ExxonMobil Official Rapes 14-year-old Girl

ON Monday, January 4, a 14-year-old girl, Chigozie (not real name), who had just been brought to Lagos from Enugu State two weeks before, to live with his uncle at Ajah area of Lagos, became a victim of one of the now common crimes in Lagos – child rape.

Chigozie’s case became a trend on social media as news broke that the alleged suspect in the crime, a high ranking official of Exxon Mobil in Lagos, Mr. James Onuoha, had been arrested by officials from the Zone 2 Police Headquarters, Onikan, Lagos.

Saturday PUNCH later got details of how the man allegedly took advantage of a child he had not met before in a mini-flat he let out to her uncle.

Chigozie said she was elated when her uncle told her he was bringing her to Lagos. It was still hard for the shy girl to speak about the rape.

Chigozie said she heard a knock on the gate of their compound at about 11am that Monday morning and when she went to check who it was, she met Onuoha at the gate, who told her that he was the landlord and was looking for her uncle.

She said, “I told him my uncle and aunty were not around and he said he would wait for them. I did not see anything wrong in that and I opened the gate for him to come in.

“My sister (her four-year-old cousin in fact) and I were watching cartoon. He sat down to watch with us. Later, he started to ask how old I was. When I told him, he asked if I wanted a job. I told him that my uncle had just brought me to Lagos to put me in school and that I did not want a job.

“He said he works in a big oil company and could get me a job if I wanted. I told him no. He later asked if I had a phone and what my phone number was. I told him I did not know my phone number by heart and he took my phone to look at it.”

Chigozie explained that, she stood up to go inside the room to arrange some things because she was no longer comfortable sitting and chatting with the man.

According to her, she found it curious that as soon as she stood up, the man followed her.

“He followed me into the room. He then opened the toilet of the master bedroom and looked inside there. He also checked inside the wardrobe. When I asked what he was looking for, he said he needed to be sure that I was not lying that my uncle and aunty were not around.

“After he was done, I waited for him to leave the room but he did not. He grabbed me and pushed me on the bed. When he realised that I was shouting, he took one of the pillows on the bed and used it to cover my face.”

All this happened in the presence of the four-year-old daughter of Chigozie’s uncle.

Chigozie said when Onuoha was done, he dropped N1,000 on the bed.

“He told me to use it to take care of myself. He said when he came back the following day, he would get me a better phone,” she said.

But the traumatised girl broke down in tears as the man exited the house.

Her uncle’s wife got home first and discovered what happened.

Chigozie’s uncle told our correspondent that when his wife got home and saw the girl crumbled on the floor and crying, she asked what was wrong and she got no answer from her as the girl cried uncontrollably.

He said, “I had earlier missed calls from my landlord and my wife. I was in the market at the time and could not call them back. When I had the chance, I called my wife and she asked if I had got a call from our landlord. I said no. She said she just got home and found my niece crying.

“When my wife asked her what was wrong and my niece could not explain, my daughter took her to the bedroom and started demonstrating what happened. My wife told me that my daughter lay on the bed and spread her legs. The girl stood up again then started making a humping motion and said ‘Landlord did like this and like this. That is what landlord did to Aunty…on your bed’. The little girl demonstrated everything that happened in her presence in the room.

“I was mad. I rushed home and still found my niece crying. Again, my daughter took me to the room and started to demonstrate ‘what landlord did to aunty’.”

The man said since he did not want to make any mistake that would scuttle their case, he instantly called a lawyer.

According to him, the lawyer told him he needed to get confirmation that the landlord was indeed in their house.

Chigozie’s uncle said, “I called my landlord and apologised to him that I missed his calls. I told him that I had been trying to call him so that we could negotiate when I would pay his outstanding rent.

“I owe him some months of rent and that was why he came to our house in the first place. He said that he was in my house when he was calling me and that even my wife was not around too.

“I apologised to him and said if he had told me that he was coming, I would have prepared for him. That was how I knew that my little girl was not lying that he was indeed at my house.”

Saturday PUNCH learnt that after the case was reported at the Langbasa Police Division, Ajah, Onuoha refused to report when he was summoned. He allegedly went to the Zone 2 Police Command to make a counter report against Chidera’s uncle.

