Investors can expect a much simpler means of making transactions – Yuguda

Chinwendu Obienyi
Investors can expect a much easier and simpler way of making transactions as well as protection of their investments in the capital market.
The Director- General, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Lamido Yuguda, stated this during a briefing with newsmen in Lagos at the weekend during the first virtual Capital Market Committee (CMC) meeting organised by the commission.
This is even as he revealed that various trade-groups have supported the efforts of the Financial Literacy Technical Committee (FLTC) with the sum of N78.3 million in which N34.7 million had been spent to infuse capital market education into the curriculum of Basic and Secondary schools.
Yuguda noted that the mode of transactions in the capital market had been complicated due to the number of processes to get shares and added that this has not yielded huge investments in the market.
“From the point of parting with your money to the point of getting the money in form of dividend or as proceeds from the sale of stocks bought, the process is extremely complicated. For many people, that complication is a long tunnel because they do not want to go through that process and you will agree with me that along that line, a lot of things happen.
For example, people part away with their money and never get any shares while others get shares but the shares become worthless at some point and so there are a lot of things that we need to do to simplify transactions in the capital market”, he said.
He further revealed that the SEC is working legally to close the loopholes in the market to protect investors from falling victims to certain operators who have capitalised on the holes to dupe investors of their money.
According to him, implementing the Capital Market Master Plan (CMMP) is topmost priority under the new regime.
“This is a plan that has been designed for 10 years and our tenure is coming exactly halfway into the plan which is 2020-2025 and so expect a vigorous implementation of the Master Plan so that the Nigerian capital market can move to the next level. Advocacy is very important as the COVID-19 pandemic has really shown us how far we are lagging compared to other countries who also use the capital market to develop structures we all travel outside to enjoy.
There ought to be a right policy environment that can promote the development of this type of centers that can attract investments. We will work with the government and other agencies to ensure that the policy environment is conducive for infrastructural development”., the SEC DG said.