Bijay Inc.

#ShowYourGumChallenge

2015-06-14T21:11:00.000+01:00

My names are Agbon Jesus Oche and I believe that one big smile can make the difference in a life. Join me on this adventure as we loosen up the world from the frowns in it. Lets do This ......Our numbers are growing....‪#‎ShowUrGumChallenge‬

Bijay Inc.

Focus on Corruption in Public Sector Procurement

2015-04-13T23:15:00.000+01:00

The high level of corruption in Nigeria is one so peculiar, an obvious façade which falsely represents the true nature of its host- Nigeria. It has eaten so deep into the fabrics of every system, rendering them ineffective, ineffectual, unreliable, incompetent, inadequate, call it whatever represents a near comatose state. As a fresh civil engineering graduate, the questions that bewilders me daily are; Why is the project sum never enough for contractors? Who tracks the usage of the funds paid to contractors? Why do they seem to get away with mismanaging project funds? Who are the bottlenecks in government encouraging this dastardly corrupt practice that has been in the construction industry for decades? How can I sanitize the system? If I should focus on citing instances, volumes will not contain them. I want to focus today on creating awareness on the issue of corruption as it affects public procurement in Nigeria as the first step to solving a problem is identifying the problem.

Corruption in the procurement process has a serious negative impact on the development and well-being of any nation because outside of salaries and social benefits, procurement accounts for the largest share of public expenditure at all tiers of government. The enormous amounts of money involved in procurement present an almost irresistible lure for corrupt practice because of the tremendous opportunity for bribes, kickbacks and other payoffs. The continued presence of unethical practices in procurement processes accounts for a large chunk of corruption ravaging our country. And until something holistic is done not just on paper but enforced in real life, then we will have to stay contented with being one of the most corrupt nations of the world.

Quickly, I want us to know what the definitions of corruption and procurement are. According to The World Bank 'corruption' is when "public office is abused for private gain, when an official accepts, solicits, or extorts a bribe". The Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act 2000 defined 'corruption' to include "bribery, fraud and other related offences". On the other hand The Public Procurement Act 1997 defined 'procurement' as 'acquisition', just Imagine! Anyways, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) helped us out by defining 'procurement' further as "the process of identifying what is needed, determining who is the best person or organisation to supply these needs, and ensuring that what is needed is delivered to the right place, at the right time, for the best price, and that all of this is done in a fair and open manner". That's much better! Public Sector procurement is therefore the process by which government contracts infrastructure, supplies and professional services.

Without wasting time let us have a look at a typical example of a chain of corruption in project contract awards, lets see what happens in there:

This is the typical Nigerian picture because of how porous the procurement environment is, and all these are obtainable at the micro levels too, by that I mean at the state and local government levels.

Well, so far some reforms have been carried out by the government since 1999, below is a summary:

Also, in line with international best practices, the law gives legal backing to the application of due process principles in procurement. Lets have a look at what the process includes:

Drawing up an Efficient Procurement Plan driven by a Needs Assessment

Adequate Appropriation

Appropriate level of advertisement (based on tender threshold)

Transparent Pre-qualification/Tender

Sealed Bid Submission/Transparent Bid Opening

Bid Evaluation - Technical& Financial

Tenders Board/Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval (based on threshold)

