BY  PROVIDENCE OBUH
Following the 2011 code of corporate governance introduced by the Securities and Exchange Commission( SEC), the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administration of Nigeria ICSAN has called on all regulatory authorities  to ensure adequate infrastructures are put in place to enhance compliance.

Company Secretary/Legal Adviser UAC of Nigeria Plc Mr. Godwin Samuel made the call during the Institute’s Lagos Chapter Annual Business Meeting.

Samuel stated “Our regulatory authorities should ensure that the business environment is conducive enough in terms of adequate infrastructures and other metrics before importing rules and regulations from the advanced world”.

He explained that the SEC code which was officially launched by SEC on Monday March, 2011    will require companies to come up with certain new policies, processes, procedures and reporting. Explaining further, he lamented that compliance risk is a major topic in contemporary discourse stating that the framework for compliance is statutory, regulatory and ethical.

According to him “most of the rules in recent times by SEC have the potential or capacity to increase the cost of doing business, divert businesses from their core operations to devoting a greater part of their resources to regulatory compliance issues and make companies to consider delisting from the stock exchange in order to free themselves from the adverse effects of over-regulation.”

In order to prevent the enactment of business unfriendly laws, he advised trade associations, groups and professional bodies to collaborate and adopt a robust, active and well articulated lobbying and engagement strategy with the Government, regulatory bodies and the legislature from all fonts.

He said “I here recommend that all the trade groups, professional bodies and associations whose operations and members are affected by the activities of regulatory bodies devise a proactive intelligence mechanism of anticipating and interrogating the rules and policies in order to make their inputs into them before they are published for comments”

‘What I advocate is a greater collaboration by all professional bodies in the operating environment speaking with one voice on issues under the aegis of an umbrella association such as the Association of Professional; Bodies of Nigeria ”he said.