The Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, said the lower chamber of the National Assembly may legislate to compel multinational oil, gas and telecommunication corporations to list a certain percentage of their value on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
The speaker said this when he received members of the Nigeria-United Kingdom Capital Market Project in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to him, there is no justification for the non-listing of multinational oil, gas and telecommunication companies on the NSE.
He commended the Memoranda of Understanding between the stock exchanges of UK and Nigeria. He said that big companies in the listed sectors must be compelled to list on the capital market in order to deepen the market and make capital available for investors and create employment.
“Apart from capital inflow sought, the market needs to be deepened, as most of the big International companies in Nigeria are not participating in the Nigerian Stock exchange.
“This is sad because these companies account for a huge percentage of revenues in oil, communication and energy,” Dogara said.
Speaking earlier, Aigboje Imoukhede, President, Nigeria Stock Exchange and co-Chairman Nigeria-U.K Capital Market Project, and Sir Rogers Gifford, who led the UK team, said the aim of the project was to increase capital flow.
“This is to ensure capital markets utilisation for mutual development.” He said Nigeria had been identified as one of the three exciting countries to work with saying, “a study is on to improve the market structure to attract more investors to expand the market.”
Imoukhede said that the Nigeria and U.K stock exchanges had signed MoU they hoped would be adhered to but that some aspects of their plan needed legislative actions to implement.
