By Ngozi Amuche
The Securities and Exchange Commission has reiterated that the capital market is the engine of the nation’s growth and development.
In a statement made available to our correspondent, Chairman, Board of the Commission, Mr. Olufemi Lijadu, said that the capital market had played critical roles in attracting both foreign and local investments.
The board chairman made the observation during the maiden meeting of the new board with members of staff of the Commission, in Abuja, on Thursday.
“Everyone is aware of the very important roles capital markets play. We need to attract investments to develop our country and each one of you plays a critical role in that regard. We are happy to be here and we are going to enable you do your job well so that, together, we can find solutions to our challenges. We are going to learn, brainstorm and work together to move the capital market forward,” he said.
“We need to see how we can move forward to have a more orderly market, a market that is fair and transparent and can attract investments to build Nigeria,” he added.
Lijadu assured members of staff that the board would work swiftly, but surely to ensure that the country had the capital market Nigerians would be proud of. “There has been incredible progress in our capital markets in the last 20 years. I know that we can be the best and we aspire to be the best,” he said.
He added that the board would be guided by the knowledge, capacity and ability of staff to perform effectively.
Commenting, Chairman, Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria, SEC Branch, Mr. Nelson Oleghe, pledged its members’ support and commitment needed to perform.
Relatively, the Acting Director General, SEC, Ms Mary Uduk, said the Commodities Trading Ecosystem had been described as an important market that was capable of playing a strong role in the nation’s diversification efforts as being championed by the present administration.
Uduk, at a Capacity Building programme for Judges and top Management of the Investment and Securities Tribunal, on Commodities Trading Ecosystem, held in Abuja recently, explained that it was important to organise the commodities market to enhance its efficiency, growth and competitiveness, which would better position it to play a strong enabling role in food security, employment generation and economic diversification.
According to her, there are a lot of benefits in promoting commodities exchanges and the ecosystem in general as they provide a transparent pricing mechanism, promote attractiveness of agribusiness, foster financial inclusion and improve quality of agricultural output and profitability as well as government revenue.
