FG pledges support to reposition capital Market

• Market needs to be 10 times bigger in the next decade – Expert

The federal government has said it would strengthen the Securities and Exchange Commission to reposition Nigeria’s capital market to be at par with its peers globally.

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed made the commitment in Abuja, Monday, when she received the Revised Nigerian Capital Market Master Plan (2021-2025).

The plan was submitted to the minister by the Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council (CAMMIC) led by the Director General of SEC, Lamido Yuguda and other top officials of the commission.

The minister said the review of the Capital Market Master Plan underscores the fact that capital market growth resonates with the current administration’s unwavering commitment to deepening and re-positioning the country’s financial markets as a key anchor to achieving a private sector-led development of the economy as encapsulated in the National Development Plan objectives.

Ahmed commended the Securities and Exchange Commission, Capital Market Masterplan Implementation Committee and other stakeholders for the laudable accomplishments so far recorded in the Master Plan implementation journey.

The SEC DG who spoke at the event said through the implementation of the 10-year Nigeria Capital Market Master Plan (2015 – 2025), the commission and other stakeholders have recorded significant milestones over the years.

Yuguda listed some of them to include full dematerialisation of certificates, direct cash settlement, recapitalisation of CMOs, E-Dividend Mandate Management System, National Savings Strategy to grow domestic risk capital formation, the Roadmap on Enhancing Commodities Trading Ecosystem, the establishment of the West African Securities Regulators Association (WASRA) to encourage the integration of capital markets in West Africa, among others.

Yuguda said the Master Plan document recommends a periodic review of the assumptions, goals and objectives of the plan to better align it with current realities and innovations in the global financial system.

 As part of the review, he said the commission embarked on a comprehensive review of the plan, driven by PriceWaterHouseCoopers with funding support from Financial Sector Deepening Africa (FSDA).

Also speaking at the event, the Chairman of CAMMIC, Olutola Mobolurin who was represented by Dr Sulaiman Adedotun said, “The world as we know it has changed since 2015 and we cannot continue to rely on a plan that we made since then.

“Technology, in particular, has remained a major driving force for change and disruption, not to talk of the seismic disruption that was on the global national economy by the global pandemic.”

He said we must articulate a plan to utilise the opportunity presented by fintech, and the reverse master plan has taken care of that adding that without a good referee, the market cannot operate efficiently.

He called on the federal government to look at the financial sustainability of SEC, to ensure that it is able and fit to regulate and develop the capital market for the long term

Similarly, Partner & Chief Economist, PwC Nigeria, Dr. Andrew S. Nevin in his presentation said: “When we talk of about long term infrastructure capitals, people talk about the banks. These banks like everything in this world are fit for certain purposes and their main purpose is short term financing of maybe 3 or 4 years, not venture capital, not long term infrastructure.

 “In the last 10 years, I have a tremendous development of the banking sector. The BVN is an amazing innovation. In the next 10 years, we will like to see this match through the development of the capital market. The capital market needs to be 10 times bigger in the next decade for it to be meaningful for Nigeria and we have the foundation for that.”