Business
Capital Market Stakeholders Seek Resolution To SEC Problems
Some stakeholders in the capital market last Friday urged the Federal Government to ensure speedy resolution of the management issues in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The stakeholders told the newsmen in Lagos that low investor confidence and regulatory challenges in the exchange would only abate by effective government management of the commission.
Malam Garba Kurfi, the Chief Executive Officer of APT Securities and Funds Ltd., said that regulatory activities of the market would remain inactive as long as SEC continued to operate without commissioners and a board.
“There is a limit to what an acting director-general can do when it comes to regulatory issues,” Kurfi said.
Mr Emma Ndidi, a stockbroker, said that government’s attitude and poor articulation of needed remedies in the capital market was discouraging to domestic and international investors.
Ndidi said that failure to resolve issues in SEC had made most investors to develop a lukewarm attitude to the nation’s portfolio investment.
Mr Boniface Okezie, President, Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN), said that the economy could only be salvaged if government demonstrated the political will to sanitise SEC.
Okezie also called for the overhaul of the nation’s financial regulatory framework to make it compatible with the dynamics of the Nigerian economy.
He said that policy inconsistency would continue to mar investors interest in the market, adding that it was disheartening that the market operates with two sitting directors-general.
Our correspondent that the former Director-General of the Commission, Ms Arunma Oteh was on June 12 mandated to proceed on compulsory leave, to give room for a probe of alleged financial misappropriation.