S&P links Nigeria’s sovereign rating upgrade to Dangote Refinery, reforms - ITREALMS

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In a major validation of Nigeria’s ongoing economic restructuring, global ratings agency S&P Global Ratings has upgraded the country’s long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings to “B” from “B-” reports ITREALMS.

The upgrade serves as an unblinking recording of the country's strengthening macroeconomic indicators, driven primarily by aggressive fiscal reforms, rising domestic oil production, and a profound, standardized transformation of its local downstream capacity led by the Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals.

LAPO MFB in top-5 Nigeria employers rating - ITREALMS

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LAPO Microfinance Bank (MFB), the country’s largest microfinance bank is an ubiquitous presence across the country especially consistently accounting for over 20 per cent of the MFB sector while serving over five million customers through over 535 locations nationwide.

The value of the institution not only to the small business sector but also to the overall economy was further confirmed recently when it emerged as one of Nigeria’s highest employers in a report by Statisense, a data consulting firm with expertise in analytics and research.

PFS attains CMMI-DEV rating, strengthens trust

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One of the nation’s leading software powerhouse, Precise Financial Systems (PFS) has scaled through the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) appraisal, reports ITRealms.

This, ITRealms reports would strengthen the information and communication technology [ICT] sector of the economy with achievement of CMMI level 3 by PFS.

General Manager, Nihilent West Africa, the company that performed the appraisal, Shohel Noor said, PFS invested efforts and tools in institutionalizing the Maturity Level 3 practices. Stressing the adoption of CMMI by PFS “is strengthening Nigerian ICT sector’s trust in the CMMI framework and in Nihilent as a partner”.

Also speaking, the Managing Consultant and CMMI Lead Appraiser, Nihilent Technologies Ltd., Pune, Deepak Manjareka, said that PFS is one of the fastest growing software companies in West Africa, hence the company demonstrated the best use of various software engineering tools for better security, delivery, and institutionalization of Maturity Level 3 practices.

“CMMI is applied to create a process improvement solution that is appropriate to the context of each unique organization. It provides a path for an organization to achieve its performance goals. A CMMI-driven improvement project delivers a framework to standardize processes, ensuring that a business’ best practices are captured, shared and adopted so that it can move staff around the organization and those who leave the organization would not take business critical information away with them,” he said.

Competition is driving significant interest in CMMI. Development companies, service provider, and acquisition/outsourcing organizations are adopting CMMI as a differentiator and enabler to enhance performance. Competing companies are leveraging CMMI for industry best practices, and have adopted the approach to meet customer demands and competition. The growing popularity of CMMI in the market is also a big reason of adoption of this practice by companies.

CMMI is a process improvement training and certification programme, marketed by Carnegie Mellon University. Government agencies and many organizations required CMMI for software development contracts. It has 25 different process areas that cater to comprehensive business process improvement and solution. Each CMMI process area has two goals, two practices, and many educational information to help management make the right strategies.

The certification applies to sub-contractors that provide custom software to companies or create solutions for the government. These companies must follow CMMI or be covered by their clients.  Parts of the software product delivered to the government must follow CMMI in the supply chain.

MD/CEO, PFS, Yele Okeremi said the CMMI appraisal has a global impact on the company since software firms are no longer competing locally, but globally. He added that Nigeria needs to conserve foreign exchange and one of the ways to do this is by developing world-class solution, “this is what the CMMI has helped PFS to achieve”.

Ayo Midele/GEE

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Council commends NCC, Danbatta over BPSR rating

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The Business Education Examinations Council (BEEC) has commended the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on the recent platinum rating the regulatory body received from the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPRS).

In a letter signed by its president, Mike Okereke, the council, however, attributed the success to the leadership style of the commission’s Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta.

“This is indeed a well-deserved honour and a confirmation that your hard work and innovation in the management of NCC have paid off. We are confident that the Nigerian Communications Commission will continue to break new grounds under your able and dynamic leadership,” the letter pointed out.

BPSR recently said that very strong business organizational structure, policies and practices that facilitate effective and efficient service delivery were some of the high points it considered before naming the NCC tops in institutional work processes in the country.

Director General of BPSR, Dr. Joe Abah who presented the report and plaque to Prof.  Danbatta, also listed accountabilities and responsibilities for set Standardized Operating Procedure (SOP) manuals of the Commission’s 19 departments as other areas critically considered by the bureau before arriving at conclusion.

NCC under Prof Danbatta’s leadership has, in the last two, dominated international and local awards in the telecommunication sector it regulates years. 

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Bureau gives NCC platinum rating in institutional work processes

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The Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) has rated the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) high in institutional work processes with a platinum category, reports ITRealms.

As said by the Director, Public Affairs, NCC, Tony Ojobo in a press statement made available to ITRealms, very strong business organizational structure, policies and practices that facilitate effective and efficient service delivery were some of the high points, the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) considered before naming the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) tops in institutional work processes in the country.

He quoted the Director General, BPSR, Dr. Joe Abah presented the report and plaque to the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, at the NCC Headquarters in Abuja, on Monday.

According to Dr. Abah, in arriving at this conclusion the BPSR boss also listed accountabilities and responsibilities for set Standardized Operating Procedure (SOP) manuals of the Commission’s 19 departments.

Accurate measurement of Responsibilities and Performance assigned to staff were the parameters for the evaluation of the Commission.

In terms of governance, he said, the Bureau said “NCC strategic objectives are prioritized for potential impact using standardized principles including the balanced score card”.

NCC’s understanding of stakeholders needs and contributions are quite robust.

The Bureau said NCC’s vision, strategy and impacts complement other sectors organizational direction, adding that “Staff can articulate what the Commission wants to achieve, its role and purpose; Strategy is considered by the management team regularly throughout the year because; NCC has a sense of where it is going and how it should get there.

The Bureau also rated NCC very high in procurement processes saying the Commission “has adequate systems, processes and experienced personnel responsible for executing its procurement activities in line with extant provisions of the Public Procurement Act”.

The Bureau also commended the establishment of NCC central store at Mbora, Abuja where all procurement records are archived electronically from loss.

The Bureau also listed in its report that “NCC demonstrates that formal performance management processes are clearly understood, constantly applied and seen by all staff to be a valuable activity, that individual performance targets are clearly assigned with the team, business unit and overall organizational performance targets”.

The report that was presented to Prof. Danbatta by Dr. Abah took 15 months to go through evaluation during which period the BPSR team had a meeting with the Human Capital Department (HCD) team of NCC. Based on the approval of the EVC, the evaluation of the work processes took place thereafter whereby top management, senior and junior management staff were nominated to assess the work processes of the Commission under nine main areas covering 117 questions supervised by officials of BPSR.

After the BPSR presentation, the NCC boss, Prof. Danbatta, said as someone from the academia, he is very conversant with empirical analysis and criticisms and welcomed the Bureau’s report.

These bring out the best of the situation.  He thanked the Director General for this rare show of professionalism by making the presentation himself. This conclusion by BPSR has further justified NCC’s position as a foremost regulator in Africa whose robust regulatory activities are based on international best practices.

On the grey areas of Quality of Service, Prof. Danbatta said that the Commission will leave no stone unturned to ensure that Quality of Service improves.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that define Quality of Service, have been put in place for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) assessment.  The result of the assessment in the 1^st quarter of 2017 has shown improvement in Quality of Service.

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