He revealed that some arrests that have been made on the killings in the region, revealed that “some of them are not from Igbo land, some came from Igala, some came from Edo, they were hired people. So we cannot allow state of emergency in Anambra because Onitsha is the economic hub of Igbo land, in fact whoever is thinking of state of emergency in Anambra should go and have a rethink because it is not possible and we can’t allow it.”
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has adopted the zoning of its national chairmanship position to the North, upholding recommendations of the Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi-led zoning committee.
However, it didn’t foreclose that the much-coveted 2023 presidency would be zoned to the South as the party announced that a separate National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting will be convened at a later date to discuss the report of the Governor Bala Mohammed-led committee that had earlier recommended that the Presidency be thrown open to all the six geopolitical zones of the country.
This was the high point of the highly anticipated 94th NEC meeting that was held in Abuja, yesterday. The NEC is the second-highest decision-making body of the party.
Briefing newsmen after the meeting, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, said though there were discussions around the Bala Mohammed-led committee, which looked into reasons why the party lost the 2019 elections and the question of zoning of the 2023 presidential ticket, it was agreed that further discussions and decision on the subject should be left till another date.
Report of the Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi-led committee on zoning, which was adopted yesterday, stated, that “the current offices being held by officers in the Southern zones of the country, namely Southwest, Southeast and South-South should swap places with the offices currently held by occupants from Northwest, Northeast and North-Central zones.”
Some party members have expressed reservations about the recommendation and its implications for the presidential ambition of some northerners.
At a pre-event briefing, the chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT), Senator Walid Jibrin, had appealed to party leaders to put national interest and the party’s survival ahead of personal interests.
Ologbondiyan disclosed that though the issue of the presidency was not on the agenda, NEC members agreed that another meeting should be convened to consider an existing reports on it. “The peaceful resolution of issues arising from the zoning of PDP chairmanship is a product of series of consultations among stakeholders,” he noted.
As early as 9:00 a.m. yesterday, PDP governors met at the Rivers State governors’ lodge in Abuja where comprehensive explanations and clarifications were made on how the zoning of chairmanship would not affect the presidency. The consultations allayed fears of many from the North that the party was set to pick its presidential ticket from the Southern part of the country.
Hours before the actual commencement of the meeting, some people had converged on the party secretariat protesting against what they called discrimination against the North.
Some of the placards displayed by the protesters had inscriptions like: “What did the North do to PDP?”, “Stop cheating the North”, “Wike brought Sheriff, Wike brought Secondus, now he wants to truncate the turn of the North”, “PDP, give North their rights”, and “Two years of North vs 13 years of South.”
In a strong campaign to boost his chance of running again under the banner of the major opposition party, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, yesterday tasked the PDP to pay less attention to where a President emerges from.
According to him, “where the President comes from has never been the problem of Nigeria, neither will it be the solution.”
Atiku, who was the presidential candidate of the main opposition party in the 2019 elections, believes the PDP has the right to determine who represents it or not, just as citizens reserve the right to decide who to vote for.
“There is no such thing as a President from Southern Nigeria or a president from Northern Nigeria. There is only one fact, a president from Nigeria, for Nigeria and by Nigerians.”
Atiku, who preached justice and fairness at the meeting, narrated how he took part in the drafting of the 1999 Constitution and later, along with others, resolved that the Presidency should go to the Southwest in 1999 to compensate the zone for the injustice it suffered.
He also shocked many at the NEC meeting when he remarked that the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, was killed.
Citing some historical events, Atiku said: “Those of us who served in the constitutional conference, which drafted the current Constitution of Nigeria should remember that after we finished the draft, we all met as members of the conference and resolved to correct the injustice that was done to a particular part of this country. And we said, in whichever party you found yourself, your presidential candidate must come from the Southwest, because Abiola had won the election, but it was annulled. Not only was his election annulled, but he was also killed.
“So, we all agreed as members, and we went out of the constitutional conference and formed our parties. At the end of the day, two parties emerged. The PDP picked Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) picked Chief Olu Falae. All of these show you that Nigerians have a sense of fairness,’’ he stressed.
To demonstrate his belief in fairness, Atiku explained how he rejected calls to frustrate Obasanjo’s second term bid in 2003.
He said: “Distinguished members of NEC, in 2003, all the PDP governors met at the villa and said they were not going to support President Obasanjo for a second term, that I should run. I now referred them to the resolution of NEC, where NEC decided that power should remain in the Southwest for eight years. How do you now want me to go against the resolution of NEC? I turned it down and we moved on.
“So, this country has a sense of fairness. This country has a sense of justice. Therefore, this thing that is inbuilt in our party, we should be able to use it, to imbibe it to make sure today’s deliberations are in the best interest of our party and in the best interest of Nigeria, which will ultimately give us the victory that we asked for, to go back to the villa.”
Acting Chairman, Elder Yemi Akinwonmi, reminded party leaders that “today is a day of making history in the life and survival of the party. Nigerians are eagerly waiting for PDP to take them out of the challenges of socio-political vices created by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).”
Despite the efforts of the Senator David Mark-led reconciliation committee to have all court cases withdrawn to pave way for the forthcoming convention of the party, suspended national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, has said the need to challenge the “lies” told against him by an unnamed governor informed his decision to approach the Court of Appeal to challenge his suspension.
The embattled national chairman said ever since the orchestrated plans by a governor to hijack the soul of PDP, he had been the target of unrestrained blackmail.
In a statement, yesterday, by his Special Assistant on Media, Ike Abonyi, Secondus explained that it was because of baseless lies that he (Secondus) as National Chairman was not meeting up with his obligations at his ward level in Rivers State that he approached the court to get the purported interim order.
He added: “After the interim order based on such frivolous story, the said governor and his errand boys went ahead to get the court ruling against Prince Secondus.
“For being so treated and victimised without any justification whatsoever after almost four years of selfless service to the party, Prince Secondus is left with no option but to fight for his fundamental rights by approaching the court to seek redress and correct the blackmail and concoctions.”
The statement noted that notwithstanding the frivolous nature of the allegations, “Prince Secondus on his own, as a strong believer in the rule of law, decided to respect the court by staying away, while seeking the necessary right that should correct the judicial ambush against him and the party.
