Strong ethics critical to generating FDI, says Fehintola

For the nation to generate more Foreign Direct Investments (FDIs), and also encourage local investors, the President, CFA Society of Nigeria, Banji Fehintola, has stressed the need to build strong ethical awareness. Speaking at the 2019 CFA Society Nigeria Ethics Challenge, in Lagos recently, he noted that ethics and trust go hand in hand.

According to him, strong ethics and high standards of professional conduct play a vital role in the integrity and ongoing success of the investment industry. Ethics, he said, is what you do when no one is watching, and there is a need to build ethical awareness.

“For instance, the capital market exist for a reason and when you talk about the capital market, there are people who have surplus money somewhere and they want to invest it, there are people somewhere who needs money because they want to run a business.

“The only way we can connect the surplus and deficit together is to have a capital market intermediating in between them and those markets have to function properly for people to trust them.

“The problem is when markets don’t function because people don’t trust the market, people who have surplus money never go to the market,” he said.
Similarly, Chair, Business Ethics, University of Lagos, Adeola Asabia, said the programme was sponsored by First Bank, to improve transparency and ethics in the market place, and to give confidence to local and foreign investors.

Over 16 universities participated in this year’s edition, where the top three universities were Covenant University, Obafemi Awolowo University, and University of Lagos. The first competition started in 2016, with two universities competing against each other, seven universities in 2017, and 15 in 2018. Through this competition, scholarship and mentorship opportunities have been provided.