Senate Passes CAMA Amendment Bill

Deji Elumoye and Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Senate yesterday moved to boost investment in the country as it passed the Corporate and Allied Matters Act Amendment Bill, 2020.

The upper legislative chamber also referred a bill for an Act to repeal the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency Act 2004 to its committee on Aviation headed by Senator Smart Adeyemi for further legislative input.

The passage of the CAMA bill by the Senate was sequel to a clause-by-clause consideration of the bill in a committee of the whole.

Sponsor of the bill and Senate Leader, Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, had said with the passage of the bill the business landscape in Nigeria will be reorganised and liberated hitherto from the heavy constraints of several provisions in the Companies and Allied Matters Act 1990, responsible for obstructing modern business practices in the light of national and global business reforms.

The Bill also seeks to provide an efficient means of regulating businesses, minimise the compliance burden of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), enhance transparency and shareholder engagement, and promote a friendly business climate in Nigeria.

The bill will address the seeming stagnancy and primitive methods of doing business in Nigeria, essentially to meet up with the present international best practice as well as promote ease of doing business.

The introduction of model netting provisions in the Bill as a means of mitigating credit risks, according to Abdullahi, would promote financial stability and investor confidence in the Nigerian Financial Sector, and increase investor confidence in the Nigerian Financial Sector as well as all sectors of the economy.

Similarly, economic impact of the provisions of the Bill would ensure more business-friendly regulation for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

The amendment to CAMA is also expected to have the potential to increase activities of MSMEs, with the overall effect of growing the Nigerian economy in the process, providing more jobs and guaranteeing economic stability.

The Senate also yesterday considered the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency Bill, 2020.

The bill, which was also sponsored by the Senate Leader was enacted in Nigeria as a decree of the military government in 1999.

According to him, the Act took effect on May 26, 1999, and has remained in existence for over 20 years without being reviewed or amended.

He stressed that “since the establishment of the agency under the Act, significant changes and developments have taken place in the industry that necessitates review and amendment of the Act so as to bring the provisions up-to-date with the operational requirements of the Agency and dictates of the aviation industry.

“Also, the original text of NAMA Act as passed into law in 1999 had numerous misprints and errors that have resulted in ambiguities in certain provisions of the Act,” Senator Abdullahi said

The bill which passed through second reading at plenary was referred by Senate President Ahmad Lawan, to the Committee on Aviation for further legislative work within four weeks.