“While awaiting the outcome of the case presented at the Court of Appeal, the blackmail has continued unabated with fabrications and all kinds of laughable lies to the fact that Prince Secondus is romancing with the opposition.”
He asserted that his records in the party remain untainted from state chairman through national organising secretary, deputy national chairman to national chairman since December 2017.
A landmark ruling by an Israeli court in favour of Jews praying at the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex has stoked Palestinian fears of Jewish encroachment over Jerusalem’s holiest site.
Palestinians denounced on Thursday a decision by an Israeli Magistrate Court not to regard prayer by Jewish worshippers as a “criminal act” if it remained silent, which upends a longstanding agreement whereby Muslims worship at Al-Aqsa while Jews worship at the nearby Western Wall.
The judicial decision came after an Israeli settler, Rabbi Aryeh Lippo, went to court to get a temporary ban order from entering Al-Aqsa lifted. The order was imposed on him by Israeli police after he performed prayers at the compound.
Palestinian Prime Minister, Mohammad Ibrahim Shtayyeh, has called on the United States to fulfil its pledge to preserve the status quo of the compound, and for Arab nations to stand in solidarity with Palestinians.
“We warn against Israel’s attempts to impose a new reality at the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque,” Shtayyeh said on Thursday.
Jordan, whose role as keeper of Al-Aqsa was recognised in a 1994 peace treaty between Amman and Tel Aviv, called the decision “a serious violation of the historical and legal status of Al-Aqsa Mosque”.
Khaled Zabarqa, a lawyer and expert on Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, told Al Jazeera that “the Israeli judicial system does not have any legal jurisdiction to rule over the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and to change the status quo.”
From a legal standpoint, the decision is null, he said.
While the verdict reached on Wednesday by Israel’s lowest judicial body amounts more to an endorsement than a legal ruling, it has stirred Palestinian fears of a Jewish takeover of the third-holiest site in Islam.
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Bloody confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli security forces have repeatedly occurred as more and more Jews have been entering the Al-Aqsa compound, which they refer to as Temple Mount, to pray.
Palestinians view visits by Jews to the site as a provocation and have accused Israel of systematically trying to undermine earlier agreements to expand its own control.
The area is in Jerusalem’s walled Old City and part of the territory Israel captured in a 1967 Middle East war. Israel annexed occupied East Jerusalem in 1980 in a step that was never recognised by the international community.
Jordan’s Council of Endowments (Awqaf), which manages the Islamic edifices in the Al-Aqsa compound, called the move a “flagrant violation of the Islamic and sanctity of the mosque and a clear provocation to the feelings of Muslims around the world”.
Hamas, the group that governs the besieged Gaza Strip, said the move is a “blatant aggression against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and a clear declaration of a war that goes beyond political rights to an aggression against religion and sanctities”.
The “resistance is ready and prepared to repel aggression and defend rights,” the group said in a statement.
The mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, expressed concern for a possible escalation of hostilities.
“We appeal to the Arabs and Muslims to save Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa Mosque from the invasive decisions of the occupation on Al-Aqsa Mosque, and we warn everyone against the outbreak of a religious war,” the mufti said.
President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, before a joint session of the National Assembly, unveiled a record N16.39 trillion ‘‘Budget of Economic Growth and Sustainability’’ for 2022, with a projected 25 per cent year-on-year rise in government spending as the economy struggles with the impact of the pandemic.
The President, decked in a white agbada, said he expects the total fiscal operations of the Federal Government to result in a deficit of N6.26 trillion, representing 3.39 per cent of estimated GDP, slightly above the three per cent threshold set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007.
The President further put the total federally distributable revenue at N12.72 trillion, while total revenue available to fund the budget is estimated at N10.13 trillion, which includes grants and aid of N63.38 billion, as well as revenues of 63 Government-Owned Enterprises (GOE).
He also projected oil revenue at N3.16 trillion, non-oil taxes at N2.13 trillion and FGN independent revenues to be N1.82 trillion.
The President, who did not indicate the sectoral allocations of the budgetary estimates in a bid to abide by the COVID-19 protocols, acknowledged concerns from well-meaning Nigerians over the resort to borrowing to finance deficit gaps.
He expressed the plan to finance the N6.26 trillion deficit mainly by new borrowings totaling N5.01 trillion, N90.73 billion from Privatisation Proceeds and N1.16 trillion drawdowns on loans secured for specific development projects.
The budget for Africa’s top oil exporter was based on a conservative oil price benchmark of $57 per barrel; daily oil production estimate of 1.88 million barrels (inclusive of Condensates of 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day).
It is also based on an exchange rate of N410.15 per dollar, and a projected GDP growth rate of 4.2 per cent and a 13 per cent inflation rate.
According to IMF data, Nigeria has among the lowest revenues globally, with government revenue between 2015 and 2019 at 7.9 per cent of GDP, compared with a Sub-Saharan African average of 12.7 per cent and a global average of 29.8 per cent.
Speaking before a joint sitting of the Senate and the House of Representatives, President Buhari said: “Some have expressed concern over our resort to borrowing to finance our fiscal gaps. They are right to be concerned. However, we believe that the debt level of the Federal Government is still within sustainable limits.”
From the budget presentation came the revelation that the Federal Government has concluded plans to generate the sum of N90 billion from sales of mostly government-owned power assets under its National Integrated Power Projects (NIPPs) to help part-finance the 2022 budget.
This is in continuation of the unbundling and privatisation of the power sector to establish a competitive and efficient market to attract investment, increase revenue and provide a reliable and cost-efficient power supply.
The NIPP, which was established under the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo, is the government vehicle that owns several power generation plants in the country. The government, however, did not reveal which of the power assets would be sold.
Recall that in a privatisation process that lasted over a decade, the Federal Government, in 2013, sold off controlling shares in the state-owned 11 power distribution companies and seven power generating companies to private companies.
Several years after the unbundling and the eventual sale of the power firms, citizens and businesses still do not have a reliable power supply. While the country has an installed capacity of 12,522MW, it is barely able to generate around 4,000MW, which is insufficient for the population of over 200 million.
