Nigeria Content Online

The Federal Government yesterday
announced the establishment of three new special commercial courts to
help in the enforcement of contracts in the country.

Minister of Finance, Segun Aganga, who
announced this yesterday in Abuja at the opening of the 51st Annual
Conference of the Nigerian Economic Society (NES), said the new courts,
which became operational in the last three weeks, would help expedite
the dispute resolution processes, to allow banks to begin lending to the
real economy.

Besides, the minister said government
has already submitted to the National Assembly amendments to some
existing laws that impede business transactions in the country, which
include the Evidence Act, Bankruptcy Act, and Land Use Reform Act.

“The problem has always been that even
when the banks decide to lend to individuals who have collaterals, it
was always difficult for them to have access to such collaterals, either
because some investors would go to the court and get injunction to
restrain them, or that some of our legal instruments are outdated.
Therefore, banks often cite this as reason for not lending for the
growth of the real economy,” he said.

The minister, who was reviewing
government efforts to grow the country’s real economy and bring
transformation to Nigerians, said apart from the establishment of an
Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) to help remove some of
the toxic assets in the banks and fund their balance sheets to make it
easier for them to lend, government is also setting up a Sovereign
Wealth Fund (SWF) with about $1billion capital to reduce the
vulnerability of the economy to external shocks.

He also said government, with the aid of
the World Bank, is in the process of establishing a sovereign asset and
liability risk management unit, as well as partial risk guarantees for
private sector power generators, under which individual independent
power providers (IPPs) would be required to obtain political risk
insurance to mitigate the political and termination risks in their
operations.

Recalling a recent global
competitiveness survey by World Economic Forum (WEF), which ranked
Nigeria 127th out of 133 countries considered, he said WEF officials
have been invited to visit the country within the next two or three
weeks to work with government to identify the reasons for this poor
ranking; show what other countries have done to improve their rankings;
and what Nigeria needs to do to improve its ranking.

The WEF report had noted that investors
and stakeholders in various sectors of the country’s economy lacked
constant and reliable supply of electricity, while the country was
having massive infrastructure deficit as well as health and
training/education challenges.

“We can no longer ignore some of these
reports. Whether we agree with them or not, it is important that we
continue to learn from what we are doing internally, and what others are
doing. That way, we can become one of the world’s top 20 economies,
which we all aspire to become by 2020,” Mr. Aganga said.

Head of the civil service of the
federation, Stephen Oronsaye, who noted government’s determination to
achieve macro-economic stability in the country, said there has been a
genuine effort to raise the standard of living of the people, as well as
put the economy on the path of sound growth and sustainable
development.

The theme of the conference was ‘Distortions in the Nigerian economy: Implications for Sustainable Development.’