By Chinwendu Obienyi and Chukwuma Umeorah
The Chairman of the House Committee on Capital Markets and Institutions, Babangida Ibrahim, has stated that Investments and Securities (IS) Bill was capable of transforming the capital market, encourage the influx of foreign investors as well as boost investor’ confidence among others.
Ibrahim stated this during an interview at the weekend while commenting on the recent passage of the Bill by the House of Representatives.
Ibrahim said the ISA Bill seeks to repeal the existing Investments and Securities Act 2007 and to establish a new market infrastructure and wide ranging system of regulation of investments and securities businesses in Nigeria especially in the areas of derivatives, systematic risk management, financial market infrastructure and Ponzi scheme and platforms.
Other areas the bill addresses are alternative trading systems, inclusion of National Pensions Commission as part of the board of the Securities and Exchange Commission, deletion of the provisions on merger control in the current Act and amendment of the criteria of borrowing by sub nationals and strengthening and enforcement powers of the Securities and Exchange Commission in line with the requirement of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, IOSCO.
According to him, “We owe a duty to Nigerians and Nigeria to make sure that things work well. In the financial market we have the money market and the capital market. With the challenges facing the money market, the only option left is the capital market. What we tried to do is to build investors’ confidence and ensure that investors are comfortable. At the same time, we realised that there are areas like derivatives, commodities exchanges, Ponzi schemes and the rest of them that are new developments in the capital market. We feel it’s very important for us to provide regulations for these new developments.
“We also emphasized borrowing by sub nationals, in the past you hardly see state governments and local governments coming into the capital market to borrow. We introduced a lot of new provisions and also made provisions relating to financial market infrastructures.”