Contract Award/Execution and

i) Project Implementation

As with all things stated thus far, these too have been abused. In Nigeria as with other parts of the world, corrupt people will keep looking for ways to thwart a process that holds so much money to divert funds into their pockets. Let us expose some of these practices as mentioned by Mrs Rasheedat A. Okoduwa, Director of Education, ICPC.
a) Collusion
Collusion between public officers and contractors or suppliers can occur at any level of procurement. For example, guidelines allow that as an exemption from open competitive bidding, at least three relevant quotations be obtained for a procurement which value does not exceed N1 million. Rather than source the quotations separately, officers collude with a preferred supplier/contractor to submit all the quotations, one of which would be in the company’s registered name and the other two often times, are in fake names with higher quoted prices, giving the fraudulent impression that the quotations are from three different contractors. The pre-determined contractor, of course with the least price then gets the job. Hmmmmmmmmmmm...... b) Abuse of guidelines on Advertisement, Notification
Guidelines stipulate that notices be placed in conspicuous places on notice boards of procuring entities on projects of less than N10 million for a mandatory two-week period. Usually this is not complied with as notices are backdated and placed one or two days before the expiry of the invitation period. Obviously, only favoured contractors/suppliers would have been given prior information on the procurement invitation. Na wa ooooo.
c) Deliberate skimpy information on Pre-qualification Requirements
Some procuring entities deliberately do not state pre-qualification requirements clearly and completely such that those submitting tenders on the skimpy information are disqualified ab-initio paving the way for favoured contractors. Okay ooo, lets continue.
d) Abuse of Guidelines on Bids Opening
According to guidelines, bids are to be opened immediately after the close of submission in the presence of those who submitted tenders or their representatives and other interested persons. Some procuring entities however, do not open these bids until much long after, thereby creating room for corrupt manipulation of bids.
e) Manipulation of Bids Evaluation
Abuse of the procurement process also occurs at the point of bids evaluation especially when the transparent process throws up an unfavoured contractor as the best responsive bid. In this type of situation, the procuring entity then factors in previously undisclosed criteria to disqualify the best bid.
f) Splitting of Tenders
Procurement guidelines currently have the following approval thresholds:

i) Below N5 Million for goods and services and N10 Million for Works - Permanent Secretary

ii) Above N5 Million but below N100 Million for goods and services, and above N10 Million but below N1 Billion for Works – Ministerial Tenders Board

iii) N100 Million and above for goods and services, and N1 Billion and above for Works – Federal Executive Council

Officers of procuring entities often times split tenders illegally to circumvent these guidelines on approval thresholds. g) Substitution of poor quality goods/services
In collusion with officers of procuring entities and in order to increase profit and make up kick-backs and bribes, suppliers/contractors substitute lower quality goods and services for what was originally quoted and paid for. This type of scenario usually involves a network of officers including the Internal Auditor, Stores official and Procurement officers.
h) Inflated Fees for Middlemen
Sometimes middlemen such as agents and consultants are used in a procurement arrangement not so much to add value to the process but to siphon huge sums of money through inflated and bogus fees which would then be split with officers of the procuring entities. eg. INEC directed interested corpers both old and new to register as adhoc staff on a website created in a bid to have a more organised system of data capturing and management, that site was only used to print out the first set of registered names after which they resorted back to manual style, large money gone to someone's pocket. The NIS scam is another and so on.
i) Use of phony technical jargon to manipulate the process
In the procurement of technical goods and services, technical jargon is used deliberately to shut out potential bidders and it is also a trick for the favoured contractor/supplier to quote astronomical fees.

THE WAY FORWARD
I believe we all have a part to play if we must ensure transparency, accountability, fairness, open competition, merit and value for money in public procurement processes. Think about what the effect and the impact of our choices will have on the common citizen. Lets look beyond ourselves, lets care for Nigeria and Nigerians genuinely. How else can we do this but by discharging our duties diligently, honestly, and responsibly.
Infusing ICT into the bidding process will go a long way in checkmating collusions between contractors and public officers. The use of notice boards for advert placements is rather so obsolete in this ICT age. We must embrace the power of ICT and infuse it into every process of public sector procurement. We can take a cue from the just concluded presidential elections of 28th March, 2015. We saw how the introduction of a simple card reader device helped to checkmate rigging. That is just one application of ICT out of numerous possible ways ICT can be harnessed to fight corruption.

Finally, the government must play its part in properly empowering the several anti-graft commissions to fight corruption. There should be zero-interference from the government in the activities of these agencies. This is the way we can save our public procurement sector and Nigeria as a whole from this cancer called corruption.

I hope I have succeeded in enlightening you. Do not stop here, help share this message and make a decision to stop frustrate corruption in your own little way.

