One month, one new bureaucracy in Nigeria. The latest one is the National Emergency Medical Services Agency. Yes, Nigeria plans to establish the National Emergency Medical Services Agency to magically deal with our lack of healthcare services. Of course, nothing will change since the healthcare budget is not changing anytime soon. What will happen is that the available funds will be divided with an additional agency in the mix. 

The Nigerian Senate passed a bill to establish the launch of a  National Emergency Medical Services Agency.

The bill was passed on Tuesday after the Senate considered a report by the Committee on Health Secondary and Tertiary at plenary, presented by the Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Yahaya Oloriegbe.

The Committee said the bill aims to ensure all Nigerians had access to early, good, and quality emergency medical service, and critical care, when needed, adding that after establishment, the agency would provide assistance for the development of a comprehensive area emergency medical services system in Nigeria.

For Nigeria to fix the healthcare services, it needs resources and that will come through higher productivity and economic activity. Yes, improved tax revenue to fund budgets. That is the playbook we need to scale urgently. Crude oil may not help here as it continues to drop: “Nigeria’s crude oil exports fell by a whopping 41.9% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2021. This is according to data contained in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s balance of payment report.” But while crude oil was down, solid minerals did just fine; Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in a report noted that N79.9 billion was earned by Nigeria within the solid minerals sector in 2019.

Nigeria received in its current account, crude oil and gas export proceeds of $6.48 billion in the first quarter of 2021 compared to $11.1 billion in the corresponding period in 2020. It also represents a 16.4% drop when compared to the $7.7 billion recorded in the 4th quarter of 2020.

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Nigeria relies majorly on crude oil exports as its major foreign exchange earner. Thus with export proceeds falling by 42%, hope for a more robust foreign exchange reserve is dimmed. … The fall in reserves corresponds with a depreciation in the exchange rate which has now crossed the N500/$1 ceiling at the parallel market

Yet, the nation could generate significant revenue from its planned concession of Calabar & Kano Free Trade Zones and other infrastructures in 36 states which the Bureau of Public Enterprises has projected could generate as much as N5 billion annually.

The government hopes to inject funds into healthcare services in the nation, according to Director-General of the BPE, Mr Alex Okoh: “In the health sector, the reforms being undertaken by the bureau will involve the implementation of initiatives which will radically transform health care delivery across Nigeria. This will improve availability, accessibility, affordability and quality of health care services with the ultimate objective of having a physically and an emotionally healthy population.”

Despite this drop, the trajectory could look promising in the short-term now that the OPEC+ standoff is officially over as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have reached a deal on output levels: “OPEC+ source stated that the U.A.E. is allowed to boost the baseline used to determine how much crude the OPEC+ member is allowed to pump.”

Tekedia Institute has results – huge ones. The Bank of Industry (BOI) alone has deployed excess of $2 million to members of our Institute through the government loan program. Yes, give people skills and things become easier. I am also happy to note that Tekedia Institute is working with selected companies to provide practical skills to help our young people advance under Tekedia Practice.

Tekedia Practice  involves 2 months of studies and 4 months of internship on agribusiness, renewable energy and more. Our partner on the Practice of Renewable Energy Business is OneWattSolar. OWS pays for, installs, owns, and maintains solar systems with EaaS (Energy as a Service); all technologies run on blockchain. It just raised $milllions on a green bond.

We invite you to register and join the Aug 9 2021 edition of Tekedia Practice. You will attend our online lectures and also intern. With OWS, the internship is guaranteed.

Good People, join me to congratulate Jubril Adeojo, PhD, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of OneWattSolar which just announced the successful issuance of the first series of its US$24.4 million Green Bond, comprising a US$4.9 million 7-year Green Bond (Tranche I) and a US$2.4 million) 7-year Green Sukuk (Tranche II).

OneWattSolar is our knowledge partner on Tekedia Advanced Diploma’s Practice of Renewable Energy Business which comprises 2 months of studies and 4 months of internship. Any student who enrolls in this program is guaranteed an internship in the renewable energy space. The program begins Aug 9, 2021 – learn more here and register. This is taking Tekedia Mini-MBA to companies and we are working with selected brands across Africa.

Tekedia Practice has both coursework and internship components, and it  is designed to provide practical experiences to learners. Simply, a member goes through a curated domain-specific training, and follows it up with an internship in a company.

Tekedia Practice is an Advanced Diploma program and will focus in  these areas:

• Practice of Agribusiness
• Practice of Renewable Energy Business
• Practice of Digital Business

It will involve 2 months of studies and 4 months of internship. During the course module (first 2 months), there would be optional Zoom sessions which will be recorded, and archived, for those who may not have time. That way, they can watch the sessions when they have time

Congratulations to the energy team, and thanks for your partnership. With you, we hope to make it possible for young people to have practical skills to thrive in the energy systems of the future.

