APM Terminals Apapa: Nigeria’s Tax Laws Incentivise Investment
The Chief Financial Officer of APM Terminals Nigeria, Courage Obadagbonyi, has said that Nigeria has great tax laws that incentivise investment.
Speaking as a panelist during a session on ‘Financing Maritime Assets - Ports and Shipyards’ at the just concluded Nigeria International Maritime Summit (NIMS) 2022, Obadagbonyi said, “I am of the school of thought that funding of viable infrastructural projects is not an issue in terms of availability of cash. There is a lot of private equity and multilateral funding available if the projects are well positioned and investors have line of sight to their payback. I think what we need to do is publicity and sell these projects to the right individuals with the right pockets. There are incentives that are available to investors in Nigeria.”
Speaking further, he said, “I think with more publicity and engagement with private stakeholders, a lot of some of these challenges that are bedevilling us with investing in port infrastructure can be fixed. For instance, we have great tax laws that incentivise investment in this country. Things like pioneer legislation, Infrastructure and Roads Tax Credit Program, which companies like MTN and Dangote have used to successfully build hundreds of kilometres of roads and bridges across the country can also be replicated in the ports. We also have great capital allowance provisions that encourage investors.”
He advised the federal government to embark on massive awareness campaign to further attract private capital to the nation’s seaports because, according to him, based on the latest data published by the Debt Management Office, the country’s debt profile currently stands at N42 trillion, which is about four times the country’s total revenue budget per annum. This, he said, makes the cost of borrowing more expensive.