I want to make reference a paper delivered by Mrs Rasheedat A. Okoduwa, Director of Education, ICPC. Where most of the facts, definitions and explanations used in this post were gotten from. I stumbled upon her paper in my quest to bring this same awareness to my own circle of contacts. of the information in this post.

Thank you...

Agbon Jesus Oche

Bijay

How to Calculate the amount of power you consume?

2013-05-10T18:20:00.000+01:00

The two pieces of data you need are the watts and how long the device is operated.

You can generally find the wattage on the appliance nameplate, however some devices may only show volts and amps. A reasonable approximation is to multiply the volts x amps to get watts. (The concept of power factor is assumed to be beyond the scope of this question and answer)
Take the watts and divide by 1000 to convert the value to kilowatts (kW).

Once you know the device's wattage, you have to estimate how long the device will be operated. The electric utility generally measures consumption in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A 1 kW appliance operated for one hour consumes 1 kWh. If the device ran for an entire day it would consume 24 kWh. A one hundred watt light bulb (0.1 kW) operated for six hours would consume 0.1 kW x 6 hrs = 0.6 kWh.

For the purposes of this topic I will assume an energy cost of 12 kobo per kWh. (N.12 / kWh)

There are many devices in your home that have a large power draw, but only run for a short period of time. For example, a microwave oven might draw 1000 watts (1 kW), but a bag of microwave popcorn only takes about 3 minutes. Three minutes is 3/60 = 1/20 of an hour.

1 kW * 3 minutes * 1 hour / 60 minutes = .05 kWh.

.05 kWh * N.12 / kWh = N.006 per bag of popcorn. (6/10th of one kobo).

Other short duration appliances in a home include: hair dryers, garage door openers, garbage disposals, and toasters.

Other appliances might run continuously, or cycle on and off throughout the day. Your refrigerator's compressor will cycle on and off as called for by its thermostat. Your computer and monitor may power down as part of the energy saving features that began appearing several years ago.

The most expensive device to operate in my home is the central air conditioner. My 4-ton AC unit consumes about 4 kW while operating. On the hottest days in summer, the AC might run for a total of 8 hours. The cost to cool my house for that one day could be calculated as 4 kW * 8 hours * N.12 / kWh = N3.84.

Even when some devices are turned off they are consuming a small amount of electricity. Every device that uses a remote control must be constantly "watching" for the signal to turn on. Starting in the late 90's manufacturers began trimming down the phantom loads that were occurring when the device was turned off. Today many consumer appliances have this power draw down to less than 5 watts.

Perhaps the best "tool" to get a handle on energy usage around the house is the Kill-A-Watt device. It is easy to use, and provides volts, amps, watts, and if you leave it plugged in, will begin to rack up kWh. The LCD display allows you to easily monitor the usage.

It is important to recognize that most all appliances have nameplates that overstate the actual power consumption. Devices with a motor generally rate the "locked rotor" current that is far higher than normal operation. Most motors also never reach their rated output. The work they do at the shaft is often far lower than their rating. Another example is desktop PC's that might have a 500-watt power supply, but if you perform measurements you'll find that it is drawing less than 150 watts.

Architects and electricians add up the nameplates of devices and size the electric service panel accordingly. They are not allowed to take into account the intermittent usage of the devices, nor the overstated nameplates. In reality the actual load seen at the electric meter rarely even reaches half the original predicted value.
Bijay

Ways to Raise Money For Business in Nigeria

2013-05-10T17:06:00.002+01:00

I have asked myself this same question on several occasions without a clear answer until I stumbled upon this piece by Darlington Omeh. And certainly be sharing with you.
The biggest challenge any would be Entrepreneur in Nigeria or elsewhere would face is how to raise money for business. It doesn't matter how profitable you think the proposed business is, doesn't matter how little the money you needed to start is -- once you're not able to raise money to start the business, the business can never be started.

