By Adedapo Adesanya
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has disclosed that it has put in place initiatives to resolve the issue of over N126 billion worth of unclaimed dividends in the nation’s capital market.
According to the Acting Director-General of the SEC, Ms Mary Uduk, the commission would in 2020 initiate several strategies to address the issues of unclaimed dividends in the space.
In a statement released via the commission in Abuja, the issue of unclaimed dividends was described as a legacy matter because they started way back in the past.
Ms Uduk noted that currently, the major problem it faced has to do with identity management, which the capital market and other stakeholders were working to resolve.
“Right now, you will not get unclaimed dividends from new issues. Part of the problem of unclaimed dividend has to do with identity management, which we are doing all we can to educate the public on and engaging the various stakeholders to be able to get a lot of the information that we require.
“Since then, items like (BVN) has been added to help in identity management. The capital market is also taking advantage of it.
“The Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) and the registrars are working together to ensure that more information from the legacy shareholders are being collected to be able to update their information and get them to claim their dividends,” she said at an event in Abuja recently.
Ms Uduk disclosed that there had been several engagements with shareholders on the issue to ensure the matter was resolved, saying, “The registrars don’t have direct interface with shareholders, they deal directly with stockbrokers.
“But there is a committee comprising the SEC, the registrars, the stockbrokers, the issuing houses, the Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) and Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) working on that in addition to the e-dividend management committee.”
“The committee has come up with a resolution which was adopted at the last Capital Market Committee (CMC) meeting,” she added.
Ms Uduk revealed that part of the resolutions reached was that stock brokers will update information in respect of their clients, adding that it was also agreed that there will be no transaction in respect of any account that information is not updated and on the part of capital market operators they will be given a time frame within which to resolve all such issues.
Dipo Olowookere