Business
LCCI Wants Companies Act Amended
The Lagos Chamber of
Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the National Assembly to take necessary steps towards the amendment of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2004.
In a communiqué issued at the end of a stakeholders forum organised by the chamber recently in Lagos, LCCI advocated the creation of an inventive regime that would encourage voluntary listing on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).
The LCCI communiqué described as unconstitutional the private companies conversion and listing Bill before the National Assembly.
The chamber called upon members of the National Assembly to reject the bill that seeks to provide for the private companies whose shareholder fund exceed N40 billion or its annual turnover exceeds N80 billion or its total assets exceed N80 billion, to convert to a public liability company and get its shares listed on the stock market in order to promote the growth of birth, the company and the Nigerian Capital Market.
LCCI said the bill that had already scaled second reading at the House of Representatives contravenes the provisions of existing laws in Nigeria which encourages the right to own property, movable or immovable is well as the right against expropriation of private property as contemplated by section 44 of the 1999 Constitution as amended and section 25 of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Act 2004 respectively.
LCCI said the stakeholder forum was attended by representatives of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Private Sector including the multinational companies, stressing that at the end of forum, representative of the Stock Exchange posited that they agree to the tenets of the bill, but not in its current form and that it has sent representations to the National Assembly as to what they think the Bill should contain.
The communiqué said the other stakeholders were unanimous is to their rejection of the Bill in its entirety.