Eight months to the end of the December 31, 2019 deadline, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), at the weekend urged investors to take advantage of the extension granted to regularize their multiple share subscriptions and get the benefits of their investments.
Addressing at a meeting with capital market stakeholders in Abuja at the weekend, acting Director General of the commission, Ms. Mary Uduk noted that some measure of success has so far been recorded in the area with some Nigerian investors in diaspora consolidating their shareholding accounts.
“Similarly, several local investors with numerous accounts have also been able to consolidate their investments,” she added, urging the general public to take advantage of the “initiative to regularize their shareholding accounts before the December 31, 2019 deadline.”
At the meeting, the Acting DG also announced plans to align its 10-Year Capital Market Master Plan with current realities on macroeconomic, political and market development fronts.
She explained that 66 of the over 90 initiatives outlined in the Capital Market Master Plan have commenced, of which 13 have been successfully completed, while 55 others are at various stages of implementation.
Expressing hope that many of them will be concluded before the end of the year, the Acting DG listed some of the concluded initiatives as the dematerialization of shares, recapitalization of capital market operators, setting up of a National Investment Protection Fund and the establishment of the West African Securities Regulators Association among others.
Other achievements include the e-dividend mandate and Direct Cash Settlement,
Roadmap on commodities ecosystem, new listing, financial literacy, law reviews, non-interest capital market products among several of the initiative that you have collectively worked on.
Commending the capital market stakeholders for their cooperation and support, she stressed that the commission has approved the rules on Green Bonds, and would in the nearest future introduce the rules on derivatives trading which she said are necessary to move the market forward.
The Acting DG said the implementation of the 10 Year Capital Market Master Plan commenced in earnest under the guidance of the Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council Chaired by Mr. Olutola Mobolurin and have made great strides in its implementation efforts.
Uduk said the SEC and market stakeholders have taken up the initiatives outlined in the Master Plan document in a systematic manner while also painstakingly engaging with the government, its agencies and other critical stakeholders whose support and collaboration is required to achieve the objectives outlined in the plan.
According to her, “all of these would not have been possible without your support, cooperation and collaboration. We are indeed grateful to the different committees through which a lot of the work on these initiatives has been carried out. It would have been impossible without your commitment of time, energy and resources; your drive and focus.
“I want to recognize that the work that has been done by CAMMIC and indeed the key players in the capital market directly and contribute to the development of not only the Nigerian capital market but the financial system at large.”
She said the commission appreciates the tremendous support and collaboration it has received from market operators and various stakeholders in the capital market adding that the partnership has advanced the collective aspiration to accelerate the growth of the market and contribute to the development of the nation’s economy.
Recall that the Securities and Exchange Commission launched a 10 year Capital Market Masterplan in November 2014. The Commission at that time believed that having just emerged from a bubble that negatively impacted the performance and confidence in the Nigerian capital market, it was expedient to come up with a market-wide strategic blueprint that would among other things restore investor confidence, deepen the market, accelerate the growth of the capital market and help catalyse the emergence of Nigeria as a top 20 global economy.