Peter Egwuatu

After over one year and six months that Omatek Ventues Plc declared dividend for the financial year ended June 30, 2009, some of its shareholders are complaining of non receipts of their dividend warrants.

Investigations by Vanguard revealed that some publicly quoted companies are finding it hard to pay declared dividend following forceful repayment of loans from banks.

An aggrieved shareholder who spoke to Vanguard said  “ it seems that the reforms embarked upon recently by the Lamido Sanusi’s led Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in the banking sector is beginning to take its toll on quoted companies as Omakek cannot pay me dividend that it declared”.

Continuing, he said, “ I went to Afribank Registrar to request for my dividend only for them to tell me that Omatek has not funded its account. How do you expect us to pay you when  the company that declared the dividend has no money in its account with us?”
It would be recalled that shareholders of Omatek Ventures Plc approved a dividend of five kobo per ordinary share due to every shareholders of the company for the financial year ended June 30, 2009.

Omatek’s shareholders who thronged the company’s registrar, Afribank Registrar, told Vanguard that Omatek lied to them at the AGM that it was going to pay their dividend few days after the meeting.

Another  shareholder of the company, Mr. Godwin Chukwuwike, told Vanguard  that the shareholders are planning to take the company to court over the matter.

According to him, “I was at the AGM when we agreed and approved the 5 kobo dividend and since early December last year when the AGM was held we have not seen any thing. If they have told us that they are not giving us dividend it will be a different story.”

A senior official of Afribank Registrar who spoke to Vanguard on condition of anonymity, stated that the registrar have printed the dividend warrant but could not send them to shareholders because Omatek have refused to pay the cash equivalent to their account.
Meanwhile, the Group Managing Director, Omatek Ventures Plc, Mrs. Florence Seriki  had earlier refuted the alleged non payment of dividend.

According to her, “ we have paid our dividend to our shareholders . It is not true that we have not funded our account. Again, we are not owing any of our bankers . It is also not true that we used the money meant for dividend to pay Zenith Bank Plc as being insinuated.”

It should be noted that under the President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, banks were allowed to  fund companies under the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs).

But the policy reverse by the current CBN governor has forced banks to get back their loans from companies wanting to exit the SME scheme to pay back every kobo loaned to them in full.