Perhaps alluding to missed opportunities in past exercises that ended of shortchanging Nigeria and Nigerians, stakeholders want the Federal Government to assign more active roles for the nation’s capital market when privatizing any public assets in the future.
It has been noted that the nation’s capital market ought to have been far bigger, more robust and diversified than it is today, if the government had allowed to play more significant roles in the sale of telecommunication licences and the unbundling of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PCHN). Analysts believe the government erred by not inserting provisions that a portion of the various assets by sold to the Nigerian public and the companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE)
Rising from the 2017 Budget Seminar on the theme: “The 2017 Budget of Growth and Recovery: Relevance, Implications and Perspectives of the Nigerian Capital Market,” participants urged Abuja to identify such ailing public assets that can be turned around post-privatization to free its scarce resources that would instead fund capital projects like infrastructure.
In a communiqué of the seminar held on February 9 and released on Friday, participants also urged the Federal Government to “set specific timelines to identify the assets to be sold and ensure that the capital market is given a much more active role to play in the process of privatization.”
This, they believe, “would create efficiency as scarce resources being committed to manage these assets can be freed up and channeled to critical sectors of the (nation’s) economy.”
The communiqué also noted that the 2017 Appropriation Bill for N7.298tr now before the National Assembly for ratification, which contains staggering funding gap of N2.36 trillion, offers an opportunity “more than ever before for the capital market to support the mobilisation and deployment of resources to fund the budget deficit.”
The roundtable that drew participation of major stakeholders in the capital market, the communiqué continued, was organized by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of efforts to “enable the capital market more effectively support the process and to contribute to the actualization of the budget once it is ratified.”
Proceeds from borrowing, the roundtable also agreed, should not be spent on recurrent expenditure, but instead “tied strictly to capital projects such as infrastructure with potential to stimulate economic recovery and sustainable growth.
“An important way to help the economy grow and achieve inclusive development is for all stakeholders to contribute to the promotion of locally produced goods as alternatives to imports.”
Also, while commending the progress made in the promotion of agriculture as a veritable alternative to imports, the gathering called for setting up and promotion of a virile commodities exchange system “for price regulation and avoidance of post-harvest losses due to lack of markets.”
Read full communique: