November 29, 2018
By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Uyo (INVESTADVOCATE)-Mary Uduk, acting director general, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday said the Commission is committed to develop the Nigerian Capital Market (NCM), and with its 101 initiatives, the Master Plan has the potential to expedite the implementation of the nation’s economic agenda.
Uduk said this in her keynote address at the SEC Journalists Academy 2018 in Uyo Akwa Ibom State with the theme, “Capital Market Master Plan: The Journey So Far”
“It is therefore our resolve to remain committed to developing our capital market in line with the 10-Year Master Plan. With 101 initiatives, the Master Plan has the potential to expedite the implementation of the nation’s economic agenda,” she said.
According to the SEC DG , the Master Plan 2015-2025 is in collaboration with other stakeholders to map out strategies to improve key areas especially investor protection and education, professionalism, product innovation, and for the expansion of the capital market’s role in Nigeria’s economy.
Uduk added that the Commission is still on the implementation process of several initiatives in addition to the above mentioned achievements.
“Amongst these are integration of the Nigerian Capital Market into the West African Capital Market Integration Program, establishment of National Savings Strategy, establishment of the Industry-Wide Technology Infrastructure, development of Sound Commodities Trading Ecosystem, demutualisation of the Nigerian Stock Exchanges, promoting New Listings, infusion of Capital Market Studies into School Curriculum, among others,” she noted.
The SEC DG said the market was highly concentrated and dominated by the banking sector which constituted 60 percent of the market as at 2003 to 2007. “15 out of 20 most capitalised companies were banks. Risk management and corporate governance was not developed enough to support the fast growth thereby leading to inappropriate market behavior and abuse of margin lending,” she affirmed.
According to Uduk, the SEC corporate governance scorecard was equally developed and implemented with the aim of measuring level of compliance of the Commission’s corporate governance codes and encourage better governance practices by public companies.
Other achievements of the Commission the acting DG said are the de-materialisation of share certificates. “For instance, we have ensured that all share certificates are fully de-materialised. This is to say that physical share certificates are now fully converted into electronic form in Nigeria. This initiative has further enhanced the market efficiency and transparency.
