Council of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) Tuesday called on the Federal Government to partner the capital market for projects funding, noting that orthodox monetary institutions alone cannot sustain the funding of government projects.
Oluwaseyin Abe, president/chairman of the Council, who made the call after a visit to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House, Abuja, said efforts should be made to improve the capital market so as to provide financial resource for the funding of several government projects.
Since the fall of the (capital) market in 2008, we realised that the retail investors ran away from the market, “which is why our market wakes up and falls every now and then,” Abe said.
He said the body had realised that funding of government activities would not be sustained by the orthodox monetary institutions, such as the banks, as “most of these (public) projects are long term in nature and that is what capital market is meant to achieve rather than the money market.’’
Abe told journalists, after the meeting, that as part of the discussion with government, the body was anticipating the registration of more companies on the capital market, the participation of the stockbrokers as well as the entire capital market community in financing some of the government projects.
“And if you do this we can enrich and deepen the depth of the market in general. The market is not there and so we need to evolve policies that will involve everybody, especially the retail aspect of the market: the regulators, the operators; we must all work together to achieve this.
“We have seen that the government is refocusing the economy entirely from oil to other areas. So this cuts across people in the commodity exchange, the stock exchange, the OTC (Over-the-Counter) market, the bond market and so everybody must work in the same direction to make sure that we have a very formidable market,’’ he said.
He said the visit of the group was to inform the vice president of the readiness of the capital market community to work and partner the government to develop the capital market, especially its local content.
He added that already the impacts of the foreign investors had been much and there was a need to deepen the retail investment aspect of the market.
