Wednesday 01 September 2010
- Culled from The GuardianBob Dewar, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, has urged
the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to quickly restore confidence in
the Nigerian capital market through instilling corporate governance and
enhancing risk management in the system. He said urgent steps were necessary
not just because of Nigerias inter-relatedness with other nations but also the
need for the country to be globally competitive. Dewar noted that the UK and Nigeria are open and outward looking
countries which are determined to expand world trade again from which the two
nations can benefit. He was speaking at a meeting with the management and staff
of SEC in Abuja where he addressed them on the issue: ‘Managing Markets:
Governance and Regulation in Todays Context. “Your financial banking and regulatory leaders have a range of
considerations to address. But I would pick on two key aspects in the Nigerian
context. First, your efforts should involve the application of and belief in
better corporate governance and better risk management. “And that means
behaviour of investors and behaviours of regulators combined with a good legal
system and consistent application of the rule of law. Insider dealings, share
manipulations, excessive risk taking, connected lending, all these issues had a
damaging effect on some banks and the stock market here, affecting millions of
investorsâ€, Dewar told the audience. Dewar, however, commended the efforts of SEC leadership so far
in sanitising the system but worried that the huge corruption in the private
sector may mar expected outcomes if not checked. He said, “With new leadership,
you are doing an important job in changing all that, in aiming to mainstream
proper standards and properly regulate and develop the capital market, to
forestall breaches and to restore confidence. “But most importantly, the private sector itself has to behave
correctly, fighting corruption and rebuilding confidence by their behaviours,
acting out corporate governance, not just talking about it. And they cannot be
ignorant of all the SECs efforts, your efforts. As the Nigerian saying goes,
the tongue cannot claim to be ignorant of what the teeth are doing.â€