Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Musings of a naija countryman

I have to start calculating earnings and expenditure in U$D now. They say sometime next year, Charles Soludo, the Central Bank Boss (our own Alan Greenspan) will re-evaluate our currency and the naira will change at $1.25 to N1 instead of the N125 to $1 at present. Somewhere in the back of the minds of most home-based Nigerians is the thought that we'll all become millionaires in dollars. I need an economist to break this down for me.

Multichoice/DSTV and Hi-TV.
I've been had. Middleclass Nigerians hustle for a few things to make life worth the hassle- A good apartment, a car or two, A generator for electricity, broadband internet connectivity and then cable TV. In Nigeria, we are exploited by many people- N16,000 monthly to Starcomms for broadband that has nothing broad about it and N9000 monthly for cable. For three years now, I'd been paying Multi-Choice, the South African-owned Cable TV Monolith, N9000 for the full bouquet which includes all of England's Premiership football. Near the beginning of each football season (August), I'd pay 4 or 5 months in advance. This was the case this year, I'd payed 4 months in advance at the end of June, and then found out that the company had lost 80% of the rights they once held to show football matches. They said nothing to us, allowed us pay, and then nothing on the first day of the Premiership, with 14 teams out of 20, playing.

A Nigerian Company, Hi-TV had paid more than Multichoice for the rights to show the football matches despite the South Africans claim they had upped their bid the previous year by 400%.

Like all football addicts here, in between cussing out Multichoice, I'm contemplating the foolish- add a Hi TV decoder? Its cheaper than Multichoice (which actually has more non-football content), but what happens next year when they have to bid again? What if a 3rd company outbids them both? A 3rd decoder? Can someone bring pay per view to Nigeria?

8 comments:

Kafo said...

yeah
i heard about the whole change in currency to take place next year i think it is August.
i don't fully understand it myself but i guess it is supposed to reduce the amount of cash we carry (rent goes down from 41000 to 410) and then it also puts us on par with the dollar the exchange rate becoming N1.25 = $1.

This will cause some drama and a bit of loss revenue for the government esp. the oil industry being that the price of crude oil will be more expenses.

and then the whole black market trading will be worthless

omo i messing this whole explanation up so yeah look for an article by Paul Ibe written on the 15th.
i think he does a pretty good jo
i think it is for the whole ThisDay online news.


out

♥♫♪nyemoni♫♪♥ said...

Pray tell, someone asnwer these questions on my behalf...I too am quizzed by this...I really want someone to break it down for me....

As per DSTV and HiTV, I gather the frontman of HiTv used to be DSTV's lawyer!

Uzo said...

Its so ridiculous the HiTv/DSTV thing...HiTV has nothing to offer other than sports....A friend of mine has their cheaper package and it sucks....Now DSTV is pricey...So what to do? I think we the consumers are losing all round

laspapi said...

Kafo, rent will go down at that ratio? I hope the government will be able to control the market after the re-valuation. I'll look for the Paul Ibe article. Many thanks.

@ 'moni, Kafo's given a pointer. I think the guy in issue is the lawyer, Toyin Subair.

@ Uzo- I know we're the ones paying the price for this mess. An informal poll of those around me agrees with you that Hi-Tv's sadly lacking on Non-sporting content.

kokolette said...

me i dont understand all these naija cable stuvvs but it sound like the customer ends up paying for any yawa...not fair!

God's child said...

nothing really changes in regards to money currency
If you are getting paid N100,000, you will be getting paid N1,000
If you pay N5000 for some nice dinner, you are going to pay N50

The main plus is that it makes us look favorable for foreign investor (eyes)
less money to carry around, man pikin wont need big ghana must go bag or carton to carry money now lol

The downside is that sellers will use this as a style of increasing rates since people will still be confused.

New currency with new dates will be printed prob in different colors. Everyone will have to go and change their currency, it appears CBN will give folks from jan-aug to get that done. So people thinking of saving money, and then hoping that their N100,000 now remains N100,000 in the new system...LMAO, think again, its not happening.

It forces the naira to be stronger but just as hard as it takes the common people now to get N1mil so will it take the common man to get N10,000(the equiv) in the new system

laspapi said...

@ kokolette- I agree that we're being had. We pay extreme prices for these things here.

@ god's child- this is heavy, gc, and I had to sit with a couple of people to dissect your words. There has to be an advantage for the thinker here, and I need to find it. Currency speculation?

laspapi said...

rethots sent e-mail on Soludo titled "why crucify him?" -

My opinion on the current suspension of the redenomination of the naira.
...why crucify him (Soludo), afterall even Mr. President has had to reverse his declaration on two issues in the not too distant past; the efcc & icpc issue and the vat, pump prices, sale of refineries (which his government inherited from the previous administration)?
...and someone commented (not paraphrased) that Mr. President should read through consititutional powers/laws so as not to keep
reversing pronouncements by his government.
These reversals tell me two things of
Mr. President;
1. He agrees humans are falliable.
2. He is not afraid to acknowledge being wrong, whenever he is.
But, a word to our President's advisers, they should do their work effectively.
...to the issue of crucfying him (Soludo), he read through the CBN's Act (but, maybe misinterpreted or didn't grasp it wholly) and Mr. President has suspended the proposed new policy.
Fine, even Soludo has spoken "...that the Board of CBN recognises and reaffirms Mr. President's approving authority .....and therefore accepts Mr. President's decision to suspend the re-denomination..."
So, if Mr. President could have erred (either personally or through the Attorney-General) and he accepted and took necessary (& appropriate) actions and we accepted, is Soludo different?
Haba, let's give it to him, he proposed a new policy but didn't go about it properly according to law; so what? He's even accepted to have erred. What else do we want?
We should be glad to now have a new set of leaders who are proactive, willing and ain't afraid of proposing policies (seeing a greater Nigeria) but, more importantly, 'biting the bullet' when they err.
Afterall, we ain't looking for perfect leaders.