The provisions of the Investments and Securities Bill recently passed by the House of Representatives is expected to inspire confidence of both local and foreign investors as they can be assured that the regulators have been sufficiently empowered to deal with malpractices that undermine confidence in the market.
This was stated by the Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Capital Markets and Institutions Hon. Babangida Ibrahim during an interview in Abuja.
Ibrahim stated that foreign investors and market participants will also be attracted to the Nigerian market because they will have comfort in the fact that the Bill seeks to mirror standard investor-protective provisions and practices in advanced jurisdictions, which the foreign participants are already familiar with.
On the reason for the new Bill, the Lawmaker stated that the current enabling law for the Nigerian capital market, the Investments and Securities Act, No. 29 of 2007 (“ISA”) was signed into law by late President Umar Musa Yar’adua in June 2007 (15 and half years ago) before the global financial crisis of 2008/2009.
Global financial regulators he said, have made major changes in their regulatory instruments following the crisis to address some of the obvious gaps that contributed to the global economic disruption of the time, adding that such global shifts and other current trends in capital markets regulation have made it imperative to make major improvements to the Act to align our market with international standards.
According to Ibrahim, the Bill seeks to repeal the ISA and introduced new provisions that empowers the SEC to collaborate with other regulatory bodies in the financial sector to manage and mitigate systemic risks as it confers new investigative and enforcement powers on the apex regulator, SEC, to effectively regulate the Nigerian capital market.
The Lawmaker disclosed that federal government agencies, subnational, supranational will be able to better access the capital market for both revenue bonds and project tied bonds as the Bill now contains adequate provisions that enable both corporates and governments to issue new instruments to develop the infrastructural requirements of the country.