A policeman at the Langbasa division said one of their colleagues at Zone 2 suddenly came and collected the case file, the report of the test conducted on the girl and every evidence relating to the case.

It would be recalled that THE PUNCH reported that the Management of Exxon Mobil had also reacted to the case.

A statement from one of the company’s spokespersons, stated, “Mobil Producing Nigeria, confirms that the police authorities notified it on January 11, 2016, of an alleged case of defilement brought against one of its personnel that is unrelated to his duties with the company.”

“The company has also assured the police of its full support on the investigations if required.”

Saturday PUNCH learnt that the Wale Babalakin Chambers has indicated interest in taking up Chigozie’s case pro bono.

A human rights activist, Ms. Sola Alamuti of the Nigeria Injustice Group, told our correspondent that she took the victim to the Mirabel Sexual Assault Referral Centre, Ikeja on Tuesday, where another round of tests and treatments were conducted on her.

Alamuti said she paid visit to the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, to seek his assurance that justice would be done on the matter. She said the CP later called the officials at Zone 2 in her presence and told them to produce Onuoha unfailingly to answer questions on the allegations against him or he would have to go arrest him personally.

For this reason, Onuoha was arrested on Wednesday.

Later, Alamuti said she went to Zone 2 along with a lawyer assigned to the girl’s case from the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender.

Saturday PUNCH learnt that Onuoha told the police that he indeed visited his tenant’s apartment and that he also searched the wardrobe and bedroom just to see if the girl’s uncle was in hiding.

When he was asked about the money, he was said to have admitted that he left N1,000 for the girl just as a gift and for no particular reason.

On Thursday, Saturday PUNCH learnt that Onuoha was arraigned before an Igbosere Chief Magistrate’s Court, Lagos on charges of child defilement. The case comes up for hearing again on February 23, 2016.

MTN Nigeria Consolidates Position With New Strategies

THE last few years has been a harrowing one for the largest network in Nigeria, MTN Nigeria, and one of such was the SIM card registration but while the crisis lingers, the company went ahead to acquire Visafone even in the amidst speculation that it is leaving Nigeria. However, not deterred the management had a media session with the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. Ferdi Moolman and Head of Regulatory and Corporate Affairs, Mrs. Amina Oyagbola during which new strategies to consolidate their position unveiled.

Few weeks ago, there were speculations that the telecoms industry was about to witness the exit of MTN Nigeria from the telecommunications industry in Nigeria. And that was because the company had gone through several challenges, one of which was the fine imposed on it following the SIM card registration crisis.

However, after a long silence, the largest network operator opted to opened up to the media on the true state of affairs of the company and the latest development at the Falomo House, corporate headquarters of the South Africa Company.

Two of its top management leaders, the new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Ferdi Moolman and Head of Regulatory and Corporate Affairs, Mrs. Amina Oyagbola were brought before a group of select journalist at the company’s boardroom to clear the air on some key issues concerning MTN Nigeria.

Oyagbola who has been with the company from inception while introducing the new boss of MTN Nigeria said that the reason for the meeting was to intimate the country that as ICT company, the brand wants to continue to be a development partner with the government and offer services that will not only improve the economy but have impact on the life of its subscribers through the best quality services that it offers.

Corroborating her, Moolman said it has put behind all the challenges of the past, and wants to open a new chapter with all its development partners, which also include government and its agencies.

He said that the first thing that it would want to is restore its relationship with the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, so that the industry could move forward.

It added that early resolution of the impasse is important for the telco as the total fine amounted to about 95 per cent of the Group’s total revenue for a year.

Beyond the SIM card registration, the company had before now had issues with the NCC over poor quality services and the inability of the operator to meet the key performance indicator set by stakeholders in the industry, which it was fined.

In resolving that problem, the operator did a holistic network modernisation across the country in 2011, which eventually resulted to optimum performance.

But then network hiccups, which could not be explained surfaced  Moolman noting that MTN had indeed made huge investment in network upgrade.

He said that as company it is disappointed sometimes some of its effort do not immediately achieve result due to size of the country, when compared with countries like the United Kingdom.

 “When we roll out the network ten years ago, the issue was to cover the whole country as best as we can, and instead of rolling out in the areas where we have best quality, we felt that we should cover the country”, he said.

