By NKIRUKA NNOROM

The Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, has said that it is taking steps to address the perceived dormancy in the corporate bonds market. The Acting Director General of SEC, Mr. Mounir Gwarzo, disclosed this while briefing of capital market correspondents at the end of the first quarter of 2015 Capital Market Committee, CMC meeting in Lagos.

He stated that members of the CMC are already considering suitable ways to revive that segment of the bonds market, hitherto dominated by the Federal Government Bonds. “We looked at the corporate bonds market, which has been quite dormant and we looked at ways to revive the market because it has always been dominated by the FGN bonds,” he said

Gwarzo also emphasized the need to revitalise the Commodities Exchange, saying that the committee mandated to chart ways to revive the Exchange has come up with a report, which implementation will soon commence.

According to him, “The house was very concerned by the fact that we do not have a very vibrant commodity exchange and we are happy with the new acting managing director, who has been in the system since the inception and she is very excited that she wants to get the exchange going.

“Happily enough, the market already has a committee and the committee has submitted an extensive report on the ways the exchange will be revived. So the house has mandated the Commodities Exchange to look at that report and where it needs any advice or intervention from the market, we will do so.”

Speaking on funding for Investment and Securities Tribunal, IST, the acting DG said, “We have a committee that is comprised of SEC, the Nigerian Stock Exchange, NSE and the Central Securities Clearing System, CSCS, on the funding of IST. In the first instance, we agreed that part of our fees should be ceded to IST; we all recognise the importance of IST to this market. It has played a very important role and it also play a role to the investors as well.

“So between the three organisations – SEC, NSE and CSCS, we have ceded some amount of fees that we pay to IST. But moving forward, we have made certain suggestions to IST. It is either they become part of the judiciary so that they will be funded from source or the market will find a way to incorporate them. For now, we think that with the little money we are giving them, we are empowering them to do their job.”

Commenting on the level of preparedness for take-off of the Investors’ Protection Fund, he admitted that the Fund could alleviate some of the fears investors have that stop them from investing in the market, saying, “SEC has taken a giant step in setting up the investors’ protection fund and some huge amount of money has also been set aside for the fund. The board of the IPF has almost been constituted. The names of the members have been drawn. What now remains is to constitute the board.”

“It has been agreed that one or two operators that have problems and have gone through our Administrative Proceedings Committee department will be beneficiaries of the IPF. What we are doing now is verification because immediately the IPF came on board; many people came up saying they have issues. So, immediately we finish our verifications, we should be able to pay some amount of money,” he added.