Asset custodians and the Certified Financial Analysts Society of Nigeria have joined other stakeholders in the capital market to fault the new bill seeking to establish the Institute of Securities and Investment.

The asset custodians, under the aegis of the Association of Asset Custodians of Nigeria, and CSN  said that the bill violated the constitutional freedom of all practitioners in the market.

The bill seeking to replace the current Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers with the establishment of the CISI is being sponsored by the former Chairman, Senate Committee on Capital Market, Senator Ganiyu Solomon.

In a letter to the committee on Monday, the AACN said the bill violated the constitutional freedom of association by forcing practitioners in the market to  belong to an institute that was being sponsored by stockbrokers, with whom they did not have anything in common.

The letter said, “The law makes it an offence to operate in the market unless we belong to this institute being sponsored by a rival trade group. No major stakeholder was consulted by the CIS in lobbying for this bill that has significant implications on our survival and the well-being of the market.

“It violates the principle of fairness and fair play for a subset of the market to go behind everyone else and lobby for a bill that would force everybody in the market to come under its own umbrella without any discussion or consultation with those it seeks to appropriate.”

The association stated that the stockbrokers did not fully understand the market intricacies and challenges faced by the other trade groups that were specialists in their various fields in the market.

It added that CIS would not bring any value to those other bodies except to extract value by extorting membership fees from them.

“We do not know of any country in the world where a chartered institute is the same as institute that licenses stockbrokers, trustees, investment bankers, fund managers, custodians, registrars, among others, and that if we must pioneer that in Nigeria, it must be by consensus,” the body stated.

The CSN also  faulted the bill and asked the Senate committee on Capital Market to reject it as drafted.

It added that even with the criminal abuses that occurred within the stockbroking community in 2008 and 2009, which led to some CIS members being bailed out by the Federal Government, it was not aware of the institute  investigating or delisting any of its  members.

 ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…“We are not convinced that the CIS has any moral or technical right to play the role of a model or super self-regulating organisation over other organisations operating in the capital market. On the basis of the above, we hereby wish to reiterate our opposition to this bill”, the group declared.

Source: Punch (By Udeme Ekwere)