According to him, though MTN has had technicians who drive around to monitor what is happening across the network, but then the geographical spread of the country is a challenge, and as such even after upgrade sites still go down simultaneously.

Moolman who replaced the first Nigeria Managing Director, Mr. Micheal Ikpoki following the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, SIM registration crisis that resulted to fining the company a whopping $5.2 billion said that the new team leadership at MTN Nigeria is open to honestly answer an questions put to across to it.

He admitted that there are several challenges in the telecoms industry in the country, and that for him it is not the challenges but the future prospect that the industry holds for MTN Nigeria.

One of such challenges he pointed out was the series of events that made MTN Nigeria to drag the NCC to court, which according to him would not strain the existing relationship them.

He made it clear that whatever the outcome of the court case, MTN would still hold the NCC in highest regard revealing that his company was prepared to go to any length to restore relationship with the NCC.

Similarly, describing NCC as most important stakeholder to MTN as far as the industry is concerned, Oyagbola said,”We have utmost respect for them. The approach of this new team is to correct where we have erred in the past, ensure good business relationship with all stakeholders in the industry. This begins with show of good faith; speaking the truth, to be able to restore and generate more goodwill.”

After leaving Nigeria many years ago, Moolman who described himself as a Lagos boy said that he was not sure of ever returning to the country but the turn of events in the country has brought him back saying that wherever any problem is in the services of MTN Nigeria, he is willing to fix it.

He was however quick to confess about the enormity of the fine, saying that part of the reasons MTN felt the court resolution was imperative, was that the fine amounted to about 95 per cent of the company’s total revenue for a year.

Moolman added that another challenge is the falling oil prices and fluctuating foreign exchange were having a negative impact on the ability of the company to import equipment from abroad.

“It is really disturbing and it has become more difficult to import equipment from abroad. These two issues of falling oil prices and fluctuating foreign exchange regime are serious issues, but we have confidence in the Central Bank of Nigeria’s (CBN) efforts to resolve the matter”, he said.

Moolman said going forward; MTN is positioning itself as full digital company playing deep in the broadband, broadcasting and digital content space in the information and communications technology sector.

“We would like to take this company from a telecom company to a people’s company so that people can communicate with each other, entertain themselves, something that people are proud to be part of”, he said.

The duo recall the Visafone transaction as an impetus of its abiding faith in the country, saying that it wants to use it to make broadband services available to all Nigerians wherever they are.

He said that the acquisition of Visafone was part of the MTN Nigeria broadband strategy to give Nigeria the best quality broadband services that will growing and boost internet access in the country.

Expressing concerned about the image impact that the SIM card registration exercise had created for the MTN, Moolman said it has commenced a complete re-registration of all its more than 63 million subscribers in Nigeria noting that a solid database of MTN’s subscribers was crucial to the next phase of the telecommunications revolution, especially in the area of broadband provisioning. 

ITU Predicts 66% Urban Migration By 2050

AS the world moves towards the smart city phenomenon, the International Telecommunications Union, ITU, an organ of the United Nations, has predicted that come 2050 an estimated 66 per cent of the world’s population will live in urban areas.

The ITU therefore called for international standards to help achieve smart-city ambitions noting that city leaders face a major challenge in the need to supply these populations with basic resources, such as safe food, clean water and sufficient energy, while ensuring overall economic, social and environmental sustainability.

Speaking during the launch of the first World Smart City online community, ITU Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao said that the Cities need to achieve substantial improvements in the efficiency with which they operate and use their resources saying that the new community aims to identify the top ‘pain points’ presenting challenges to city development.

“The development of Smart Sustainable Cities has become a key policy point to administrations around the world as well as to UN organisations,” said Zhao.

According to Zhao, the recognition of the potential of smart cities comes in parallel with recognition that building smartness into an existing city, or developing a smart city from the ground up, is a complex undertaking.

He called for improved cooperation and more integrated decision-making by a variety of city stakeholders and global standards bodies, such as ITU, IEC and ISO.

He explained that major efficiency improvements could be achieved by horizontally interconnecting individual systems such as energy, water, sanitation and waste management, transportation, security, environmental monitoring or weather intelligence.

