Economy
International Lenders Warn on Capacity Constraints in Africa
By Dipo Olowookere
Global and African financial heads identified country risk as the biggest challenge to their ability to lend more to African countries. Speaking in Abidjan during a one-day forum on investment risks in Africa hosted by the African Trade Insurance Agency (ATI), experts acknowledged that the abundance of current liquidity in the market did nothing to alleviate the capacity constraints faced by most banks when doing business in Africa.
Lenders are bound by regulations that prevent them from lending significant amounts to sub-investment grade sovereigns, which is the case for most African countries.
Institutions such as ATI that can offer investment insurance can help to mitigate the risks and thereby bring added lending and investment capacity to African markets. Without an increased ceiling in limits, international lenders will continue to be constrained on the amounts they are able to lend both at the sovereign and corporate levels.
Experts attending the forum also noted positive movements in countries such as Ghana and Senegal for instance, which were recently put on positive watch by the rating agency S&P. This was largely based on the dividends anticipated from key infrastructure developments and investor-friendly policies. In Senegal, for example, the country has restructured its commercial laws, implemented a Public Private Partnership law that ensures all signed public contracts in the oil and gas sector are published and created a department of competition tasked with working hand in hand with investors.
Risk analysis experts at the conference cited Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Zimbabwe as countries to watch in the coming months based on strong reserves in Botswana, political transitions in the case of Ethiopia and Zimbabwe, a strategy to transform its economy into a services hub in the case of Rwanda, and creating an enabling environment to attract investors in the case of Côte d’Ivoire.
Most government representatives at the meeting also noted their countries efforts to ramp up value addition in the agriculture sector along with an emphasis on removing barriers to trade within the continent.
Jean-Louis Ekra, the former President of Afreximbank observed that Africa is in fact moving in a different direction than the current protectionist tendencies of Western countries. In contrast, Africa is uniting under the banner of the African Continental Free Trade Area, which will become the world’s largest trade area.
While participants agreed that the risk perception in Africa is typically greater than the on-the-ground reality, they also recognized that making Africa less risky would require a concerted focus aimed at improving the overall business environment in order to address the risks that do exist.
According to a recent Moody’s report, 40 to 50 percent of defaults in developing markets are directly linked to country risks. During the forum, panellists discussed low-cost solutions that could help countries reduce their risk including ensuring fair adherence to existing regulations.
“One of our roles at ATI is to educate governments to make them aware of the elements that international investors consider in their assessment of country risks. If countries are made aware that any drastic changes they make to legislation, for instance, could be a key political risk factor, they may make better choices and create more fertile environments for the private sector,” commented John Lentaigne, ATI’s Chief Underwriting Officer. He added that “a stable investment climate can be demonstrably and directly linked to growth.”
Despite Africa’s perceived risks, ECGC, India’s export credit agency and international broker, BPL Global, who have a combined $142 billion worth of exposures, noted a relatively low claims and reasonable recovery experience in Africa.
Out of BPL’s $42 billion in current exposures which is insured with international investment risk providers 8 billion of this exposure is in Africa, where the company has historically recorded USD230 million in claims of which $123 million has subsequently been recovered.
International lenders and insurers commented on the importance of ATI’s participation to make projects bankable through its preferred creditor status and relationships with African governments. This was seen as ATI’s core value proposition.
In his address to participants, Pierre Guislain the Vice-President responsible for Private Sector, Infrastructure and Industrialization of the African Development Bank noted the Bank’s commitment to transform the relationship with ATI into a strategic partnership that can leverage its reach and help countries accelerate regional integration.
ATI, a multilateral investment and trade credit insurer posted record results in 2017 for the sixth consecutive year with $10 million in profits representing a 55 percent increase over 2016 and $2.4 billion in gross exposures.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
The trading licence of Monument Securities and Finance Limited has been revoked by the regulatory arm of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Group Plc.
Known as NGX Regulations Limited (NGX Regco), the regulator said it took back the operating licence of the organisation after it shut down its operations.
The revocation of the licence was approved by Regulation and New Business Committee (RNBC) at its meeting held on September 24, 2025, a notice from the signed by the Head of Market Regulations at the agency, Chinedu Akamaka, said.
“This is to formally notify all trading license holders that the board of NGX Regulation Limited (NGX RegCo) has approved the decision of the Regulation and New Business Committee (RNBC)” in respect of Monument Securities and Finance Limited, a part of the disclosure stated.
