Kampala — No stock broker will be allowed to trade on the stock exchange without a certificate.

Stock exchange regulators in East Africa now want all practitioners in the capital markets industry to enroll for training currently conducted at the Securities Industry Training Institute. Board members, including all security exchanges chief executive officers in East Africa and Central Depositary and Settlement Corporation Limited (Kenya) last week resolved all brokers, fund managers and investment advisors must have SITI certificate to trade.

Uganda's security exchange chief executive officer and SITI chairman Simon Rutega said the development aims at ensuring adherence to ethics and integrity in the East African stock markets.

"As capital markets in the region continue to post fast growth, players are continuously faced with the challenge of enhancing their skills in order to keep up," he said.

"Uganda Securities Exchange together with Nairobi Stock Exchange, Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange and Capital Markets- Rwanda agreed on a standardised curriculum, which will be administered by SITI throughout the region."

Mr Rutega said with the institute now in place "indiscipline" in the stock market would not be entertained and industry players who breach regulations would face punitive measures. SITI East Africa is a Securities Industry Training Institute instituted in September 2007 and launched in December 2008.

It was established to manage and deliver a range of training programmes on capital markets and investments, corporate finance, asset management, entrepreneurship and corporate governance.SITI board says the establishment of SITI East Africa emanated from the need to have players in the East African region benefit from a systematic and well managed training and capacity building initiative.

Starting 2007 to 2009 there have been cases of trading malpractices particularly by brokers in the Nairobi Stock Exchange.

The development affected the functioning of the capital market. Africa region and DEVPARA Consultants from SITI Canada, acquired over twenty training modules in the whole Curriculum.

SITI programmes are provided in the four East African markets of Kenya, Tanzania Uganda and Rwanda. This year over 500 industry practitioners have been trained in the region.

During the launch of the SITI curriculum, board executives announced that the five institutions which are on board would each contributed $15,000 ($75,000 in total) (about Shs141 million) to sustain the operations of the institute.