However, he observed that a key challenge to this horizontal integration lies in the fact that many of today’s city systems originate from different suppliers and are maintained by various agencies, sometimes working in isolation adding that the interconnection of these systems, both physically and virtually, will demand standardised interfaces.

 

The community launch is part of the build-up to the first World Smart City Forum, organized by IEC in partnership with ISO and ITU. The Forum will be held in Singapore, co-located with the World Cities Summit.

 

Frans Vreeswijk, IEC General Secretary and CEO: “Cities are giant systems with countless subsystems. All of them depend on electricity and hardware to move people and things, collect data and exchange information. Already now, IEC work impacts all of them. More than ever before, many different organizations will need to collaborate to help make cities smarter; technology integration is a special challenge that requires partnerships and alliances. That’s what the online community and Forum is trying to achieve.” 

Kevin McKinley, Acting ISO Secretary-General: “Smart cities make sense: they waste less, offer better quality of life and ensure a brighter future for the next generation. But cities face many challenges in their quest to improve. ISO Standards help cities measure and improve their performance, for example with standards for city indicators, sustainable communities and city infrastructures. These Standards provide best practices and harmonized solutions that can be used everywhere, and allow city planners and decision-makers to benefit from global expertise.”

Chaesub Lee, Director of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau: “The information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure of a Smart City should ensure openness and interoperability, achieved by coordinated adherence to common standards. Smart cities will employ an abundance of technologies in the family of the Internet of Things (IoT) and standards will assist the harmonized implementation of IoT data and applications, contributing to the effective horizontal integration of a city’s subsystems. ITU collaboration with city leaders builds on the requirements of cities to develop standards that leverage IoT technologies to address urban-development challenges.”

ntel Revives NITEL With $1b , Begins Services In March

THE new owners of the moribund Nigerian Telecommunication Limited, NITEL, NATCOM Development and Investment Limited, will begin to offer voice and data services to Nigerians in March this year after investing about $1billion to resuscitate once blossoming national carrier.

Operating in the volatile telecoms sector with the brand name, ntel, the company said that it planned to employ 4,000 Nigerians before it rolls out its mobile lines, and 4G/LTE services for broadband users in the first quarter of the year.

The Chairman of NATCOM, Mr. Olatunde Ayeni, told the House of Representatives Joint Committees on Communication and Privatisation, that his company would begin a phased rollout from Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt before expanding to other parts of the country.

According to him, the initial financial bid was increased to $252.251 million from $221 million when juxtaposed with the liquidator's reserved price of $256 million.

 

 "NATCOM's full submission was duly made to NITEL/MTEL's liquidator and Nigeria's Bureau of Public Enterprises on November 7, 2014. NATCOM's submission was accompanied by a bid bond in the amount of $10 million as stipulated in the liquidator's RFP," he said.

He disclosed that $10 million had been spent on SAT-3 system, quarterly dues to the consortium, system expansion and upgrade since the acquisition, adding that the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had assigned another set of microwave frequency ranges to NATCOM upon request for N176.8 million, computed on the basis of 800 bases station network in the first instance.

Ayeni said NATCOM was requested to pay an additional N6.6 billion to bridge the shortfall of the value of the Naira to the Dollar from N168 to N197, after the payment of the first instalment of 30 per cent of the bid price within 14 days of approval by the National Council on Privatisation (NCP) and balance within the 90 days.

Group Managing Director, Teledom Group, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem said that NATCOM Consortium has a chance of surviving in already crowded telecom market in the country, urging them to focus on providing landline which is presently none existence in the country.

“We should remember that NITEL has telephone exchanges in almost all the local government across the country, although, some of the cable and switches may be obsolete they real estate, towers, racks and power cable are still useful ,” he said .

He called on the consortium to look towards providing Nigerians fibre to home service that can give people access to broadband and cable television.

Also, President, National Association of Telecommunications Subscribers of Nigeria, NATCOMMS, Mr Deolu Ogunbanjo said that NATCOM needs to concentrate more on providing landline service that also goes with broadband service noting that it is coming at a time when the policy guideline required for broadband penetration has been established by government.

Jovago Aligns With IMF On Gender Employment Elimination

ONLINE hotel booking portal, Jovago. Com has aligned with the thoughts of the International Monetary Fund, IMF that eliminating employment gender could boost gross domestic product of countries by five per cent.

