Why SEC plans to empower trade groups, by Gwarzo

ACTING Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mounir Gwarzo has said that the Commission is empowering Trade Groups in the Nigerian capital market so that it can focus on its primary responsibilities of regulating and developing the market.

   Gwarzo who spoke when he received members of the Association of Assets Custodians of Nigeria (AACON) visited him in Abuja yesterday, commended the association for coming together to form an association saying that one of the agenda of the present management of the Commission was the empowerment of Trade Groups for greater and more effective role performance in the market. 

   He said; “As long as people come together to form groups, we will support them. That is why we have reviewed our complaints management framework to enable trade groups handle complaints and resolve them and that is better for the market.

   “The management is working to empower Self Regulatory Organisations (SROs) and Trade Organizations to enable them handle some complaints cases and deal with them with dispatch as the strategy of the management is not to create committees but to focus on prescriptions and ensuring that they are executed within reasonable time frames.

   “We are leveraging on making it mandatory for every registered operator to belong to a trade group. Some may not want to do so but that is a way of strengthening the trade groups, we are going to come up with that directive”.

   Gwarzo said the Commission has finalized the rules on complaints management framework with one of the highlights being to allow complaints to be managed at the lower levels. He therefore urged the custodians to be ready for the responsibility to be able to manage complaints effectively.

   The Presidnet of the AACON, Kemi Adewole stressed the need to creating conducive environment for foreign direct and portfolio investments with a view to deepening the Nigerian capital market.

   She commended the SEC on its regulatory role adding that her association will continue to manage foreign investors’ impression of the Nigerian market.

   “Our clients are about 90 percent of foreign investors that come into the country, so we are the first port of call most times and we feel it is important we also keep abreast with what is happening around us and with the market”.

According to her, Funds should not be idle and that is why you need a mutual party which is the role of the custodian. In our transactions in the market, we are mindful of costs and that is why we have tried to bring the costs as low as possible. We have also made it in such a way that co-operates will pay differently from retailers to encourage them.