AN ASSESSMENT OF FEDERAL TAX POLICY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The contribution of taxation to any economy internationally cannot be over stresses. Aside from the income function it performs for the administration, it is additionally used to help the national government accomplish the macroeconomic goals in the area of financial and money related arrangements. The part of taxation in advancing economy development is not felt, mostly as a result of feasible proof which can't be seen by the people in terms of framework and fundamental amenities. Accordingly, the aim of this study is to look at the government tax strategy and economic development in Nigeria. Time series data were applied in carrying out the research work, simple and multiple linear regression was used to analyze and test the research hypotheses, the findings uncovered that value added tax, Company Income Tax and Petroleum Profit Tax have a positive significance with total national output while custom and excise duty have a negative significance with GDP. However generally speaking a significant relationship exists between value added tax, Company Income Tax, Petroleum Profit Tax and custom and excise duty. We suggest that among others that the requirement for the legislature to make prudent exploit of income produced for the advantages of Nigerians, and among others the requirement for tax changes to address the issue of tax avoidance and evasion. And the overall population ought to be taught appropriately from the grassroots on the significance of tax to the whole national advancement

Effective Staff Relationships as An Impetus for Growth in 21st Century Church

Effective staff relationships is a stimulus to church developmental growth in all facets of church life. It is expedient that each church and religious organizations should imbibe because of its benefits that cannot be overemphasized. This paper considers the necessity of staff relationships for growth in the 21st Century church by exploring into the biblical perspective of staff relationships. The necessity of staff relationships was also consider, such as it enhances mutual encouragement both personal and spiritual; it facilitates and improve the workforce; it promotes growth in all facets; teamwork, delegation and supervision are enhanced; it is problem-solving; it is enjoyable and broaden staff understanding, and building a Christlike attitude and relationships are not exempted. The possible challenges in staff relationships were also considered, such as staining, denting and destroying each other reputation and integrity. Mistrust and lack of sincere commitment among staff members. Inattentive to staff voices, preferential treatment and rivalry. Lack of recognition, motivation and appreciation of staff. The unconducive atmosphere and lack of openness and the spirit of cooperation. Excessive use of power and social stratification; and unforgiving spirit. The paper concludes that staff relationships are inevitable in contemporary churches and religious organizations. Healthy staff relationships should be built and encouraged for efficiency, growth, productivity and fulfilment of the primary purpose of multi-staff both between the volunteer staff members, non-ministerial staff and ministerial staff. Keywords: Effective, Staff Relationships, Impetus, Growth DOI: 10.7176/JPCR/48-02 Publication date:March 31st 2020

Development of a Motorized Hydraulic Press for Sesame (Sesamum indicum L.) Oil Expression

Sesame oil is edible and of high economic and medicinal potentials. However, its expression from the seeds is still largely done manually which is tedious and inefficient. The few imported mechanical oil presses are prone to incessant breakdown and costly. A motorized hydraulic press for sesame oil expression was designed, fabricated and tested. The major components of the machine include a hydraulic cylinder, hydraulic pump, two-way control valves, heater band with temperature controller, stopper plate, electric motor and the frame. Paste of ground sesame seeds wrapped in a cheese cloth was forced against a stopper end plate on the expression barrel whose temperature is controlled in order to get the oil expressed out. The machine performance was evaluated using two levels of seed conditions (roasted (RS) and unroasted (URS)) at three levels of moisture contents (6, 9 and 12% wet basis) and four levels of temperature (70, 80, 90 and 100ºC). The performance indicators investigated included: throughput capacity, percentage oil yield, percentage expression efficiency and cake recovery efficiency. Results of tests showed that the highest percentage oil yield of 33.3% was recorded when sesame seed was roasted, milled and pressed at a moisture content of 6% and expression temperature of 90ºC.  Also the highest expression efficiency was recorded as 69.4% when the seed was roasted, milled and pressed at a moisture content of 6% and temperature of 90ºC. The highest cake recovery was recorded as 74% when the sesame seed was milled without roasting at a moisture content of 12% and temperature of 70ºC. The oil press would assist in the growth of indigenous edible oil production industry