Reacting to the recent call by the President of IMF, Christine Lagarde on gender elimination, Head of Human Resources at Jovago.com, Hilda Ato, said, “I think women in the global market at large need to be given the opportunity to become bigger decision makers.

The IMF leader had identified the greater participation of women in corporate leadership positions as key to unlocking the Nigeria's economic future.

Ato said that at Jovago, “we have come to find that once we focus on productivity, things like gender become insignificant and efficiency increases. If you look around we have more women than men working with us.”

Making reference to a recent study by the University of Leeds, she said that higher stock market activities were recorded where there were larger proportions of women on senior management teams.

While calling for a shift in corporate cultures, observed that another study found that businesses with a greater proportion of women on their boards outperformed rivals in terms of returns on invested capital, 66 per cent higher, returns on equity, 53 per cent higher, and sales, 42 per cent higher.

The President of the IMF said, “Empowering women is not just about fairness it also has macroeconomic benefits. For example, eliminating employment gender gaps could boost GDP by 5 per cent.”

While Nigeria struggles to overcome its economic issues, stakeholders are of the opinion that inadequate adoption of equal gender opportunities may be a factor hindering higher revenue growth and holistic operational processes in the nation's corporate sector.

According to a report released by the African Development Bank, AfDB, a third of African companies in its study have boards without a single woman on them.

As experts around the world seek government interventions in making the business environment more female-inclusive, pundits state that the enactment of policies which ensure 20-40 per cent participation of women at the executive levels of organizations holds the key to profitability.

Oracle Seeks Cloud Technology Experts From Nigeria

ORACLE is seeking for cloud technology experts from Nigeria fuel the growth of its cloud business. The recruitment drive, which will result to employment of 1,400 new cloud sales professionals, also covers countries from Europe, Middle East and other Africa countries.

 

According to the company, the personnel who will play a vital role in fuelling the growth of the company’s cloud business throughout the regions will be based in six locations: Amsterdam, Cairo and Dubai, Dublin, Malaga and Prague.

 

In addition to hiring the very best talent from the above locations, Oracle is looking for recruits with a range of experience from across the Europe, Middle East and Africa, EMEA, regions, from highly motivated sales professionals with two to three years’ experience to highly experienced senior sales professionals.

 

As well as increasing its cloud sales workforce Oracle will be investing in two new cloud sales centres in Amsterdam and Cairo and new state-of-the-art offices opening this year in Dubai, Dublin and Prague.

 

The in press statement said that the move to recruit 1,400 new cloud sales professionals into its EMEA inside sales operation follows a multi-billion dollar investment from Oracle in developing the most complete portfolio of cloud computing services.

 

President of Oracle,  Loic Le Guisquet said described the recruitment exercise as exciting times for Oracle saying that Oracle is extending its sales force to support its customers through their digital transformation.

 

“Starting today we are hiring 1,400 sharp, ambitious inside sales professionals across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. I want socially savvy, switched on individuals who can help customers respond to the digital imperative and make their businesses future proof”, he said.

He added that “We’re looking for people who want to be relevant to the biggest trends shaping business and technology. Anybody looking to make a real impact with their career in technology should come and join Oracle, The Cloud Company.”

 

The Oracle’s cloud technologies deliver everything from secure computing infrastructure to best-in-class enterprise cloud applications.

 

Oracle currently offers more than 600 different cloud applications which combined with its comprehensive on-premise hardware and software offering, creates the opportunity to help organisations seamlessly manage their overall enterprise computing environment while helping them transition to the cloud.

 

Over the past six months, Oracle has added nearly 1,500 new software as a service, SaaS customers and more than 2,100 platforms as a service, PaaS, customers.

 

 

MTN Nigeria Earns N190bn Profit in 2015

THE MTN Group has earned $955 million profit (N190 billion)  in annual profit after tax, from its Nigerian business for the year ending, 2015.

 

A statement from the company in South Africa said that the Profit after tax figure for MTN Nigeria for the period ended 31 December 2015 being quoted in the press article, is 190 billion naira ($955 million), which is within the current estimate.