Although there has been a lot of criticisms over Nigeria’s mounting debt, the President said the country is in so much debt due to borrowing to survive two recessions. He explained that part of what necessitated the borrowings was the economic recession that hit the country, adding that the nation does not have a debt sustainability problem, but a revenue challenge.
He said: “As you are aware, we have witnessed two economic recessions within the period of this administration. In both cases, we had to spend our way out of recession, which necessitated a resort to growing the public debt. It is unlikely that our recovery from each of the two recessions would have grown as fast without the sustained government expenditure funded by debt.”
He further explained that his government has endeavoured to use the loans to finance critical development projects and programmes aimed at improving Nigeria’s economic environment and ensuring effective delivery of public services to our people.
For President Buhari, the loans acquired have been and will continue to be focused on: Completion of major road and rail projects, effective implementation of power sector projects, provision of potable water, construction of irrigation infrastructure and dams across the country and critical health projects such as the strengthening of national emergency medical services and ambulance system, procurement of vaccines, polio eradication and upgrading Primary Health Care Centres across the six geopolitical zones.
BUT experts have expressed dismay over non-compliance with full implementation of national budgets in line with existing appropriation laws. They say the implementation of the proposed N16.39 trillion 2022 budget may not be different given the fact that several past budgets never realised up to 80 per cent implementation threshold.
Speaking on the issue, the Director, Institute of Fiscal Studies, Godwin Ighedosa, said: ‘’It is sad that subsequent governments have always refused to follow appropriation laws while implementing the budgets. Monies are not supposed to be diverted from one ministry to another but to be used for what purpose they are meant for in the various MDAs.”
He called on the government to diversify the economy into ICT areas, transportation and embark on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model to fund developmental projects.
A former lecturer, Dr. Liman Umar, said the government should, as a matter of fact, rely more on PPP in funding its yearly budgets. He said: “Using the PPP model will help attract local and foreign investors into the economy and jobs would be created with taxes paid to boost government revenues that could be used to pay outstanding debts.”
An economist, Tope Fasua, faulted the lack of innovation in government and taking the easy way out of economic underdevelopment by relying heavily on crude oil sales and borrowing to fund annual budgets.
Fasua said Nigeria is still trapped under the yoke of heavy borrowings. “The budget has not gone out of the vicious circle of crude oil being the main source of revenue for this country. We are still talking about crude oil, how many barrels we can sell and how many barrels we can produce.
“Nigerians are waiting for the day there would be out-of-the-box thinking as far as our budget is concerned where we will be able to see new thinking about revenue expectations of our budgets. We have not got to that point.
“The way we are going now, the fear is that will we may never get out of the budget deficit circle. Nigeria is the second-lowest country in terms of per capita budget, meaning the federal budget is divided by the population, will amount to little. We are not better than Congo.”
He, however, commended the Federal Government for presenting the budget early to the National Assembly.
Urging the government to drastically reduce the rate at which it is borrowing to fund its yearly budget, Dr. Bongo Adi, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Economics, Pan-Atlantic University, said the government is stretching itself too thin getting involved in services and projects that the market should have been allowed to provide.
He said that the government is spending too much-giving people what to eat rather than helping them to fend for themselves by providing enabling environment and the needed infrastructure for the people to use their personal initiatives.
Adi said the near socialist posture of the government, which is the reason for what he called, the handouts it is giving to the people in the form of social intervention, is a huge burden on public finance.
“Supposing government cuts off that handout and uses that money to build infrastructure that will stimulate economic activities, the people will pay tax, we can even export some of our products and services and earn foreign exchange. That’s more money for the country,” he said.
“Let government revive that drive they had in 2018 when they set up the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), which is about identifying and packaging bankable projects.
“If they can do that, I can assure you that more than 70 per cent of what we have as capital expenditure of the government, will go to the market to provide and the government will not need to borrow this heavy.”
For Dr. Muda Yusuf, the CEO of, Centre for the Promotion of Private Enterprise (CPPE), the government should discontinue the accumulation of commercial debt because of sustainability concerns.
He said for the economy to move forward, the government must fix the security problems to create the environment for increased real sector activities, review the foreign exchange policy regime to reduce distortions, eliminate arbitrage opportunities, minimise uncertainties, reduce exchange rate volatility and mitigate investment risks and align CBN financing of deficit strictly to the provisions of the CBN Act.
Newly appointed Chairman, Financial Reporting Council (FRC), Dr. Sam Nzekwe, said while he is not against borrowing, the money must be channeled to infrastructure that will make the country more productive. He said with the dwindling revenue from crude oil, this is the time for the country to do away with petrol subsidy, which he said has been a big drain on the national purse.
“I don’t have issues with borrowing provided it is not for consumption,” Nzekwe said. “But from what we are seeing, the monies are almost for consumption, you can see that the contracts are overvalued and there is no value for money. This is contrary to what you get when the private sector handles the same kind of job.”
On his part, Prof. Muhammad Mainoma, immediate past President of Association of National Accountants of Nigeria (ANAN), said the only way for the government to reduce borrowing to fund the budget is for it to make the productive sector working.
According to him, “if the borrowing is meant to increase the production capacity, it makes a lot of sense because in the long run, the yield will be more than what we are paying as interest.”
Economic analysts said the budget signalled the government was not about to make any major policy shift as spending would remain elevated to deal with a deteriorating security situation in many parts of the country.
The security forces have been struggling to contain Islamist insurgencies in the Northeast, a spate of mass abductions and deadly bandit attacks in the Northwest, conflicts between farmers and herders in many areas and a general surge in crime.
MEANWHILE, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has enjoined the National Assembly to speedily pass the 2022 budget presented by President Buhari. APC in a statement by its caretaker secretary, John Akpanudoedehe, explained that the call was aimed at meeting the January-December budget cycle.
The APC called on Nigerians to keep track of the progress being made by this administration in delivering projects, services and countless dividends of democracy all over the country.
The party maintained that the proposed budget is designed to accelerate the government’s ongoing efforts to diversify the economy through more support for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), continued investment in vital infrastructure, strengthening security, enabling a vibrant, educated and healthy populace, reducing poverty through targeted social investments and ultimately ensuring good governance.
THE President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has, however, cautioned the Federal Government to reduce its penchant for borrowing by exploring other funding sources. Lawan gave the advice in his speech at the budget presentation yesterday.