Monument Securities and Finance Limited was earlier licensed to assist clients with the trading of stocks in the Nigerian capital market.
However, with the latest development, the firm is no longer authorised to perform this function.
Economy
NEITI Advocates Fiscal Discipline, Transparency as FG, States, LGs Get N6trn in Three Months
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has called for fiscal discipline and transparency as data showed that federal government, states, and local governments shared a whopping N6 trillion Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) disbursements in the third quarter of last year.
In its analysis of the FAAC Q3 2025 allocation, the body revealed that the federal government received N2.19 trillion, states received N1.97 trillion, and local governments received N1.45 trillion.
According to a statement by the Director of Communication and Stakeholders Management at NEITI, Mrs Obiageli Onuorah, the allocation indicated a historic rise in federation account receipts and distributions, explaining that year-on-year quarterly FAAC allocations in 2025 grew by 55.6 per cent compared with Q3 of 2024 while it more than doubling allocations over two years.
The report contained in the agency’s Quarterly Review noted that the N6 trillion included 13 per cent payments to derivative states. It also showed that statutory revenues accounted for 62 per cent of shared receipts, while Value Added Tax (VAT) was 34 per cent, and Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) and augmentation from non-oil excess revenue each accounted for 2 per cent, respectively.
The distribution to the 36 states comprised revenues from statutory sources, VAT, EMTL, and ecological funds. States also received additional N100 billion as augmentation from the non-oil excess revenue account.
The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr Sarkin Adar, called on the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) FAAC, the National Economic Council (NEC), the National Assembly, and state governments to act on the recommendations to strengthen transparency, accountability, and long-term fiscal sustainability.
“Though the Quarter 3 2025 FAAC results are encouraging, NEITI reiterates that the data presents an opportunity to the government to institutionalise prudent fiscal practices that will protect the gains that have been recorded so far in growing revenue and reduce vulnerability to commodity shocks.
“The Q3 2025 FAAC results are encouraging, but windfalls must be managed with discipline. Greater transparency, realistic budgeting, and stronger stabilisation mechanisms will ensure these resources deliver durable benefits for all Nigerians,” Mr Adar said.
NEITI urged the government at all levels to ensure the growth of Nigeria’s sovereign wealth and stabilisation capacity, by committing to regular transfers to the Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund and other related stabilisation mechanisms in line with the fiscal responsibility frameworks.
It further advised governments at all levels to adopt realistic budget benchmarks by setting more conservative and achievable crude oil production and price assumptions in the budget to reduce implementation gaps, deficit, and debt metrics.
This, it said, is in addition to accelerating revenue diversification by prioritising reforms that would attract investments into the mining sector, expedite legislation to modernise the Mineral and Mining Act, support reforms in the downstream petroleum sector, as well as the full implementation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to expand domestic refining and value addition.
By Aduragbemi Omiyale
Nigeria has been projected to record an economic growth rate of 4.4 per cent in 2026 by the World Bank Group, higher than the 3.7 per cent earlier predicted in June 2025.
In its 2026 Global Economic Prospects report released on Tuesday, the global lender also said the growth for next year for Nigeria is 4.4 per cent rather than the 3.8 per cent earlier projected.
As for the sub-Saharan African region, the economy is forecast to move up to 4.3 per cent this year and 4.5 per cent next year.
It stressed that growth in developing economies should slow to 4 per cent from 4.2 per cent in 2025 before rising to 4.1 per cent in 2027 as trade tensions ease, commodity prices stabilise, financial conditions improve, and investment flows strengthen.
In the report, it also noted that growth is expected to jump in low-income countries by 5.6 per cent due to stronger domestic demand, recovering exports, and moderating inflation.
As for the world economy, the bank said it is now 2.6 per cent and not 2.4 per cent due to growing resilience despite persistent trade tensions and policy uncertainty.
“The resilience reflects better-than-expected growth — especially in the United States, which accounts for about two-thirds of the upward revision to the forecast in 2026,” a part of the report stated.
“But economic dynamism and resilience cannot diverge for long without fracturing public finance and credit markets,” it noted.
World Bank also said, “Over the coming years, the world economy is set to grow slower than it did in the troubled 1990s — while carrying record levels of public and private debt.
“To avert stagnation and joblessness, governments in emerging and advanced economies must aggressively liberalise private investment and trade, rein in public consumption, and invest in new technologies and education.”
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