The Senate has raised the alarm over the reported insolvency of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as the capital market regulator declared deficit of N9 billion in three years.

It also expressed concern over the special salary structure being enjoyed by the senior management staff of SEC. The upper legislative chamber’s Joint Committees on Finance, National Planning, Petroleum Upstream, Downstream and Gas chaired by Senator Adeola Olamilekan, made the observation yesterday, during an interactive session with revenue generating agencies where the Director General of the SEC, Lamido Yuguda, made a presentation.

According to the document submitted to the Committee by SEC DG, in 2019, the agency recorded N2.9 billion deficit while in 2020, it recorded deficit of N4.3 billion and as at June 2021, the agency has already recorded deficit of N1.7 billion bringing the total deficit from 2019 to 2021 to N9 billion.

Worried about the development, the Committee Chairman drew the attention of his colleagues to the personnel cost of the Commission which has remained on the high side in the last two years. He said:” This budget gives us a wrong impression about SEC. You are a regulator to businesses that are making money, but you aren’t making money.