Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, says the determination of President Muhammadu Buhari to entrench transparence and accountability in the country’s oil and gas industry is being achieved.
Dr. Kachikwu made the submission at a conference held for Credit Managers in Lagos which was organised by the Institute of Credit Administration, ICA. He noted that the maintenance of good credit history in the numerous projects in the sector was an indication that transparency and accountability was finally being entrenched there for steady growth.
According to the Minister, whose address was read by the President of the ICA and Chairman of the Council, Dr. Adetunji Oyebanji, “The credit management performance of the Nigerian oil and gas industry has been noteworthy, with numerous projects in the petroleum value chain attaining completion without incidents of liquidity issues. As Mr. President would always allude, the constant improvement of Nigeria is mandatory. To improve our credit management performance, the entire value chain, from due process, diligence of the borrower to credit funding, credit utilization and repayment, must be analyzed in detail”.
Dr. Kachikwu said that in order to sustain the good record, lenders should exhibit high level of professionalism in granting loans for financing oil and gas projects, which will also avoid incidents of bad loans that destabilize the economy.
In his lecture at the forum, a credit and financial management consultant, Mr. Felix Aremo, urged financial institutions to always apply best practices in granting credits in a bid to check corruption and bring stability to the economic system. In his words, “A competitive economy affords everyone the opportunity to have access to good things of life, subject to one’s income. Buy today – pay tomorrow, puts everyone’s integrity on trial. Similarly, businesses that extend credit to their customers with good credit control and management culture tend to grow faster, expand and enjoy higher turnover in terms of repeat sale which means the production machines will never stop”.
Given the situation where debt has been identified as the major setback to the growth of the Credit industry, the Registrar of the ICA, Professor Chris Onalo announced a plan by credit managers in Nigeria to devote the month of April every year to campaign on the need for people and organisations including governments to pay their debts.
Prof. Onalo said government should lead the way in paying debts owed financial institutions. “Institutions, governments and individuals should improve on the way they pay their debts and eventually the economy will be better”, he argued.
