The acting Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission, Ms Mary Uduk, tells IFEANYI ONUBA the steps being taken by the commission to protect the capital market from the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, among other issuescountry has been on lockdown for over two weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic, what impact is this having on the Nigerian capital market?
Therefore as human beings, we have to adapt to be able to ensure that our lives continue and not allow COVID-19 to put our lives on hold. So, we are leveraging on technology. Like you know we use phones, we have had meetings using phones, in the last three days, we use phone to hold meetings for two to three hours, this include my staff and other market operators. We use Zoom to also have meetings if we want to see each other and so many other ways.
So we have said that they should give out information on how COVID–19 would affect them if possible. They are also to make forecast and outlook to let investors know how the pandemic can affect their operation in terms of volatility and others. We have also put up email address that people can use to send returns. So what we have done is for the capital market to continue to work while we are on lock down and we have advised everyone under our purview and investors on how to invest.
All of them have put their BCP in place and are trading remotely, for instance all of them have moved staff very close to their offices where they are able to support the market, the dealers, issuers and trade remotely as well as ensuring that investors reach their investments and also make investments decisions.
They have had many ups and downs during this period. I would even say that in the past two weeks our market has been more resilient than most markets. So talking about confidence in this period of COVID-19, we have not done badly, our trading has continued but, for confidence over time, the SEC has been doing a lot to ensure that we have a return to robust investor confidence.
Concerning investor protection, we ensure that nobody takes your money away in an illegal manner, but the protection is not that somebody will compensate you when the market moves down. But the regulator will always tell you to try to diversify your portfolios, try to talk to experts and sometimes there are different vehicles of investments so that investors one way or the other will have the impact of the market cushioned on their wealth.
We believe that Nigeria is ripe for vibrant and a robust commodities market. So there has been engagement with the stakeholders such as the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, to establish standards for our commodities, so that we can create market and build market for it.
Wetin concern dog with family planning, please first thing first .
You mean the same steps you took to mitigate northern qualified candidates out of the secretive and lopsided recruitment scandal that you're grilled by the House of representatives erstwhile ago? Exactly no thanks