 

MTN, which is the largest single network in Africa and in Nigeria had of recent being recording significant profit increase until it was fined $5.2 billion for failing to disconnect users of unregistered SIM cards.

 

The Group, which makes about 37 percent of its revenue from Nigeria, recently replaced the Nigerian managing director, with a South Africa following the crisis of the SIM card registration, and headed for the court seeking for redress over the enormity of the fine.

 

In 2014, MTN Nigeria revenue increased from N793.6billion in 2013 to N824.80 billion as at December 31, 2014 defying tough regulatory environment under which it operated as its subscriber base rose to 59.9 million whilst retaining the top spot in the 21 countries where the group operates.

 

According to MTN Group’s 2014 financial report Group subscription increased 7.5 per cent to 223.4 million with Iran having 44million, South Africa 28 million, Ghana 13.9 million, Ivory Coast 8 million, Cameroun 9.7 million, Syria 5.9 million, Sudan 9 million and Uganda 10.4 million.

 

The financial report showed that MTN Nigeria total revenue increased by 12.1 per cent or 3.7 per cent in constant-currency terms, below expectations, although MTN’s revenue market share remained stable.

 

On the other hand, data revenue grew strongly, increasing by 28.3 per cent to contribute 18.6 per cent of total revenue at year-end while the number of smartphones on its network increased 51.2 per cent to 9.3 million as at December 31, 2014.

 

Still in the name period, MTN Nigeria had reported first and second half revenues of N413.61 billion and N411.19 billion respectively while recording subscriber growth of 5.5 per cent yearly adding 1.5m in the fourth quarter 2014.

 

Also, the Group revenue grew by 6.4 per cent in the year largely the result of an increase of 12.1 per cent in MTN Nigeria’s revenue and a decline of 3.9 per cent in MTN South Africa’s revenue.

 

Following the announcement of the report, shares in MTN were up 0.8 percent at 121.50 rand by 1006 GMT, lagging a 1.4 percent rise in the JSE Top-40 index.

Stop Harassing Subscribers, FG Tells GSM Coy

THE Federal Government has ordered mobile network operators to stop harassing subscribers, particularly women wearing hijab as they strive to get their SIM card registered in compliance with the directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission.

The Minister of Communications, Barr Adebayo Shittu, who gave the warning in Ibadan at a stakeholders meeting said that decried the way and manner Nigerians, threatening to deal with erring companies henceforth.

Giving the warning through his Special Assistant on Media, Mr. Victor Oluwadamilare, said that the warning following compliant by telecoms subscribers across the country said that women in veil were being treated, sometimes humiliated, by the workers of telecommunications companies nationwide.

According to him, women in pudah dresses were required to remove their veil in public despite the requests by such women that a place should be provided out of public glare for only female officials to attend to them.

He added that “all entreaties failed but rather they were allegedly accused of being Boko Haram agents and they were refused registration after several altercations that ensued in some of the registration centres."

Shittu, who frowned at the development urged the telecommunications companies involved to accord maximum respects to Nigerian, particularly women by respecting their feminine nature and religious disposition saying that the Nigerian Constitution has guaranteed the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion of all citizens and that such right can never be violated by executive or administrative lawlessness and insensitivity.

The Minister noted that Nigerians deserve unreserved apologies from the concerned telecoms companies, saying that it is inhuman and unacceptable to treat Nigerians in a cruel manner, as it is a universal maxim that the rights of even minorities are respected worldwide.

He urged the telecommunications companies to train and retrain their workers of the rights and more civilized ways of treating their customers, adding that sanction may be applied against any erring company that refuse to comply with the policy of the Nigerian Government under the ‘Change Agenda' of President Muhammadu Buhari.

"The inhuman treatment meted out to Nigerians in tge course of the ongoing SIM registration exercise in the country, where subscribers were made to suffer untold hardships, mostly in the scorching sun and unbearable conditions are no longer acceptable," Shittu warned.

The Minister, while lamenting the lackadaisical attitude of the affected companies in the treatment of their subscribers, blamed their conduct on the years of impunity under which they had operated without any serious checks.

"If the experiences of any small country such as Rwanda are anything to go by, where operators play according to the rules and where infractions are usually met with stiff penalties, telecommunications companies in the country have to brace up or face or face the brunt of their inadequacies," he said.