The Securities and exchange Commission (SEC) on Sunday disclosed that out of the over 90 initiatives outlined in the 10-Year Capital Market Master Plan, 66 initiatives had been flagged off since year 2015 with 13 of them completed so far.
The Acting Director General of the SEC, Ms. Mary Uduk was quoted in a statement as making this disclosure while commending stakeholders in the capital market for their cooperation and support for the commission in the implementation of the initiatives over the past years.
Uduk listed some of the concluded initiatives as including, the de-materialization of shares, re-capitalisation of capital market operators, setting up of a National Investment Protection Fund and the establishment of the West African Securities Regulators Association, among others.
This is even as she confirmed that 55 initiatives were at various stages of implementation and expressed the hope that many of them would be concluded before the end of this year.
The Director General stated that some of the achievements recorded so far included the e-dividend mandate, direct cash settlement, roadmap on commodities ecosystem, new listing, financial literacy, law reviews, non-interest capital market products among several of the initiative that you have collectively worked on.
She maintained that the implementation of the 10 Year Capital Market Master Plan commenced a few years ago under the guidance of the Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council chaired by Mr. Olutola Mobolurin, adding that the council has made great strides in its implementation efforts.
Uduk noted that the SEC and market stakeholders had taken up the initiatives outlined in the Master Plan document in a systematic manner while also painstakingly engaging with the government, its agencies and other critical stakeholders whose support and collaboration is required to achieve the objectives outlined in the Plan.
She explained: “All of these would not have been possible without your support, cooperation and collaboration. We are indeed grateful to the different committees through which a lot of the work on these initiatives has been carried out. It would have been impossible without your commitment of time, energy and resources; your drive and focus.
“I want to recognise that the work that has been done by CAMMIC and indeed the key players in the capital market directly and contribute to the development of not only the Nigerian capital market but the financial system at large”, the Director General added.
She expressed the Commission’s appreciation to market operators and other stakeholders for the support and collaboration it has received so far, adding that the partnership has advanced the collective aspiration to accelerate the growth of the market and contribute to the development of the nation’s economy.
The SEC launched a 10-Year Capital Market Master Plan in November 2014.
The Commission at that time believed that having just emerged from a bubble that negatively impacted the performance and confidence in the Nigerian capital market, it was expedient to come up with a market wide strategic blueprint that would among other things restore investor confidence, deepen the market, accelerate the growth of the capital market and help catalyse the emergence of Nigeria as a top 20 global economy.