He said: “Mr President, we understand that due to paucity of revenue, the Federal Government has to resort to raising funds from foreign and domestic sources to provide infrastructure across the country. That is why the National Assembly approved the requests for borrowing. Government should also explore other sources of funding its projects in order to reduce borrowing.”
He congratulated the National Assembly and the Executive for the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and assent to enact the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
“The ninth National Assembly broke the jinx of the non-passage of the PIB over the years and Your Excellency, you have achieved the feat of assenting to the Bill. Let me also commend you for starting to implement the PIA immediately, with nominations of qualified Nigerians to serve on the Petroleum Down and Midstream Regulatory Authority and Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Commission.
He gave the assurance that Assembly members will immediately start work on the 2022 Appropriation Bill. He recalled that the President laid the appropriation bill for 2021 on October 8, 2020.
Continuing he said the members of the ninth National Assembly have kept to their promise of passing the yearly Appropriation Bill before the end of the year to ensure that it is signed into law before the beginning of the new year.
According to Lawan, the Nigerian economy and indeed citizens are benefitting from the early passage and assent to the 2020 and 2021 Appropriation Bills.
THE Speaker, House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, assured that the National Assembly would “ensure exhaustive consideration” of the 2022 budget. The Speaker, who said the National Assembly was committed to the timely passage of the Appropriation Bill as it did in the last two years, noted that the next two to three months will be for the strictest scrutiny of the budget estimates and emphasised that lawmakers would hold government agencies accountable for the previously appropriated funds.
SOME of the critical ongoing infrastructural projects, according to the President are in the power, roads, rail, agriculture, health and education sectors.
“We have made progress on the railway projects connecting different parts of the country. I am glad to report that the Lagos-Ibadan Line is now completed and operational. The Abuja-Kaduna Line is running efficiently. The Itakpe-Ajaokuta rail Line was finally completed and commissioned over 30 years after its initiation.”
According to the president, arrangements are underway to complete the Ibadan-Kano Line, pointing out that work will soon commence on the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Line and Calabar-Lagos Coastal Line, which will connect the Southern and Eastern States to themselves and to the North.
The president said progress is also being made on several power generation, transmission, and distribution projects, as well as off-grid solutions, all aimed towards achieving the national goal of optimising power supply by 2025.
“I am again happy to report that we continue to make visible progress in our strategic road construction projects like the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Apapa-Oworonsoki expressway, Abuja-Kano expressway, East-West Road and the second Niger bridge. We hope to commission most of these projects before the end of our tenure in 2023.”
Tanzanian-born novelist, Abdulrazak Gurnah, on Thursday won the Nobel Literature Prize for his writings on post-colonialism and the trauma of the refugee experience.
Gurnah, who grew up on the island of Zanzibar but arrived in England as a refugee at the end of the 1960s, is the fifth African to win the Nobel Literature Prize.
The Swedish Academy said Gurnah was honoured “for his uncompromising and compassionate penetration of the effects of colonialism and the fate of the refugee in the gulf between cultures and continents.”
“His novels recoil from stereotypical descriptions and open our gaze to a culturally diversified East Africa unfamiliar to many in other parts of the world,” the Nobel Foundation added.
Gurnah told the Nobel Prize website he was stunned to get the call from the Swedish Academy.
“I thought it was a prank,” he said. “These things are usually floated for weeks beforehand… so it was not something that was in my mind,” he said.
He has published 10 novels and a number of short stories.
The head of the Academy’s Nobel committee, Anders Olsson, said Gurnah’s reflections on the plight of refugees were particularly topical.
“His writings are extremely interesting right now for many, many people in Europe and around the world,” Olsson told reporters.
His itinerant characters “find themselves in a hiatus between cultures and continents, between a life that was and a life emerging; it is an insecure state that can never be resolved,” the Academy said.
The theme of the refugee’s disruption runs throughout his work, with a focus on identity and self-image, also apparent in the 1996 novel “Admiring Silence” and “By the Sea” from 2001.
After his win, Gurnah urged Europe to see African refugees as assets, saying that “many of these people who come, come out of need, and also because quite frankly they have something to give.”
“They don’t come empty-handed. A lot of talented, energetic people who have something to give,” Gurnah told the Nobel Foundation in an interview.
Publisher ‘Never Expected It’
The announcement also caught Gurnah’s Swedish publisher off guard.
“I may have heard someone suggest once that his books were of Nobel calibre. But I never expected him to get it,” Henrik Celander told Swedish news agency TT.
Born in 1948, Gurnah fled Zanzibar in 1968 following the revolution there which led to oppression and the persecution of citizens of Arab origin.
He began writing as a 21-year-old in England. Although Swahili was his first language, English became his literary tool.
Gurnah is best known for his 1994 breakthrough novel “Paradise”, set in colonial East Africa during World War I, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction.
The novel has obvious references to English author Joseph Conrad’s famed 1902 novel “Heart of Darkness” in its portrayal of the innocent young hero Yusuf’s journey to Central Africa and the Congo Basin.
Gurnah has until his recent retirement been Professor of English and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Kent in Canterbury, focusing principally on writers such as Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiong’o and Salman Rushdie.
The Nobel Prize comes with a medal and a prize sum of 10 million Swedish kronor (about $1.1 million).
Last year, the award went to US poet Louise Gluck.
Western Dominance
Ahead of Thursday’s announcement, Nobel watchers had suggested the Swedish Academy could choose to give the nod to a writer from Asia or Africa, following a pledge to make the prize more diverse.
It has crowned mainly Westerners in its 120-year existence.
The Academy has long insisted its laureates were chosen on literary merit alone, and that it did not take nationality into account.
But after a #MeToo scandal that rocked the Academy — prompting it to postpone the 2018 prize for a year — the body said it would adjust its criteria towards more geographic and gender diversity.
“Previously, we had a more Eurocentric perspective of literature, and now we are looking all over the world,” Nobel committee head Olsson said in 2019.
But at the end of the day, “literary merit” is still “the absolute and the only criterion” for the Academy, Olsson reiterated in an interview with The New Republic published this week.
The Nobel season continues Friday in Oslo with the Peace Prize, followed Monday by the Economics Prize.