To raise money for business is the biggest achievement any aspiring Entrepreneur could make. Once you have the start up capital, every other thing falls into place easily and that is only when your business idea makes sense.

I've seen great business ideas die from conception due to inability of the Entrepreneur to raise money for the business. How do we then proceed to solve this seemingly biggest challenge facing business start ups in Nigeria and Africa? Here are the top 5 ways to raise money for business -- that any smart Entrepreneur should explore fast.

1. Personal Savings

The best person to give you money is yourself... If you plan to start a business soon, start saving for it now. Open a savings account in any bank and start saving bit by bit, spread your savings over the period of time you intend to kick start your business and make it a target to save certain amount periodically.

To be able to achieve this, you'll need to be resolute and disciplined. Cash demanding Problems may come along the way, look for other means to solve them -- ask yourself 'what if there is no savings what would you have done? Go with whatever answer you get and use it to solve the problems instead of using the saved fund. With this, you will be able to raise money for business through personal savings.

2. Family and Friends

The oldest and sometimes, the easiest and most efficient way to raise money for business or any project by Nigerians over the years has been through family and friends. To give out money requires plenty of trust and no one knows and trusts you better than your friends and family members.

Make a list of your rich friends and family members and divide the total needed amount by the number of people in your list to make it smaller and easier for them. The biggest mistake many Entrepreneurs make is go approach only one person with the entire amount of money needed for their business, that can be overwhelming.

If you need N500,000, make a list of about 20 family and friends and divide the N500,000 by 20, that will give you N20,000. Then, approach each of the 20 persons in your list -- demanding for only N20,000. In that way, it would be easier for them to consider your request.

3. Co-Operative

The type we normally refers to as "Daily Contribution" It can be daily, weekly or monthly contribution -- look for group of people with common interest and start the contribution with them. This is similar to personal savings, the only thing different is that others are involved.

Each time you contribute, someone among you take it -- do it until it reaches your turn. When you get yours, quickly put it into the business before other expenses carries it off.

Everyone in your co-operative must be people you trust to an extent, if not someone might attempt to disappear after collecting his without fulfilling same obligation to others. It is a bit risky but sure way to raise money for business in Nigeria, especially if you are fortunate to be the number one or two in the collecting order.

4. Micro Finance Banks

Open Account with any micro finance bank or co-operative bank of your choice and start saving certain amount regularly. Once you've saved up to six months, you'll qualify for loan of twice your saved amount. One thing I don't like about micro finance is the fact that you'd have to wait for six months to qualify for loan and having to pay interest in the loan even though your money have stayed with them for six months with no interest accruing to you.

However, that is the price you'll have to pay to raise money for your business and many people are finding success using it. So why not give it a trial. Look for any micro finance of your choice and start saving towards raising money for your business. Most of the major banks have their own version of micro finance -- you may go with this ones for they're more reliable.

5. Angel Investors

If you are not a control freak, if you are ready to give up some percentage of your company's equity then go for Angel Investors. Angel Investors are business start up incubators and they are not in any particular place -- your rich uncle could as well be your Angel Investor.

Prepare a bankable business proposal -- clearly state your business plan and objectives. If the Angel finds your proposal appealing, they will invest in it. But, prepare to give up good part of your company up to 40% in exchange for the needed capital.

Hope this helped? Drop your comments after reading please.Thanks...

