The Chairman, Securities and Exchange Commission's Committee on Dematerialisation, Mr. Emeka Madubuike, has said the commission may shelve the nationwide dematerialisation awareness campaign scheduled to start on January 31, 2013.
Madubuike told the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on Thursday that the postponement was due to the zero allocation to SEC in the 2013 federal budget by the National Assembly.
Dematerialisation is the process of replacing paper share certificates with electronic records at the Central Securities Clearing System.
Madubuike said the campaign would not be feasible because SEC needed funds to carry out the elaborate awareness.
Madubuike, who is also the President, Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria, said the zero allocation would affect other initiatives to revamp the capital market this year.
According to him, SEC cannot approve the committee's report for the January 31, 2013 date because of the House of the Representatives' stance that the commission's Director-General, Ms. Arunma Oteh, must be removed.
Madubuike, however, called for quick resolution of the impasse by the Presidency in the interest of the capital market and the total economy.
NAN recalls that the House of Representatives had withheld SEC's allocation in the 2013 Appropriation Bill it passed on December 20, 2012.
This followed the lower legislative chamber's decision not to have anything to do with SEC until Oteh was removed as the director-general.
The commission had proposed to spend about N93m to execute the dematerialisation policy.
Oteh had said at the 2nd Annual Capital Market Committee Retreat in Warri, Delta State in December, that some shareholders were resisting the dematerialisation policy due to lack of knowledge of its benefits.
She reiterated that asset transfer from one investor to the other would be much easier in a dematerialised market.
The director-general said road shows and enlightenment campaign were imperative to sensitise Nigerians to the benefits of the policy so as to avoid resistance.