At the Joint Session of the National Assembly, Abuja
Thursday, October 7, 2021
PROTOCOLS
1. It is my great pleasure to be here once again to present the 2022 Federal Budget Proposals to this distinguished Joint Session of the National Assembly.
2. Distinguished and Honourable leaders, and members of the National Assembly, let me start by commending you for the expeditious consideration and passage of the Supplementary Appropriation Bill 2021. This further underscores your commitment to our collective efforts to contain the COVID-19 Pandemic and address the various security challenges facing our country.
3. I will also take this opportunity to thank you for the quick consideration and approval of the 2022-2024 Medium-term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper. Our hope is that National Assembly will continue to partner with the Executive by ensuring that deliberations on the 2022 Budget are completed before the end of this year so that the Appropriation Act can come into effect by the first of January 2022.
4. The 2022 Budget will be the last full year budget to be implemented by this administration. We designed it to build on the achievements of previous budgets and to deliver on our goals and aspirations as will be reflected in our soon-to-be launched National Development Plan of 2021 to 2025.
5. Distinguished Senators and Honourable Members, in normal times, I make use of this opportunity to provide an overview of global and domestic developments in the current year, a summary of our achievements, and our plans for the next fiscal year.
6. However, these are exceptional times. The grim realities of COVID-19 and its lethal variants are still upon us. From President to Pauper, the virus does not discriminate.
7. This is why our country still maintains its COVID -19 guidelines and protocols in place to protect its citizens and stop the spread of this disease.
8. Over the past few days, we have consulted with the Presidential Steering Committee on COVID-19 and the leadership of the National Assembly on how best to present the 2022 budget proposal keeping in mind the deep-rooted traditions in place and the guidelines for safe mass gatherings.
9. We ultimately decided that the most responsible and respectful approach was to hold a shorter than usual gathering while allowing the Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning to provide fuller details of our proposals in a smaller event.
10. I am sure many of you will be relieved as my last budget speech in October 2020 lasted over fifty minutes.
11. Still, over the next few minutes, I will provide key highlights of our 2021 performance as well as our proposals for 2022.
PERFORMANCE OF THE 2021 BUDGET
12. The 2021 ‘Budget of Economic Recovery and Resilience’ is based on a benchmark oil price of 40 US Dollars per barrel, oil production of 1.6m b/d, and exchange rate of 379 Naira to US Dollar. Furthermore, a Supplementary budget of 982.73 billion Naira was recently enacted to address exigent issues in the Security and Health sectors.
13. Based on the 2021 Fiscal Framework, total revenue of 8.12 trillion Naira was projected to fund aggregate federal expenditure of 14.57 trillion Naira (inclusive of the supplementary budget). The projected fiscal deficit of 6.45 trillion Naira, or 4.52 percent of GDP, is expected to be financed mainly by domestic and external borrowings.
14. By July 2021, Nigeria’s daily oil production averaged one 1.70million barrels (inclusive of condensates) and the market price of Bonny Light crude averaged 68.53 US Dollars per barrel.
15. Accordingly, actual revenues were 34 percent below target as of July 2021, mainly due to the underperformance of oil and gas revenue sources. Federal Government’s retained revenues (excluding Government Owned Enterprises) amounted to 2.61 trillion Naira against the proportionate target of 3.95 trillion Naira for the period.
16. The Federal Government’s share of Oil revenue totalled 570.23 billion Naira as of July 2021, which was 51 percent below target, while non-oil tax revenues totalled 964.13 billion Naira. The poor performance of oil revenue relative to the budget was largely due to the shortfall in production as well as significant cost recovery by NNPC to cover the shortfall between its cost of importing petrol and the pump price.
17. The National Assembly will recall that in March 2020 the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency announced that the price of petrol would henceforth be determined by market forces.
18. However, as the combination of rising crude oil prices and exchange rate combined to push the price above the hitherto regulated price of 145 Naira per litre, opposition against the policy of price deregulation hardened on the part of Labour Unions in particular.
19. Government had to suspend further upward price adjustments while engaging Labour on the subject. This petrol subsidy significantly eroded revenues that should have been available to fund the budget.
20. On a positive note, we surpassed the non-oil taxes target by eleven (11) percent in aggregate. The sustained improvement in non-oil taxes indicates that some of our revenue reforms are yielding positive results. We expect further improvement in revenue collections later in the year as more corporate entities file their tax returns and we accelerate the implementation of our revenue reforms.
Improving Revenue Generation and Administration
21. We have stepped up implementation of the strengthened framework for performance management of government owned enterprises (GOEs), with a view to improve their operational efficiencies, revenue generation and accountability. The 50% cost-to-income ratio imposed on the GOEs in the Finance Act 2020 has contributed significantly to rationalizing wasteful expenditures by several GOEs and enhanced the level of operating surpluses to be transferred to the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF). I solicit the cooperation of the National Assembly in enforcing the cost-to-income ratio and other prudential guidelines during your consideration of the budget proposals of the GOEs, which I am also laying before you today.
22. On the expenditure side, as at end of July 2021, a total of six point seven-nine (6.79) trillion Naira had been spent as against the pro-rated expenditure of seven point nine-one (7.91) trillion Naira. Accordingly, a deficit of four point one-seven (4.17) trillion Naira was recorded as at end of July 2021. The deficit was financed through domestic borrowing.
23. Despite our revenue challenges, we have consistently met our debt service commitments. We are also up to date on the payment of staff salaries, statutory transfers, and overhead costs. As at (4th of October 2021, a total of 1.732 trillion Naira had been released for capital expenditure.
24. I am pleased to inform you that we expect to fund MDAs’ capital budget fully by the end of the fiscal year 2021.
25. Capital releases thus far have been prioritised in favour of critical ongoing infrastructural projects in the power, roads, rail, agriculture, health and education sectors.
26. We have made progress on the railway projects connecting different parts of the country. I am glad to report that the Lagos-Ibadan Line is now completed and operational. The Abuja-Kaduna Line is running efficiently. The Itakpe-Ajaokuta rail Line was finally completed and commissioned over thirty (30) years after its initiation.
27. Arrangements are underway to complete the Ibadan-Kano Line. Also, work will soon commence on the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Line and Calabar-Lagos Coastal Line, which will connect the Southern and Eastern States to themselves and to the North.
