Kunle Aderinokun
10 November 2009
Abuja — Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said yesterday that it had appealed the judgment of the Investment and Securities Tribunal(IST), which recently absolved Nova Securities of any wrong doing in the alleged manipulation of Africa Petroleum (AP) shares.
This came to light as the National Pension Commission (Pencom) said under the contributory pension scheme, over N1.3 trillion had beenrealised as pension assets as at the end of September 2009.
Acting Director-General of SEC, Ms. Daisy Ekineh, revealed the latestmove of the nation's capital market regulator on the AP sharesmanipulation case yesterday in Abuja at the seminar on Reviving Nigeria's Non-Governmental Bond Markets jointly organised by Pencom,SEC and International Finance Corporation (IFC)/World Bank.
IST, sitting in Abuja had in September nullified sanctions imposed bySEC on Nova Finance &Securities Ltd and its Managing Director, Mr. Eugene Anenih, in April,for allegedly manipulating shares price of AP Plc.In its judgment delivered by Hon. Wilfred Ikatari in the case betweenNova Finance and Securities Ltd, Mr. Eugene Anenih- appellants andSEC- respondents, IST had set aside SEC's sanctions on the groundthat the appellants were not given a fair hearing by the respondent.
The IST had stated : "Having thus come to the conclusion that none ofthe appellants was accorded fair hearing by the respondent (SEC),the tribunal is left with no option than to set aside the findings anddecisions of the respondent as they relate to the appellants."The tribunal had ruled that, from the totality of the evidence beforeit, there was no manipulation of AP Plc's shares price by theappellants.However, Director-General of Pencom, Mr. Muhammad K. Ahmad , said about3.9million employees had registered with various Pension FundAdministrators (PFAs) with over N1.3trillion pension assets realisedas at September, 2009.Ahmad said the rising public confidence in the contributory pensionscheme was responsible for the rise of the pension assets fromN1.1trillion recorded as at the end of December, 2008 to the presentlevel of N1.3trillion.He lamented that there was a growing concern about the dearth ofinvestment outlets for pension funds in Nigeria, saying "the current situation wherein most of the pensionfunds are chasing very few quality investment instruments has createda glut of funds in the financial market with about 37 percent of the assetsinvested in money market instruments as at 30 September, 2009."He added: "This is further complicated by the fact that there arevery few issuers of corporate bonds while some large corporations inthe country are not listed on the Stock Exchange thus denying pensionfunds the opportunity of investing in their stock."
Ahmad also noted that notwithstanding some of the modestachievements, Pencom had to contend with a number of challenges,including the need to adopt a more risk based supervisory frameworkgiven the rapid growth of the pension industry."The need to widen the coverage of the scheme to include small scaleenterprises and the integration of the informal sector into the schemehad remained very herculean and difficult due to the sector's lack ofcoherent structure and unwieldy composition as well as absence of databout employees.
"A dynamic investment regulation is required to address the emergingchallenges of investing pension assets. Given the complex nature ofthe pension industry, there is also an urgent need to improve thecapacity of both the operators and the regulator", he said.Regarding wider coverage of the pension scheme, the Pencom bossobserved that while many employers in the informal sector are joiningthe new scheme, a large number are yet to commence implementation.Speaking on compliance in the informal sector, the Director-Generalsaid the Commission had embarked on public education and moralsuasion, adding that the Commission has also imposed monetary finesand published the names of defaulting employers so as to name andshame them."As a last resort, a legal process for securing compliance byemployers has commenced. However, the Commission will continue tointensify its sensitization campaigns jointly with trade associationsand social partners.
A detailed survey of the sector would beundertaken to understand the attitude and investment appetite of thesector, identify strategies for collections and adopt the mostconvenient process to access the benefits ", he added.In his opening remarks, Finance Minister, Dr. Mansur Muhtar, said todate, the total amount of N2.5trillion Federal Government Bonds had been issued andattracted subscription totaling over N4.4trillion.Muhtar, who was represented by the Director General of the DebtManagement Office (DMO), Dr. Abraham Nwankwo, said the financial marketnow has a benchmark against which to price bonds of different tenorsissued by different borrowers, the corporate and other non-governmentagents."In addition to providing the much desired stable funds forgovernment, other commendable milestones achieved include, theestablishment of the Primary Dealer Market Maker (PDMM) system forliquid and efficient secondary market, the extension of the SovereignYield Curve from short term Nigerian Treasury Bills (91-360 days) tolong tenured bonds of 3,5,7,10 and 20 years," he noted.
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