The Nigerian Senate has pledged to collaborate closely with fiscal and monetary authorities to safeguard shareholders’ interests and bolster their capacity in business endeavors.
In pursuit of this objective, the upper legislative chamber has announced plans to review the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) to align it with the prevailing economic and business landscape in Nigeria.
Senator Mukhail Adetokunbo Abiru, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Insurance, and Other Financial Institutions, made this commitment during an interactive session with the board members of the Bank Directors Association of Nigeria (LTD/GTE), led by Chairman Mustafa Chike-Obi.
Responding to Chike-Obi’s insights regarding challenges confronting the banking industry, Senator Abiru underscored the pressing need to amend the CAMA Act to better reflect current realities.
Chike-Obi highlighted that the existing CAMA Act fails to ensure the independence of directors in companies, including banks, noting that independent directors in banks are outnumbered by “Executive Directors.”
“What we thought was that one-third of the non-executives should be independent, not one-third third of all the board members should be independent. So shareholders are complaining that we only have 3 seats on the board. Five are independent and the eight are Executives.”
Reacting, Abiru informed the Bank Directors that the Senate is currently amending the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation Act, NDIC and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Act.
He promised that the Senate Committee will also examine the current CAMA Act, with a view to bringing it in line with current realities.
“The administration informed us that they want a 1 trillion dollar economy within eight years, which we have endorsed. Part of that is that we have to raise more capital because the capital we have in banks today cannot support a 1 trillion dollar economy”.
