Stakeholders Harps on Enhanced Risk Management at Government, Banks

Nume Ekeghe

The Chairman Access Bank, Mrs. Ajoritsedere Awosika has advised that risk management practices should be upheld not just within the private sectors but a factor to be considered at the federal level when planning the federal budget.

This was also the opinion of the Chairman Board of Trustees, Risk Management Association of Nigeria (RIMAN) Ms. Folakemi Fatogbe who both spoke at RIMAN’s 21st annual conference where risk professionals gathered to discuss ‘Sustainable and Enterprise Risk Mangemegent:2022 and Beyond.’

Awosika said: “We look forward to a time in Nigeria, where the budget will be put to test by an organisation like RIMAN to de-risk the budget for the country in order to prefer solutions and to be very sensitive to those issues that go wrong.”

“Risk exists in all socio-economic matters, environment, governance, and so on. So, and when I you about budgetary I mean that the budget is the soul of the implementation and management of the people in getting specifics to be done for them. So in carrying out these activities, there are risks associated with them. So I’m saying, RIMAN should take a position where they partner with the government to monitor and evaluate and bring out the risk, negative or positive, the challenges and how to overcome them so that we’re able to get outcomes and impact that the budgets ab initio set out to achieve.”

On risk management practices for banks, she added: “The idea of sustainability certification should be taken very seriously by the banks. Access bank have it and also issues of risk management must be a fulcrum of looking at all the other areas in the bank not just credits, but in audits and other management issues. There are reputational risks because of actions or inactions. So you can see it’s all-encompassing, and that should be the order of the day towards good governance at the banking level or at the government level or the private sectors in any of the sectors wherever we need that.”

Fatogbe said: “Sustainability is very, very important right now because there’s so many things at risk. And sustainability is important because it talks about how institutions how countries can actually succeed and succeed for the majority of their people.”

President RIMAN, Mr Ezekiel Oseni speaking on the sidelines, said: “As we’re all aware that COVID-19 was a big challenge to businesses causing a lot of disruptions and we still expected more disruptions in the years ahead with the Internet of things and other emerging technologies. So, for businesses to be sustainable, we have to think ahead of time.”