The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Nigeria has reiterated its concern on proliferation of operators running illegal investment schemes in the country and described the ugly situation as undesirable in the nation’s investment space
Director General of the commission, Mr. Lamido Yuguda, who expressed the market regulator’s concern in a New Year Message in Abuja, restated the commitment of the commission to sustain its onslaught against promoters of such schemes in the country.
Yuguda disclosed that last year alone, the Commission sealed off four offices of such illegal operators that had defrauded innocent citizens of billions of Naira as part of its efforts to prevent illegal operators from operating in the investment space.
He expatiated: “The SEC has been fighting a serious war against Ponzi schemes, we have been alerting people. We have said that investors should only deal with registered operators that have the registration of the Commission, we have their list on the SEC website and we have always said that if you go to an operator or when an operator approaches you, you must confirm that he is a licensed operator with the SEC.
“We have our numbers on how to reach our offices in the zones and we have done a lot of sensitizations in terms of seminars, webinars all in an effort to discourage people from going to Ponzi schemes. Unfortunately, a lot of people continue to patronize this Ponzi schemes, we have had cases that have been reported to us, our enforcement department and the police unit have been on many of these cases trying to resolve the cases that have been reported to us.
“The Commission has also continued to employ its compliance tool to ensure that only fit and proper capital market operators practice in the market. This has resulted to an improved level of compliance with filing of prudential returns rising to 96% in 2022 compared with 81% in 2021”, Yuguda added
The regulator expressed optimism that based on the expected results of the various initiatives embarked on by the Commission in 2023, the capital market will experience uncommon development in securities issuance businesses, especially as it affects digital assets, commodities trading ecosystem, custodianship of assets, and Fintech, among others.
He elaborated: “With the implementation of the Revised Capital Market Master Plan, the Market will also witness renewed confidence expected to attract fresh investments from domestic and foreign investors.
“Although 2023 is an election year and market activities may typically slow down before and during the general elections, we are hopeful that the improved awareness and positive electioneering campaigns will lead to peaceful elections and a quick return to the pre-election levels of investment activities”, the SEC boss added.
Reflecting on some of the achievements of the Commission in 2022, Yuguda pointed out that on Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT), in order to comply with the requirements of both the GIABA Mutual Evaluation Report(MER) Follow-Up Process and the FATF International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) and to avoid Nigeria being placed on the FATF public grey list at the Plenary after the deadline in October, 2022, the Commission approved the Rules and Regulations of the Virtual Asset Service providers b. Amendments of the sector specific regulations to repeal the 2013 SEC AML/CFT Regulations and enactment of the 2022 AML/CFT Regulations.
Similarly, he explained that the Commission would pursue various initiatives, including Fintech sensitization programmes on Crowdfunding, adding that to further encourage developments in the Fintech space, the Commission resuscitated the Regulatory Incubation program during the year.
Giving an update on the Investments and Securities Bill (ISB) review, the SEC Director-General said the Commission presented the ISB to the National Assembly for its legislative consideration and a public hearing was successfully organised on September 20, 2022.
According to him, the Bill has passed through the 3rd reading at the House of Representatives in December, 2022, and will be presented to the Senate on resumption in January 2023 for its concurrence.
Yuguda expressed the hope that the Bill would be passed into law before the end of the 9th National Assembly.
He further projected that with less than six months to the end of the 9th National Assembly come June, 2023, the commission believed that the Investments and Securities Bill (ISB) would be passed in the coming months.
The market regulator further said that the ISB, if passed into law, would align the enabling Act with the realities and trends in capital market regulation and practice in Nigeria and globally.
Yuguda assured that the investing public that Commission would continue to provide extra support to the registered commodities trading platforms to complement government’s renewed diversification efforts in agriculture and continually engage the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON) in discussions in order to expedite action on the review, approval and publication of commodities standards.