28. Progress is also being made on several power generation, transmission, and distribution projects, as well as off-grid solutions, all aimed towards achieving the national goal of optimizing power supply by 2025.
29. I am again happy to report that we continue to make visible progress in our strategic road construction projects like the Lagos – Ibadan expressway, Apapa – Oworonsoki expressway, Abuja – Kano expressway, East-West Road and the second Niger bridge. We hope to commission most of these projects before the end of our tenure in 2023.
30. The Pandemic revealed the urgent need to strengthen our health system. Towards this end, we constructed 52 Molecular labs, 520 bed intensive care units, 52 Isolation centres and provision of Personal Protective equipment across 52 Federal Medical Centres and Teaching Hospitals.
31. We continue to push our expenditure rationalization initiatives which we commenced in 2016. For example, on personnel costs, the number of MDAs captured on the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System increased from 459 in 2017 to 711 to date.
32. The recent passage of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021, and consequent incorporation of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation should also result in rationalisation of expenditure, as well as increased investments and improved output in the oil and gas industry.
33. Distinguished Senators and Honourable Members, you will agree with me that a lot has been accomplished over the last year but there is still much to be done. I will now proceed with a review of the 2022 Budget proposal.
THEME AND PRIORITIES OF THE 2022 BUDGET
34. The allocations to MDAs were guided by the strategic objectives of the National Development Plan of 2021 to 2025, which are:
a. Diversifying the economy, with robust MSME growth;
b. Investing in critical infrastructure;
c. Strengthening security and ensuring good governance;
d. Enabling a vibrant, educated and healthy populace;
e. Reducing poverty; and
f. Minimizing regional, economic and social disparities.
35. The 2022 Appropriation therefore is a Budget of Economic Growth and Sustainability.
36. Defence and internal security will continue to be our top priority. We remain firmly committed to the security of life, property and investment nationwide. We will continue to ensure that our gallant men and women in the armed forces, police and paramilitary units are properly equipped, remunerated and well-motivated.
37. The 2022 budget is also the first in our history, where MDAs were clearly advised on gender responsive budgeting. These are part of critical steps in our efforts to distribute resources fairly and reach vulnerable groups of our society.
PARAMETERS AND FISCAL ASSUMPTIONS
38. Distinguished Members of the National Assembly, the 2022 to 2024 Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper sets out the parameters for the 2022 Budget as follows:
a. Conservative oil price benchmark of 57 US Dollars per barrel;
b. Daily oil production estimate of 1.88 million barrels (inclusive of Condensates of 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day);
c. Exchange rate of four 410.15 per US Dollar; and
d. Projected GDP growth rate of 4.2 percent and 13 percent inflation rate.
2022 REVENUE ESTIMATES
39. Based on these fiscal assumptions and parameters, total federally-collectible revenue is estimated at 17.70 trillion Naira in 2022.
40. Total federally distributable revenue is estimated at 12.72 trillion Naira in 2022 while total revenue available to fund the 2022 Federal Budget is estimated at 10.13 trillion Naira. This includes Grants and Aid of 63.38 billion Naira, as well as the revenues of 63 Government-Owned Enterprises.
41. Oil revenue is projected at 3.16 trillion, Non-oil taxes are estimated at 2.13 trillion Naira and FGN Independent revenues are projected to be 1.82 trillion Naira.
PLANNED 2022 EXPENDITURE
42. A total expenditure of sixteen point three-nine (16.39) trillion Naira is proposed for the Federal Government in 2022. The proposed expenditure comprises:
a. Statutory Transfers of 768.28 billion Naira;
b. Non-debt Recurrent Costs of 6.83 trillion;
c. Personnel Costs of 4.11 trillion Naira;
d. Pensions, Gratuities and Retirees’ Benefits 577.0 billion Naira;
e. Overheads of 792.39 billion Naira;
f. Capital Expenditure of 5.35 trillion Naira, including the capital component of Statutory Transfers;
g. Debt Service of 3.61 trillion Naira; and
h. Sinking Fund of 292.71 billion Naira to retire certain maturing bonds.
Fiscal Balance
43. We expect the total fiscal operations of the Federal Government to result in a deficit of 6.26 trillion Naira. This represents 3.39 percent of estimated GDP, slightly above the 3 percent threshold set by the Fiscal Responsibility Act 2007. Countries around the world have to of necessity over-shoot their fiscal thresholds for the economies to survive and thrive
44. We need to exceed this threshold considering our collective desire to continue tackling the existential security challenges facing our country.
45. We plan to finance the deficit mainly by new borrowings totalling 5.01 trillion Naira, 90.73 billion Naira from Privatization Proceeds and 1.16 trillion Naira drawdowns on loans secured for specific development projects.
46. Some have expressed concern over our resort to borrowing to finance our fiscal gaps. They are right to be concerned. However, we believe that the debt level of the Federal Government is still within sustainable limits. Borrowings are to specific strategic projects and can be verified publicly.
47. As you are aware, we have witnessed two economic recessions within the period of this Administration. In both cases, we had to spend our way out of recession, which necessitated a resort to growing the public debt. It is unlikely that our recovery from each of the two recessions would have grown as fast without the sustained government expenditure funded by debt.
48. Our target over the medium term is to grow our Revenue-to-GDP ratio from about 8 percent currently to 15 percent by 2025. At that level of revenues, the Debt-Service-to-Revenue ratio will cease to be worrying. Put simply, we do not have a debt sustainability problem, but a revenue challenge which we are determined to tackle to ensure our debts remain sustainable.
49. Very importantly, we have endeavoured to use the loans to finance critical development projects and programmes aimed at improving our economic environment and ensuring effective delivery of public services to our people. We focused on;
a. the completion of major road and rail projects;
b. the effective implementation of Power sector projects;
c. the provision of potable water;
d. construction of irrigation infrastructure and dams across the country; and
e. critical health projects such as the strengthening of national emergency medical services and ambulance system, procurement of vaccines, polio eradication and upgrading Primary Health Care Centres across the six geopolitical zones.
Innovations in Infrastructure Financing
50. In 2022, Government will further strengthen the frameworks for concessions and public private partnerships (PPPs). Capital projects that are good candidates for PPP by their nature will be developed for private sector participation.
