New private sector code of practice to capture 90% of Nigeria’s economy base

The Executive Secretary/CEO, Financial Reporting Council of Nigeria (FRCN), Daniel Asapokhai has stated that the new private sector code will cover about 80-90 per cent of the economic base of Nigeria.

Speaking at the Institute of Directors (IoD) Nigeria, June 2018 new member induction event with the theme: “The New National Code of Corporate Governance- A Framework for Good Practice” Asapokhai said the code of practice targeted primarily the private sector will be market-driven.

“In terms of the suspended code, it was release in three parts: for the private sector, public sector and not for profit and in terms of the strategic or the approach which the board adopted, we decided to do a phase implementation for dealing first with the private sector, so this is a private sector code that will cover about 80-90 per cent of the economic base of the country.

Once we are done with this, in the next couple of months we will now move to looking at the public sector and the not for profit sectors” he explained. 

He further revealed that the code was suspended in 2016 by the government due to stakeholders’ dissatisfaction but assured that the issues have been addressed and the new code will find greater acceptability in the public.

According to him, the code is a slightly complex topic, which the primary sanctions for people that fall short of the standards contained within the code, will be market-based penalties as the code represent standards of good corporate behaviours.

He however stressed that people might fall short for good reasons and the market will reward those who comply the best as there is a market base incentive system which makes it to be greater benefits to those who comply the most and achieve the standard.

“The code was suspended in 2016, when the code was suspended there were a number of issues which stakeholders raised with the previous code which led to the government suspending the code.

So from January this year, we have worked to look at the issue and if you listen to my presentations I went over the top ten of those issues and how we have dealt with them.

So we believe we have addressed most of those issues and this new code should find greater acceptability in the public.