Business
Stakeholders Seek Action On Investors’ Complaints
Stakeholders in the
nation’s capital market at the weekend in Lagos urged relevant regulators to ensure transparency in handling investors’ complaints to restore the confidence in equities market.
They told newsmen that investors had shunned the capital market because of the regulators’ inability to respond to complaints.
Chief Executive Officer, Maxifund Investments and Securities Limited, Mr. Okechukwu Unegbu, said that market regulators should attend to investors’ complaints against the brokers, the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Unegbu said that some investors had lost confidence in the capital market due to failure of regulators to attend to their grievances, adding: “this has contributed to the general lull in the market.”
He added that market regulators should ensure transparency in all dealings with both stockbrokers and investors in order to boost the confidence in the market.
Unegbu also stressed the need for road show to educate the populace on the benefits of the capital market.
He advised the regulators to place less emphasis on foreign investors, adding: “restoration of local investors’ confidence is paramount to the growth of the nation’s capital market.”
According to him, the insurance sub-sector was the worst hit in the persistent market lull because of investors’ lack of interest and confidence in insurance equities.
The President, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN) Boniface Okezie told The Tide source that regulators should embark on sensitisation programme “to assure investors that it is no longer business as usual’’.
He explained that many investors were particularly discouraged from investing in the capital market because of nationalisation of Bank PHB, Spring Bank and Afribank, by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Secretary, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN)
The three nationalised banks are now called: Keystone, Enterprise and Mainstreet banks, respectively.
Also speaking, the Secretary Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN) Bayo Adeleke, told reporters that a change in attitude of market regulators would help in restoring investors confidence to the market.
He also stressed the need for SEC and NSE to organise a national conference for investors and stockbrokers to proffer a lasting solution to the downturn in the market.