By Ify Onye InvestAdvocate

Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Isa Yuguda, Executive Governor of Bauchi State, North-Eastern Nigeria Thursday advocated a Zero tolerance Policy for infraction in the Nigerian Capital Market (NCM).

Governor Yuguda said this at the Business Hallmark Newspaper/Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) Public Policy Forum held in Lagos Nigeria.

“For Regulators, there is the need to ensure that there is Zero Tolerance policy on insider dealing and several other Market infringements” he said.

The Governor said on the part of Companies listed on the Nigeria’s Exchange, there were problems in the past on disclosures,

“On the part of companies, we  have problems of disclosure in the past; being an operator in the past, I know during our time, we operated very fairly; manipulation of records never happened. And full disclosure of all what we do in the Bank; we make sure that when the Regulators come; our records were available, our Financials are always very straightforward and transparent and we make sure that we don’t hide anything; so there must be full disclosure by Companies and to make sure that any Firm that does not abide by that, use your big stick and punish them accordingly” Governor Yuguda said.

The Governor said investors’ confidence can be restored if the Regulators ensure enforce of full disclosure and transparency by Companies operating in the Nation’s Capital market, “the need for Market liquidity and the deepening of the banking system must be seen by concerned authorities as imperative to development of the Market and the economy” he said.

According to him, the NSE which is now 50 years old has evolved to be the third largest Stock Exchange in Africa by Capitalisation and the largest Market in West Africa. “We all can recall that during the boom period between 2007-2008, the Market capitalisation of Equities grew to about N13 trillion with 212 listed Equities, and number of shares traded rose to about 18 billion” Yuguda affirmed.

He called on investor confidence and the need to restore Market confidence, “it is pertinent to mention that all hands must be on deck by both the public and private stakeholders to ensure that confidence is restored back to the Capital Market” he advised.