Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has reiterated the federal government’s commitment to deepening the Nigerian capital market, through improved tax incentives and other policies that will boost investments.
The Minister disclosed this when she visited the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) on Monday for the closing gong and interactive session with stakeholders. She said government understood how important the important the capital market was to drive promised growth.
“We are committed to moving away from blunt and expensive fiscal incentives, like Import duty waivers or lengthy tax holidays that reward investors merely for their intention to invest.
“We will design, and implement targeted and more efficient fiscal incentives that reward investors after they have kept their promises to invest, create jobs, deepen our capital markets, and abide by applicable rules and regulations,” the Minister said.
Mrs Ahmed further said that with the recently signed Finance Act, the federal government will continue to complement every budget with a finance bill so as to improve and put in market reforms to create a conducive business environment for all investors.
The Minister also said the ministry would work the NSE to put policies in place that would enhance the growth of the market, noting that in the past, there have been collaborations between the FG and NSE.
She said that with the Finance Act of 2019, there have been some provisions that will help boost the market in areas of real estate investment schemes (REITS) and securities lending.
“Given the need to accelerate reforms to attract the capital available for real estate development across the continent, we have worked very closely with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), industry groups and the Capital Markets Master Plan Implementation Council for several years, to reform our tax laws.
“We have asked the NSE to continue to work with us so that we can encourage Nigerians to invest more in the Nigerian capital market.
“We have a lot of resources locally and we are working with the NSE to ensure we mobilise resources through the market. Any policy that government needs to put in place to enable the growth of the market, we will do that,” she said.
She further added that the government was seeking to bring the private sector into the fold in order to ensure that policies, as well as developmental programmes and projects, succeed in line with its development goals under the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and other economic policies.
On his part, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NSE, Mr Oscar Onyema expressed the pleasure of having the minister present at the exchange, saying the discussions they have had with her raises the chances of expanding incentives for investment in the capital markets.
“Over the past two months have shown some intent at tackling the nation’s challenges. In particular, we note the clauses in the Finance Act 2019 and how they better recognise the income generating status of micro, small and medium scale enterprises – thereby taxing them appropriately.” Mr Onyema said.
He added that in addition to capital raising efforts of government through innovative products such as the green bonds, the NSE has also developed a framework that supports the issuance, listing and trading of tax credits; in order to complement the road infrastructure development and refurbishment investment scheme.
