-Harps on Investors Education
By Yakubu LAAH InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)- Mournir Gwarzo, acting director general of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday said the commission has completed the rules on complaints management framework.
A statement from SEC said the Ag DG disclosed this in Abuja when he received members of the Fund Managers Association of Nigeria (FMAN) who paid him a courtesy visit.
“We have finished the rules on complaints management framework and very soon, it will be exposed. One of the highlights is to allow complaints to be managed at the lower level” he said.
According to him, the management of SEC is working to empower Self Regulatory Organisations (SROs) and trade organisations to enable them handle some complaints cases and deal with them with dispatch, “the strategy of the management is not to create committees but to focus on prescriptions and ensuring that they are executed within reasonable time frames,” he added.
“Fund management is close to our heart as it is directly under our purview. In dealing with others, we partner with other Self Regulatory Organisations (SROs),” he said.
On investors’ education, Gwarzo noted that one of the strategies of the new management is to embark on huge public enlightenment programme with other stakeholders to educate the investing public.
He emphasized on investors’ education both for retail and institutional to develop the market and improve the level of investment from the domestic side in the country.
Gwarzo affirmed that the commission is willing to collaborate with FMAN anytime they want to commence the enlightenment through the use of town hall meetings, radio jingles among others. “We are ready to put in money for market development and that is one of the cardinal objectives of this management,” he added.
On his part, Michael Adebola, president of FMAN said that Nigerians need to have a lot of understanding about what mutual funds is all about, “enlightenment will assist to boost the industry,” he affirmed.
Adebola promised that the association would work with the SEC on enlightenment of the investing public which he believes would translate into a bigger fund market in the country.
Gwarzo had disclosed that investment in mutual funds in Nigeria currently stands at N152 billion. “We have 52 funds in 10 different sectors with the largest being the equity based ones which presently stands at 45. Between 2008 and 2009, all we had invested in funds was about N19billion, but as at last week, we had N152billion,” he said.
