By MICHAEL EBOH

The National Assembly has promised to assist the capital market in restoring investor confidence in the market and sustain improvement being witnessed in the market in recent times.

Speaking at the Capital Market Committee (CMC) meeting held at Securities and Exchange, SEC, Lagos, the leadership of the national assembly promised to be part of confidence building efforts in the stock market.

Specifically, Mr. Herman Hembe, Chairman of the House Committee  on Capital Market, promised that the house will help the capital market in ensuring sustained growth in the market.

He said, “We are very happy with what we are seeing here today and we, on our part, will do whatever is necessary to support the capital market.”

Chairman, Senate Committee on Capital market, Senator Ayo Adeseun, represented by the Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Sammy Efetia also disclosed that the various confidence building strategies recently embarked upon by the new management at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has started to yield positive results as the market performance on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) has been on the increase in recent times.

According to him, apart from the NSE All-Share index which went up drastically in the last two weeks, the market capitalization which was around N6 trillion has went up to N7 trillion in the period while volumes of share traded upon in the period also increased.

Market operators at the meeting, linked the performance to a number of reasons, including the new posture and actions taken by the new management of the Commission.

These, according to them, include the recent registration meeting the commission held in Lagos, timely treatment of requests being made to the commission and various meetings the new management held with various stakeholders in the market

For instance Emeka Madubike, President Association of Stockbroking Houses Owners of Nigeria (ASHON) said if sustained, the confidence build posture of the new team in the Commission will surely put the market on the part of growth.

“You can see the atmosphere of the meeting. It is very friendly, open, people are freer to express themselves and this will result in positive ways to move the market forward. The Acting Director General is also very positive because he knows where shoes pinches” Madubuke declared.

“The issue of Registration in Lagos is also a big plus for the Acting DG, Ibrahim Bolaji Bello. This is what we have been advocating for because it is means of reducing cost of getting more operators into the market and also mark us meet some regulatory requirements.

“In fact, his initial steps are very good and we hope he sustains it. It is impact positively on the market. The market is all of us and unless we work together, it may be difficult to sustain improved performance. The more you and us mentality, the worse we shall be but when we try to build the gaps like he is doing now, the market will grow”

Corroborating him, Tunde Ayeni, Managing Director, Union Registrar, said we have a new SEC. We are happy. When you take someone who knows the market, you get the type of what we are getting here today. This is not academic but practical and we are really impressed and the impact will be glaring very soon” he declared.

Earlier, the Director General of the NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema in his report said the NSE has met with the new leadership at the Commission and has started to enjoy some of the posture of the leadership and asked that the trend be continued.

“This will create sustainable growth in wealth” he explained as he added that the NSE now gets prompt response to its request from SEC. Kyari Abba Bukar, Managing Director/CEO of the Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) said the type of interaction with the SEC was what he has been looking for in the past.

“The importance of this interaction cannot be over emphasized and we are very happy over it”. The CMC meeting is a quarterly meeting of SEC in which operators and the regulators in the market parley to move market forward.