BY PETER EGWUATU

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has stated its readiness to firm up dematerialisation plans in the stock market transactions.

Director General of the SEC, Ms. Arunma Oteh, disclosed this after the Capital Market Committee (CMC) retreat held recently in Akwa Ibom, saying, “We are committed to addressing all of those things that will ensure efficiency. One of those things is to ensure that our dematerialisation plan is really firmed up. Dematerialisation started a few years ago.

“In fact, the CMC put together a committee led by Mr. Emeka Madubuike, the Chairman of Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria(ASHON), and they have presented every report to SEC on how we can make sure we firm up the issues of dematerialization.”

Dematerialisation is the process of ensuring that transactions in the stock market are paperless.

On the issue of technology, she said, “We want to make sure we leverage technology better. We at SEC need to accelerate our effort in technology. The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) is doing the same; they are working on a bigger robust platform for trading. The CSCS needs to do the same; and that we need to move to leveraging technology better at our market. And market operators need to do the same. And this is why there is a sub-committee on market infrastructure and technology.”

While commenting on capacity building in the capital market, Oteh said, “We feel that the capital market is one that is evolving all the time. That the issue of capacity is so critical and therefore for the regulator, we need to keep making the effort to enhance capacity for the capital market operators and for the investors. And we do feel that the knowledgeable investor is the first line of protection against any thing that is wrong in a market. Therefore, our investor outreach programme, we need to really enhance it and go on a very important public enlightenment campaign.”

The SEC boss further noted that the decline of new issues in the market was another challenge that needs to be addressed.

According to her, “We recognise that one of the things we must address is new issuance, whether it be fixed income or equities. In fact, this year we have had no new issuance except for rights issues by a number of companies. So we agreed that there has to be concerted effort to bring new issuance to the market.

“One piece of it is that we must make sure that the market is attractive enough for them to come to list. But the other aspect is that we must make sure that the Exchange is a reflection of the economy. And also we followed the discussion around the importance of having telecoms companies, upstream oil and gas, agro businesses to list on the Exchange.

“And to ensure that the privatization agenda of the government, particularly with reference to power sector allows us to have the privatized companies be listed on the Exchange. It is something that we agreed to work on as early as possible next year so that we can develop a road map for us to have new listings next year.”