The Managing Director of the Ministry of Finance Incorporated, Dr. Armstrong Takang, has said that many of Nigeria’s corporate assets are not paying dividends.
Takang said this at the launch of the 2023 Nigerian Banking Sector Report, by Afrinvest West Africa, in Lagos recently.
The MOFI boss, who represented the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of Economy, Wale Edun, said, “While we depend on external sources, we must take steps for domestic resource moblisation. A few months ago, we had a meeting with the World Bank President and he gave us three messages, one of those was that we needed to be proactive and deliberate about domestic resource mobilisation because it is very expensive to raise capital from abroad, whereas we have resources at home that we can mobilise. We have a plethora of resources across different asset classes that have been lying moribund for years.
“Many of our corporate assets have not been paying dividends. We have significant real estate both at home and abroad that is not yielding any revenue for us. They are not even being used. The utility value is very low. That has to change.”
He went on to add that Nigerian assets in the oil and gas sector had been performing optimally and called for a renewal of focus and strategy to harness its potential.
“We have oil and gas assets which have been performing sub-optimally for decades. Licenses were given to people 10-15 years ago and they have not invested a dime in developing those assets whereas you have other investors that are looking to invest in those assets. We need to go back and determine how best to optimise those assets to deliver value. It will be cheaper for us than relying on external borrowing.”
In August, MOFI held several engagements with capital market stakeholders as it sought to achieve its vision of increasing the value of Assets Under Management from N18tn to N100tn in 10 years.
Speaking to stockbrokers at the Nigerian Exchange Limited, Takang said, “We have come to collaborate with the entire stakeholders in the capital market, from the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, CIS, Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria, NGX and stockbrokers, to see how we can revive the moribund government assets and list them on the stock exchanges in a more transparent manner that will lead to transformation and create value to the economy.”
