By Modupe Gbadeyanka
Acting Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Mary Uduk, has advised investors to look into the capital market as an avenue to create wealth.
She said in Abuja on Tuesday that the space has the potential to minimise the drastic effects of the coronavirus pandemic ravaging the world and businesses at the moment.
“We must continue to make the best we can of the situation. As a regulator, we have put measures in place to ensure our market does not shut down, trade is presently going on at the various exchanges that make up our market.
“The Nigerian Stock Exchange is continuing with trading, the FMDQ and all the exchanges are actually continuing and everything is going well,” she said.
According to her, SEC ensured that the capital market remained active despite the lockdown because it wanted residents to continue to make money to sustain them in this period.
However, she noted that the pandemic, which led to a lockdown of three parts of the country for five weeks, has had a tremendous negative impact on Nigeria’s economy and lives of citizens.
But she urged Nigerians to remain resolute and explore opportunities available in the capital market, noting that, “We are leveraging technology to continue our activities. Initially, people were afraid that technology would have bad effects like loss of jobs, but right now it has become a saving grace.”
“So, most of us have put our Business Continuity Plans (BCP) in process. Staff are working, we are interacting with market operators who are also working, and our market is open.
“We released three circulars concerning actions against COVID-19. One of them was to request Capital Market Operators and organisations we regulate to send us reports on their Business Continuity Plans and processes (BCP) and as you can see the market has been trading as everyone activated their BCPs.
“We have also requested public companies to continue to send out information to ensure investors are informed. They are to give out information on how COVID–19 would affect them, and if possible, make forecasts and outlooks to let investors know how they expect the pandemic to affect their operations and profitability,” she added.
Ms Uduk stated that before the partial easing of the lockdown, both the SEC and stakeholders in the market were all working remotely adding that these were done in a bid to ensure there is no shut down.
She expressed satisfaction with the way the market is going during these challenging times and urged investors to continue to invest as the market is safe.
On investor confidence in this period of COVID-19, Ms Uduk said the commission has many measures in place to improve market confidence.
She described investor protection as one of the major mandates of the SEC which is viewed seriously knowing that investors will not come to the market in the absence of adequate protections for them.
“One of the ways we protect investors is the e-dividend system we have put in to ensure investors get their dividends directly.
“Dividends do not have to be routed through stockbrokers any longer. We also have the Direct Cash Settlement, Complaints Management Framework, Transmission of shares among others initiatives to protect investors.
“We also have continued to educate investors on how to approach the market, we have continued to ensure improvement of market conduct, and we are working to deepen the market to ensure there is improved confidence. We are optimistic that confidence in the market will continue to improve,” she said.
The SEC boss added that another form of investor protection the Commission continues to offer is to ensure that market conduct is at its best, as the SEC ensures that registered capital market operators treat investors fairly and obey the rules of the market.
