The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has reiterated its commitments to continue to strive and fulfil its mandates of protecting investors and creating an enabling environment for market stakeholders. The Director General Lamido Yuguda, disclosed this to financial journalist during the post Capital Market Committee (CMC) meeting in Abuja.
Just as he disclosed that stiff penalties will be meted out to any stakeholder whose action appears to frustrate the efforts of the Commission on the issue of unclaimed dividend in the market. While urging all stakeholders to continue to work towards reducing the volume of unclaimed dividends.
He noted that in spite of its efforts in the implementation of the Electronic Dividend Mandate Management System (eDMMS), investors have continued to lament the delayed payments of e-dividend and the cumbersome manual process among other shortcomings.
Pointing out that a large number of investors are still unaware of the eDMMS and have not mandated their accounts. “The Commission will however continue to create awareness in this regard. Capital market operators must also do more to demonstrate, through their activities, an efficient capital market that prioritizes the interests of investors”.
on the issue of fraudulent activities of unregistered investment crowdfunding platforms, he warned the operators of such platforms that they stand the risk of being prosecuted. “The Commission has an existing regulatory framework that permits private companies with the required structure and mechanism to raise capital from the public through crowdfunding. All crowdfunding platforms must register with the Commission”.
Commenting on the Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council (CAMMIC), he explained that the revised Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan (2021 -2025) which was submitted to the Honourable Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, will be launching it at the next CMC meeting in November 2022.
