By Chioma Obinagwam
The Federal Government has again reiterated its commitment towards building a vibrant capital market that would contribute to the growth and development of the country and can compare with similar markets anywhere in the world.
This was disclosed by the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo when the members of the Capital Market Master Plan Implementation Council, CAMMIC led by its Chairman, Mr. Olutola Mobolurin visited him in Abuja, Tuesday.
Prof. Osinbajo said that capital markets play a central role in the development of the economy through mobilisation of long term savings for investment, adding that the present administration is interested in deepening the capital market which would in turn lead to a deepening of the financial market.
The Vice President said the government is concerned about the volatility of the capital market and is ready to work with CAMMIC to ensure that the market is stable.
According to him, “There is no way we can deepen our financial system without a vibrant capital market. We know we need foreign investors in our market, but most importantly we need to grow our domestic investors that are here to stay. I think we can do a lot to ensure that our capital market is better than what it is now”.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of CAMMIC, Mr. Olutola Mobolurin expressed the need for Government to pay more attention to the capital market being the Centre of the economy as regulation of the market is paramount because the industry relies on confidence of investors
Mobolurin therefore canvassed for the setting up of a National Savings Committee to drive the process of fund mobilization among Nigerians and work on a robust savings initiative that can drive the growth of the economy.
The CAMMIC Chairman requested for a holistic financial system review to enable the system evolve together so that the entire system can drive the economic objectives of the present administration.
“We must find a way of growing the economy at a rate much higher than the population rate. One of the things we can do is to develop our own savings strategy and increase the savings level in the system so that we are not solely dependent on foreign investors” he said.
He listed some of the achievements of the council to include dematerialization, recapitalization, e-dividend mandate, financial literacy, National Savings Strategy, Streamlined Bond Issuance Progress, Access to alternative investments and Tax incentive programmes.
Other achievements are enhancing commodities trading ecosystem, enhancing market liquidity and facilitate the establishment of a credit enhancement facility.
For the year 2019, Mobolurin disclosed that CAMMIC will embark on a review of the Master Plan, conduct an impact assessment of programmes and initiatives like e-dividend, dematerialization, Direct Cash Settlement among others, expansion of commodities through registered exchanges as well as the introduction of derivatives and related instruments.
In her remarks, Acting Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, Ms. Mary Uduk said the Commission and the market are working to make the capital market one of the drivers of economic growth and development.
Recall that the Securities and Exchange Commission launched a 10 year Capital Market Masterplan in November 2014. The Commission at that time believed that having just emerged from a bubble that negatively impacted the performance and confidence in the Nigerian capital market, it was expedient to come up with a market wide strategic blueprint that would among other things restore investor confidence, deepen the market, accelerate the growth of the capital market and help catalyse the emergence of Nigeria as a top 20 global economy.
This led to the setting up of CAMMIC is an advocacy group, meant to kick start the buying in of all the key stakeholders in the market, particularly at the executive, legislative and judicial level to mainstream the capital market plan, so that government will appreciate the whole essence of the capital market.