Last week’s Senate Committee alarm on the parlous financial state of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), has sent jitters down the spine of capital market community as many expressed worries that the Commission may be forced to cut down its personnel cost and possibly retrench staff if the situation fails to improve.
The Director- General of the nation’s capital market regulator, Lamido Yuguda, while appearing before the Senate Joint Committees on the 2022-2024 Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy, explained that the Commission in 2019 recorded N2.9 billion deficit and N4.3 billion in 2020, as well as N1.7 billion at the end of June 2021, to bring its total deficit to date to N9 billion.
Worried about the development, the upper legislative chamber’s Joint Committees on Finance, National Planning, Petroleum Upstream, Downstream and Gas chaired by Senator Adeola Olamilekan, 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 The SEC. You are a regulator to businesses that are making money, but you aren’t making money. You may need to look at how to regulate your personnel to generate money. You need to cut down on cost. Your personnel cost, your top profile takes about 70 per cent of total emolument of N9 billion, only 30 per cent go to lower cadre. We should know what is happening. This is the second year you are coming with a deficit budget.”
In his response however, The SEC DG, Yuguda claimed the Commission had been adversely affected by the market meltdown and the COVID-19.
This was as former Governor of Borno State, Senator Kashim Shettima, faulted his response warning that the SEC was moving on the path to insolvency with its high recurrent cost as shown by record before the Joint Committees.
The SEC boss roared back stating that the Commission was a fully self financed agency of government, adding that it does not receive a single kobo from the Federal Government.
He explained that the SEC was also working to turn the deficit into a surplus of N1.24 billion by 2023 and N2.5 billion by 2024. Yuguda said the Commission was working with the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX),NASD and also to a large extent the FMDQ Group to ensure that the capital market remained fair, competitive and efficient.
Commenting on the development, market operators and shareholders called on the SEC to think outside the box while adding that it was high time it started being an independent agency.
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