51. We will also explore available opportunities in the existing ecosystem of green finance including the implementation of our Sovereign Green Bond Programme and leveraging debt-for-climate swap mechanisms.
Enhancing Revenue Mobilisation
52. Our strategies to improve revenue mobilisation will be sustained in 2022 with the goal of achieving the following objectives:
a. Enhance tax and excise revenues through policy reforms and tax administration measures;
b. Review the policy effectiveness of tax waivers and concessions;
c. Boost customs revenue through the e-Customs and Single Window initiatives; and
d. Safeguard revenues from the oil and gas sector.
53. Distinguished Senators and Honourable Members, I commend you for the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act 2021. It is my hope that the implementation of the law will boost confidence in our economy and attract substantial investments in the sector.
Finance Bill 2022
54. In line with our plan to accompany annual budgets with Finance Bills, partly to support the realization of fiscal projections, current tax and fiscal laws are being reviewed to produce a draft Finance Bill 2022.
55. It is our intention that once ongoing consultations are completed, the Finance Bill would be submitted to the National Assembly to be considered alongside the 2022 Appropriation Bill.
CONCLUSION
56. Mr. Senate President, Mr. Speaker, Distinguished and Honourable Members of the National Assembly, this speech would be incomplete without commending the immense, patriotic, and collaborative support of the National Assembly in the effort to deliver socio-economic development and democracy dividends for our people.
57. I wish to assure you of the strong commitment of the Executive to strengthen the relationship with the National Assembly.
58. Nigeria is currently emerging from a very difficult economic challenge. We must continue to cooperate and ensure that our actions are aimed at accelerating the pace of economic recovery so that we can achieve economic prosperity and deliver on our promises to the Nigerian people.
59. The fiscal year 2022 is very crucial in our efforts to ensure that critical projects are completed, put to use and improve the general living conditions of our people.
60. It is with great pleasure therefore, that I lay before this distinguished Joint Session of the National Assembly, the 2022 Budget Proposals of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
61. I thank you most sincerely for your attention.
62. May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Over 500 Nigerians have lost their jobs and are stranded four months after the United Arab Emirates stopped granting or renewing Direct Employment Visa for Nigerians in the Western Asian country.
It was gathered that while many of the affected persons had returned to Nigeria, hundreds of them are still in UAE in the hope that Abu Dhabi would reverse the decision.
The UAE Ambassador to Nigeria, Dr Fahad AI Taffaq, had said there was no official communication on the issuance of work permits for Nigerians living and working in his country.
Taffaq, who stated this when he received the Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, at the Embassy in Abuja, in August, noted that he read about the ban in the social media, stressing that “UAE has no restrictions against any nationality.”
But giving an update on the situation in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Wednesday, a UAE resident, Mr Chukwudi Kalu, said he has presented the list of over 500 Nigerians who lost their jobs due to their inability to renew their work visas to the Nigerian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.
Kalu explained that the Federal Government through the embassy and the NIDCOM had held talks with the Emirati government.
He stated, “It is a diplomatic issue between the two countries and there are still ongoing discussions between Nigeria and UAE. It has been very difficult for Nigerians out here. Over 500 Nigerians are affected.”
He added, “Most of those who lost their jobs have gone back home (Nigeria) while some are still here trying to see when this issue would be discussed. Nigerians are losing their jobs in high numbers, that’s the fact.
“I have a Nigerian graduate who was earning N40,000 back home and he came here to UAE and was being paid almost N500,000 every month. Now, his visa would expire by November, he couldn’t renew. He kept calling me every time for an update.”
A Dubai-based activist, Oluwatosin Fadoju observed that the UAE was using the policy as a punishment against Nigeria, stressing that the FG was not doing enough to resolve the issue.
He stated, “A lot of people are on the streets. People are getting jobs but they cannot work because is there is no work permit. We have not seen any action from Nigeria. We want the Nigerian government to step in.
In her response, the spokesperson, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mrs Esther Sunsuwa, said, “We have no information yet, but we are going to get in touch with our two offices in the UAE: Abu Dhabi; and Dubai; to verify the story. If true, adequate diplomatic steps will be taken to overcome the challenge.”
At least 20 people have been killed and more than 200 wounded after an earthquake strikes Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan, local officials say, with rescue teams attempting to clear debris and gain access to the area.
The 5.9 magnitude earthquake struck as most residents of the Harnai district, about 100km (60 miles) east of the provincial capital Quetta, were asleep at just past 3am local time (22:00 GMT) on Thursday, according to United States Geological Survey data.
The tremor took place at a depth of about 20 kilometres (12 miles).
The provincial disaster management authority said at least 200 people were injured.
“Rescue officials have reached the scene and are working,” Osama bin Ijaz, a provincial disaster management official, told Al Jazeera.
A survey of the damage to the houses and other buildings in Harnai was ongoing, he said.
Pakistani Prime Minister, Imran Khan, has “ordered immediate assistance on an emergency basis” to residents of the area following the earthquake.
Provincial minister Zia Langove told Al Jazeera by telephone that rescue efforts had been hampered due to landslides caused by the earthquake having blocked roads in the area.
“There has been quite a lot of landsliding, and teams are currently working to clear the roads to the area,” Langove said. Rescue officials will be able to conduct a more accurate assessment of the damage once they have access to the area, he added.
Residents of Quetta gathered outside their houses after an earthquake shook southern Pakistan early Thursday. The epicentre was about 100km east of the city [Arshad Butt/AP Photo]
Pakistan’s military said some rescuers had reached earthquake-hit areas of Harnai and nine of the critically injured had been airlifted to Quetta.
Necessary items for food and shelter, as well as army doctors and paramedics were helping civilian officials provide care to those affected by the disaster, the military said in a statement, adding that an urban search and rescue team was being flown from Rawalpindi to speed up and assist in rescue activities
Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest but least populated and least developed province, consistently ranking at the bottom of national human development indicator rankings.
Most homes in the Harnai area, where the earthquake occurred, are made of mud and stone, and are more susceptible to damage from earthquakes in comparison with concrete or brick structures.
