The Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has urged the Investments and Securities Tribunal (IST), to devise better processes that investors could follow in filing cases at the tribunal.
Okonjo-Iweala, gave the advice at the Capital Market Stakeholders’ forum held in Abuja. The forum’s 10th Anniversary had the theme: “Sanitising Nigeria’s Capital Market and Bringing Justice to the Doorsteps of the People’’, while the minister was represented by the Director of International Relations, Mr. Haruna Mohammed. “In this age of Internet and cashless policy, there must be a way to simplify the filling requirement as currently described at the IST Website.
“Such that the burden of filling of at least 17 copies of a process is reduced and making payment much easy. “Why is this important? Getting it right with small investor will certainly boost the confidence of bigger and more sophisticated investors coming before the tribunal.’’
Okonjo-Iweala said that an institution such as IST could not be strengthened if it was not tested with both small and big cases. She stressed the need for the tribunal to rise to the challenge of a growing economy as investments and commercial activities continued to rise in the country.
“The ever growing amount of investments to and in Nigeria, the drive by the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) and the potential of the pension funds in the coming years, amongst others, will bring a lot of work to IST and the IST has to be ready.
“As the economy expands and continues its growth trajectory, as the NSE becomes successful in getting more companies to list and raise capital through IPOs and rights issues, there is a potential that these activities will spur one kind of dispute or the other. ‘The IST will have to develop and maintain a strong reputation for dealing with small cases firmly and then transparently in order to be looked upon as an institution that can handle much more complicated cases and bring justice to the doorsteps of Nigerians.’’
The minister noted that Nigeria was among the top 20 global destinations for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Africa’s first destination in the last two years. According to her, in 2012, the United Nations’ World Investment Report said that Nigeria received 8.9 billion dollars (about N1.4 trillion) on FDI which was the largest in Africa.
-Vanguardngr
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