Stakeholders canvass Public Private Partnership to transform Abuja Commodities Exchange

Stakeholders, comprising the Technical Working Group set up by the Federal Government to develop a new road map for the revitalization of the Abuja Securities and Commodities Exchange, are exploring the possibility of a Public Private Partnership as part of strategies to make the Exchange a world-class institution.
The Managing Director, Abuja Securities and Commodities Exchange, Yusuf Abdulraman, disclosed this on the sidelines of the election of new executives of the Commodities Brokers Association of Nigeria in Abuja.
Abdulraman noted that the Technical Working Group has as members the Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, and other key ministers and heads of Departments and Agencies of the Federal Government such as the Ministers of Finance, National Planning, Communications Technology, Agriculture and Rural Development.
Others are the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Directors-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Bureau for Public Enterprises.
The TWG, he said, was currently working out modalities to revitalise the ASCE in order to enhance the country’s agricultural value chain.
Andulraman said: “The revitalization process started in 2011 and the initiative came from the Minister of Trade and Investment, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, who saw it as a key, common man project because he felt that if he could revitalise the Abuja Securities and Commodities Exchange, the Nigerian farmer will make more income from his farm produce.
“This will encourage more farmers to go to the farm and produce more agro commodities, which will ultimately enhance the Federal Government’s Agriculture Transformation Agenda.
“In order to achieve this, he (the minister) brought in experts from the Ethiopia Commodities Exchange and also sought the support of the World Bank. They came in and looked at what we have and then made proposals for which the minister had set up a committee known as the Technical Working Group.
“The recommendations of the experts were the subject of the recent meeting of the TWG in Abuja, recently. The TWG agreed that the revitalization project of ASCE must go on, but in order to get the full support and buy-in of the private sector and ensure adequate funding for the project, it was agreed that the entire capitalization of the project should involve both the public and private capital.”
Abdulraman said the TWG, however, agreed that private capital should be on the higher side so that the project could have less of public participation.
“So, Nigeria will soon have a Commodities Exchange which is predominantly financed by the private sector.”