A resident removes debris of his mud house that collapsed following the earthquake in the district of Harnai [Banaras Khan/AFP]
Many of the victims died when roofs and walls collapsed, Suhail Anwar Hashmi, a senior provincial government official, told the AFP news agency.
A woman and six children were among the dead, he said.
Sanaullah, a survivor of the earthquake, said his mother was admitted to Quetta’s Civil Hospital, where some of the injured were being treated.
“The earthquake came at 3:00 in the morning, and we ran from our home. The roof of the house fell, and because of that our mother was injured. She has received head injuries,” he told Al Jazeera.
“There are a lot of people there who don’t have their own cars, and they are stuck there… There is a lack of health facilities there, and because of that, serious patients are facing a lot of difficulties,” he said.
A California verdict ordering Tesla to pay a Black former employee $137 million in damages for turning a blind eye to racism the man encountered at the firm’s Silicon Valley auto plant is a resounding message to corporate America in the eyes of his attorney.
“They awarded an amount that could be a wake-up call for American corporations,” civil rights attorney, Larry Organ, told AFP on Tuesday.
“Don’t engage in racist conduct and don’t allow racist conduct to continue.”
Owen Diaz was hired through a staffing agency as an elevator operator at the electric vehicle-maker’s Fremont factory between June 2015 and July 2016, where he was subjected to racist abuse and a hostile work environment, according to the court filing.
In his lawsuit filed in 2017, Diaz said African-American employees at the factory, where his son also worked, were regularly subjected to racist epithets and derogatory imagery.
Instead of a modern workplace, the plaintiffs “encountered a scene straight from the Jim Crow era,” said the suit, originally filed by Diaz, his son Demetric and a third former employee.
“Tesla’s progressive image was a facade papering over its regressive, demeaning treatment of African-American employees,” the court filing said.
Diaz alleged that, despite complaints to supervisors, Tesla took no action over the regular racist abuse.
The jury at the federal court in San Francisco on Monday awarded Diaz $130 million in punitive damages and $6.9 million for emotional distress, Organ confirmed.
“I knew all along Owen was telling the truth, I just had to prove it to eight strangers,” he said, referring to the panel of jurors.
“Normal, everyday folks see through the BS that corporate America spins.”
The lengthy legal battle pitted Organ’s small civil rights law firm of six attorneys against a well-resourced adversary.
‘Making Excuses’
Following the verdict, Tesla released a blog post by human resources Vice President, Valerie Capers Workman, which it said had been distributed to employees.
In her post, Workman downplayed the allegations of racist abuse in the lawsuit but acknowledged that at the time Diaz worked there, Tesla “was not perfect.”
“In addition to Mr. Diaz, three other witnesses (all non-Tesla contract employees) testified at trial that they regularly heard racial slurs (including the n-word) on the Fremont factory floor,” she wrote.
“While they all agreed that the use of the n-word was not appropriate in the workplace, they also agreed that most of the time they thought the language was used in a ‘friendly’ manner and usually by African-American colleagues.”
Workman said Tesla had responded to Diaz’s complaints, firing two contractors and suspending a third.
“Our whole theme was that Tesla was taking zero responsibility,” Organ said.
“I think they are doing the same thing now: making excuses.”
Workman stressed that Tesla had made changes since Diaz worked at the company, adding a diversity team and an employee relations team dedicated to investigating employee complaints.
“While we strongly believe that these facts don’t justify the verdict reached by the jury in San Francisco, we do recognize that in 2015 and 2016 we were not perfect,” Workman said.
“We’re still not perfect. But we have come a long way from 5 years ago. We continue to grow and improve in how we address employee concerns. Occasionally, we’ll get it wrong, and when that happens we should be held accountable.”
Tesla, a global leader in electric cars, has a market capitalization of around $780 billion. Its chief executive, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, is the world’s richest person, currently worth $211 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Iran has “serious concerns” about Israel’s presence in the Caucasus, as tensions mount between Iran and Azerbaijan over Baku’s ties with Israel, a major arms supplier.
Iran’s new Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, who is in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, said on Wednesday that Iran “certainly will not tolerate geopolitical change and map change in the Caucasus”.
“We have serious concerns about the presence of terrorists and Zionists in this region,” Amirabdollahian told reporters in Moscow.
Tension has been high between Iran and Azerbaijan, which share a 700km (430 mile) border, since mid-September.
Iran’s army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have recently mobilised forces and held military drills close to its northwestern borders with Azerbaijan amid lingering tensions following Azerbaijan’s 44-day war with Armenia last year.
Azerbaijan and Turkey, in response, launched a joint military drill starting on Wednesday.
‘Baseless Accusations’
The day before the drills were launched, Amirabdollahian told his Azerbaijani counterpart that Iran would not tolerate Israel’s presence or activity “next to our borders” and vowed to take any necessary action.
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said on Tuesday that Baku “will not leave unanswered” Tehran’s “baseless” accusations of an Israeli military presence on its soil.
Iran’s Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the IRGC, said on Tuesday that the representative office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Baku was closed by Azeri officials.
Iranian state-run news outlets later denied the report, saying only a religious gathering centre was closed due to COVID-19 protocols.
Before his meeting with Lavrov, Amirabdollahian said Iran expects Russia “to be sensitive about any potential changes in borders across the region, and be sensitive about the presence of terrorists and the movements of the Zionist regime that threatens regional peace and stability”.
Iran-Russia Relations
Before the talks with Lavrov, Amirabdollahian said Iran was after a “big jump in relations” with Russia as the government of President Ebrahim Raisi sought to quickly expand ties across the region.
Amirabdollahian added that he expects negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal to restart in Austria soon.
“I emphasised that we are now finalising consultations on this matter and will soon restore our negotiations in Vienna,” he said.
Interfax news agency reported quoting Amirabdollahian Tehran had received “signals” that Washington – which abandoned the 2015 nuclear pact under the previous administration – was once again interested in implementing it.
Amirabdollahian has said the new Iranian administration is still reviewing the records of six rounds of talks in Vienna that concluded on July 20.
Residents of Quetta gathered outside their houses after an earthquake shook southern Pakistan early Thursday. The epicentre was about 100km east of the city [Arshad Butt/AP Photo]
A resident removes debris of his mud house that collapsed following the earthquake in the district of Harnai [Banaras Khan/AFP]
