The Managing Director of DataPro Limited, Abimbola Adeseyoju, has called on the government at all levels to mandate its agencies to demand credit rating reports before committing government funds to any investment.

The move came amid the Federal Government’s plan to overturn a controversial judgment by a court in Paris, France, authorising a Chinese firm, Zhongfu International Investment FXE, to seize Nigeria’s assets.

While Adeseyoju advised the Nigerian government to mandate its agents not to invest in companies without credit rating reports, he said the government should borrow a leaf from the pension custodians, who were forbidden from investing in any entity that is not investment graded.

Adeseyoju, in an interview, said that although a statement by a former governor of Ogun State, Ibikunle Amosun, provided clarity on the business deal that went awry, a credit rating report would have exposed the shenanigans of the Chinese company.

DataPro boss said: “A credit rating report would have established the true position of the company currently causing Nigeria such a big international embarrassment. This is one of the duties of credit rating agencies.”
According to him, the sharp reduction in bank failures these days could be attributed to reliance on credit ratings by banks.

He added that even the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) would not commit any funds for the host communities to any investment without credit rating reports.

He said doing so would save the country from all sorts of embarrassment, like the case of Process & Industrial Developments Ltd. (P&ID) versus the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources and many other controversial agreements waiting to snowball into crises.

“Government should ensure that no agency enters into any agreement with any entity without getting a rating report, which will make available a quantitative and quality report on the entity. How could a state government have entered into an agreement which later turned out to be a scam?” he asked.