Bijay

Adapted from wealthresult.com

WHAT HAVE YOU IN YOURSELF

2013-05-07T11:25:00.003+01:00

It is what you are, what you have in you that counts.
It is the undeveloped resources in your mind, in your spirit, in that inward man that counts. It is the developing of the writer, the thinker, the teacher, the inventor, the leader, the business manager, that is hidden deep in you that is important.
I venture that every one of you young men and women who read this have in you one of these abilities.
There may be an untrained voice, untrained musical abilities lying hidden under the careless, thoughtless exterior.
Let us go down with a flashlight and look over the untouched treasures that are stored away inside, that have never been touched, never been used.
Then let us bring the thing up that we find and make it worthwhile; give it a commercial value.
For remember that everything that goes toward making you a success is inside you.
The thing that makes opportunities, that makes money, that saves money, that creates new things, that brings together things that others have created but were unable to utilize, is inside you.
Find it and make it work.
It is going to require a boss who is utterly heartless to rule over you. The boss is inside you.
There is a slave driver in there whom you must bring out. Put the whip in his hand to tell him to go to it and make you a success.
There is something in you that can take these dreams of yours and make blue prints of them, and can change the blue prints into buildings.
It is there.
That ability is there.
No one else can train it. No one else can develop it. Someone else may set it on fire, but you can quench the fire by refusing to act.
Remember that you must use the suggestions that come; you must rise up and put the thing over.
You must drive yourself, for no one else can do it.
Put yourself on a mental diet, not a diet of idle dreams nor idle fancies, but a diet of real mental work.
Be mentally awake, diligent. Put your best into everyday.
Make up your day of saved moments, hours.
You are out to win. You are out to conquer. You can do it.
It would be different if this ability were in someone else and you were trying to awaken it.
It is all in you and you are going to put it over..............Curled from E.W Kenyons 'On the Road to success'....

ITS BEEN A WHILE

2013-03-12T17:09:00.000+01:00

Guys its been very boring living without my PC by my side. I cant believe its still not fixed despite being handled by its own manufacturers. Hopefully, i would be back online soonest. Till then, keep up the good work.... I'm out
Bijay

THE UNIVERSITY OF BENIN

2012-11-29T14:43:00.001+01:00

Watch out for this all-inspiring piece from me... A story of the adventure of a young lad through the four walls of the GREAT UNIVERSITY OF BENIN...... Coming out soon only on this blog...
Bijay

A REAL FRIEND

2012-11-29T12:53:00.000+01:00

A simple friend, when visiting, acts like a guest. A real friend opens your refrigerator and helps himself.

A simple friend has never seen you cry. A real friend has shoulders soggy from your tears.

A simple friend doesn't know your parents' first names. A real friend has their phone numbers in his address book.

A simple friend brings a bottle of wine to your party. A real friend comes early to
help you cook and stays late to help you clean.

A simple friend hates it when you call after he has gone to bed. A real friend asks you why you took so long to call.

A simple friend seeks to talk with you about your problems. A real friend seeks to help you with your problems.

A simple friend wonders about your romantic history. A real friend could blackmail you with it.

A simple friend thinks the friendship is over when you have an argument. A real friend calls you after you had a fight.

A simple friend expects you to always be there for them. A real friend expects to always be there for you!

Share this with anyone you care about. It'll enhance your circle of friends, convert simple friends into real ones, keep your real friends "real," and help all of these friends do the same.
I urge you today to aspire to be a good friend and God Bless you say Amen if you are good friend!!!

Bijay

2012-11-14T07:38:00.001+01:00

NLNG SCHOLARSHIP FOR POSTGRADUATE STUDIES, CLOSING 16TH NOVEMBER, 2012PROUDLY OCHE

GidiLinks: What Will People Say About You?

2012-08-05T18:24:00.001+01:00

GidiLinks: What Will People Say About You?

PROUDLY OCHE

2012-07-18T01:19:00.000+01:00

Never give up if it is worth it.

PROUDLY OCHE

2012-07-09T15:20:00.001+01:00

Great men don't settle for less. PROUDLY OCHE

2011-09-20T06:53:00.002+01:00

doing ma thing from now on....its true when a wise man once said 'if u want favor n understandin wit God n man then be merciful n truthful...guess those outcomes r not always gotten from every1....so i'll just kip doing not minding what they think or say of me.... At the appointed time, it'll speak for itself...PROUDLY OCHE

greater heights: arrows

2010-07-04T12:17:00.000+01:00

greater heights: arrows: "I have set a course that i must follow,i can never be poor in life!"

arrows

2010-07-04T12:12:00.000+01:00

I have set a course that i must follow,i can never be poor in life!