Thermal Modelling for A Pilot Scale Pyrolytic Furnace for Production of Carbon Black

Carbon black (CB) is a very important material useful for various modern applications. There are a lot of attention currently on the extraction of a form of CB obtainable from waste tyres which is usually referred to as pyrolytic Carbon black (CBp). The authors investigated the pyrolysis process of a pyrolytic furnace built for the production of CBp using the thermal numerical principles to standardise the application. SolidWorks@ Flow Simulation software was used to replicate the process by supplying the initial conditions, the boundary conditions and the operating conditions guided by the numerical analysis. The simulated behaviour of the furnace was validated by the real-life experiments performed to produce CBp from the waste tyre

Optimised intake stroke analysis for flat and dome head pistons

This research exerts are suitable for the automobile industry in understanding the performance characteristics optioned between flat head and dome head pistons in engine design. This study was carried out to analyze the optimization parameters for effective and efficient flow characteristics of air-fuel mixture at the intake port of the combustion chamber of an internal combustion engine. A unique and industrial standard CFD software, STAR-CCM V8, was used to model both geometry for flat head and dome head pistons which was developed with precise dimensions of a 1.8L gasoline engine. A planar 3-D model approach was adopted for simplified static CAD modeling and also to reduce the solver processing time. The piston models were meshed using tetrahedral mesh of base size 0.001m. The boundary and physics conditions were applied to simulate the actual intake stroke process for normal operating conditions and initial conditions. The extracted results were validate and comparisons developed to analyze the various optimization parameters for performance characteristics of the two pistons.Keywords: optimized intake stroke, CFD analysis, flat and dome head pistons, internal combustion engine, CAD modellin

DETERMINANTS OF FIRMS’ PERFORMANCE IN THE NIGERIAN HYDROCARBON INDUSTRY: DOES INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL MATTER?

This study adopts the Pulic (2002) VAICTM approach as a measure of intellectual capital, to examine the role of intellectual capital in the financial performance of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria. With the aid of panel analysis framework, it was found that aggregated composites of intellectual capital (VAIC) perform less satisfactorily in influencing the financial performance of firms in the oil and gas industry. However, when VAICTM was disaggregated into human, relational, and structural capital efficiency, it was discovered that the positive effect of human capital on the financial performance of these firms was cancelled out by the negative effect of structural capital. However, the relational capital efficiency that could have improved the financial performance of these firms has no significant impact on these firms’ performance and, as such, is ultimately responsible for the insignificant overall effect of intellectual capital (VAIC) on the financial performance of firms in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. One of the implications of these findings is that these firms place much emphasis on human assets and neglect intangible assets such as processes, patents, copyright, research and development, customer care, etc. Also, the current structural capital of the firms in this industry constitutes a drag on their financial performance. Thus, serious attention should be placed on the effective management of firms’ relational and structural capital efficiency in order to ensure a better financial return

Omission of Triple Bottom Line Reporting: Cause of Corporate Entities’ Environmental Neglect in Nigeria

The study critically looked into the ways in which social and environmental provisions in Nigeria can be improved upon and the body that should be socially responsible. Is it the government or the corporate entities? This paper selected six companies that are quoted in Nigeria Stock Exchange, taking two from each sector, and examined the content and quality of the concerns demonstrated in their 2013 Annual Report and Accounts for Social and environmental issues in Nigeria. Special attention was placed on the similarities or differences among the companies in their social and environmental care. This paper discovered that social and environmental issues in Nigeria had been grossly neglected by the corporate entities. They hardly reported on it in their annual reports. Even where there was reported on the social and environmental issues, it is always in the Chairman’s speech. The main conclusion of this paper is that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is an integral part of the new business model and that it is increasingly recognized that the role of the business sector is critical. As a part of society, it is in business’ interest to contribute to addressing common problems. Strategically speaking, business can only flourish when the communities and ecosystems in which they operate are healthy