More from the press release

The Bond is rated BBB, in line with standards established by DataPro Limited, a registered Ratings Agency in Nigeria. TUV Nord Certification also provided Second Party Opinion on the Green Bond Framework of the Company.

Comercio Partners Capital Limited (“CP Capital”), the investment banking subsidiary of Comercio Partners Limited, led the bond issuance as Issuing House/Financial Advisers. The issue was also supported by Marble Capital Limited as Shariah Advisor, and Bloomfield LP as Legal Advisers. In addition, Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSD Africa) provided immense technical assistance in support of the Issue.

The issuance is consistent with the Company’s mission and mandate to accelerate and build on the achievements of Africa’s decarbonization pathway goals in the energy sector. Essentially, the Com- pany’s goal is to provide over 14GW off-grid solar energy by 2030 across Sub-Saharan Africa. Fur- thermore, the issuance reinforces the Company’s unfettered commitment to the United Nations Sus- tainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement on Climate Change leveraging its innova- tive and scalable business model that is consciously built on strategic partnership, advanced technol- ogies, and Big Data.

The Company intends to allocate the net proceeds from the issue to purchase renewable energy assets required to implement its pipeline of off-grid energy access projects in Nigeria, in line with the Eli- gibility Criteria (as defined in its Green Bond Framework) and support the adoption of best market practices and reporting standards to deepen the green bond market.

Comments on the Issuance

 Jubril Adeojo, PhD, Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of OWS:

“This issuance has enabled us to commercially roll out our two flagship products – CHI- OMA being the Internet of Things-enabled Digital Assets & Hardware Technology, and AMINA being the Advanced Artificial Intelligence Software Technology. The two products are strategically designed to deliver excellent service to our customers, as well as to ensure that customers’ experience journey is seamless and memorable. It is also noteworthy that all our partners are indigenous players working together to democra- tize, decarbonize, decentralize, and digitize sustainable energy access to our reputable locally owned businesses, and households while creating numerous jobs for African youths and women. As a tech company, we look forward to developing and rolling out new customer-centric products, alongside the issuance of more green bonds and sukuks, as we use this issuance to commence the first step of our journey of a million miles.”

“This is the first hybrid Green Bond and Green Sukuk issued by a corporate in Sub- Saharan Africa and we at Comercio Partners Capital Limited are excited to be the lead issuing house of this historic issue. Our strategic relationship with OWS is in line with our philosophy of value creation. Following the launching of the Nigerian Green Bond Market Development Programme ably supported by FSD Africa in 2018, we at Comer- cio Partners have been driving the essence of impact investing and the strategic alliance with OneWattSolar marks a key milestone in the financing strategy of the Company. Therefore, the issuance of this hybrid Green Sukuk Bond was a good call towards reemphasizing our commitment in green financing.”

Akeem Oyewale, CEO of Marble Capital:

“Marble Capital is happy to have lent our shariah advisory competencies to the debut Green Sukuk issuance in Africa, and also grateful for the opportunity to expand Islamic finance asset offerings in the Nigerian market. The utilization of a sukuk in funding structures allows firms like OneWattSolar to tap into a growing asset class that is tried and tested globally. The focus of OWS as an environmentally conscious firm aligns with the principles of Maqosid Shariah and was instrumental in getting investors to the trans- action. We expect more corporate organisations to tap into this funding opportunity in the near term.”

Adedoyin Afun, Partner, Bloomfield LP:

“Advising on this landmark issuance is testament to our multi-disciplinary and inte- grated approach in providing excellent legal and regulatory support services. The depth of our capital markets, sustainable finance, Islamic finance and energy and natural re- sources practices formed the cornerstone of this transaction. We see this issuance as the beginning of many more sustainable financings in Nigeria.”

Evans Osano, Director, Capital Markets of Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSD Africa)

“We congratulate OneWattSolar on its green bond and green sukuk issuance and are delighted to be part of this journey. The issuance of this bond demonstrates the powerful role green finance can play in establishing a resilient low-carbon economy in Africa and forging a path out of the continent’s energy crisis.

“Greening finance is essential for unlocking sustainable growth. OneWattSolar has laid down a marker in this regard, demonstrating the tranformative potential of green Is- lamic finance—a part of the financial community that has always put social good at its heart.”

About OneWattSolar

OWS is a technology company that serves as a clean-tech aggregator of decentralized sustainable energy-as-a-service solutions and a digital payment and data fin-tech platform built on its blockchain architecture. The Company aims to deliver an inclusive and on-demand platform for businesses and people across Africa. OWS has been in operations for over 13 years.