Dividend Policy and Shareholders’ Wealth in Nigerian Quoted Banks

In 2008, the global financial meltdown was partly responsible for the bearish movement of stock prices in the Nigerian Stock Exchange. This shows that more than a single factor could be responsible for the movement of prices of quoted stocks. Company performance and information about the introduction of new technologies are among the factors that have significantly affected the market value of shares in the past. Therefore, this paper examines empirically, the implications of adopted dividend policies on the value of shareholders’ wealth and the extent to which dividend policy affects the market value of shares in quoted banks in Nigeria. The paper focuses on the situation before and after the financial meltdown. Correlation results of dividend paid in 2007-2010 and their corresponding market value showed that payment of dividend by quoted banks is relevant to their market value and the amount paid as dividend affects the value of their share. The paper also provides insight into the implications and effect’s of policy decisions as it affects dividend payout and dividend retained for further growth on shareholders’ wealth

Advanced Safety Methodology for Risk Management of Petroleum Refinery Operations

Petroleum refineries are important facilities for refining petroleum products that provide the primary source of energy for domestic and industrial consumption globally. Petroleum refinery operations provide significant contribution to global economic growth. Petroleum refineries are complex, multifaceted systems that perform multiple phase operations characterized by a high level of risk. Evidence based major accidents that have occurred within the last three decades in the petroleum refineries, around the world, indicates losses estimated in billions of US dollars. Many of these accidents are catastrophes, which have led to the disruption of petroleum refinery operations. These accidents have resulted in production loss, asset damage, environmental damage, fatalities and injuries. However, the foremost issue analysed in literatures in relation to major accidents in petroleum refineries, is the lack of robust risk assessment and resourceful risk management approaches to identify and assess major accident risks, in order to prevent or mitigate them from escalating to an accident. Thus, it is exceptionally critical to readdress the issue of petroleum refinery risk management with the development of a more dependable, adaptable and holistic risk modelling framework for major accident risks investigation. In this thesis, a proactive framework for advanced risk management to analyse and mitigate the disruption risks of petroleum refinery operations is presented. In this research, various risk elements and their attributes that can interact to cause the disruption of PRPU operations were identified and analysed, in order to determine their criticality levels. This thesis shows that the convergent effect of the interactions between the risk elements and their attributes can lead to the disruption of petroleum refinery operations. In the scheme of the study, Fuzzy Linguistic Preference Relation (FLPR), Fuzzy Evidential Reasoning (FER) and Fuzzy Bayesian Network (FBN) methodologies were proposed and implemented to evaluate the criticality of the risk elements and their attributes and to analyse the risk level of PRPU operations. Also, AHP-fuzzy VIKOR methodology was utilised for decision modelling to determine the optimal strategy for the risk management of the most significant risk elements’ attributes that can interact to cause the disruption of PRPU operations. The methodologies proposed and implemented in this research can be utilised in the petroleum refining industry, to analyse complex risk scenarios where there is incomplete information concerning risk events or where the probability of risk events is uncertain. The result of the analysis conducted in this research to determine the risk level of petroleum refinery operations can be utilised by risk assessors and decision makers as a threshold value for decision making in order to mitigate the disruption risk of PRPU operations. The decision strategies formulated in this thesis based on robust literature review and expert contributions, contributes to knowledge in terms of the risk management of petroleum refinery operations. The result of the evaluation and ranking of the risk elements and their attributes can provide salient risk information to duty holders and decision makers to improve their perceptions, in order to prioritise resources for risk management of the most critical attributes of the risk elements. Overall, the methodologies applied in this thesis, can be tailored to be utilised as a quantitative risk assessment tool, by risk managers and decision analysts in the petroleum refining industry for enhancement risk assessment processes where available information can sometimes be vague or incomplete for risk analysis