Shareholders task National Assembly on dematerialisation bill
By Moses Ebosele
TO further boost the confidence of investors, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN) yesterday, appealed to the National Assembly to give accelerated hearing to the bill on dematerialisation.
National President of ISAN, Sir Sunny Nwosu said in an interview with The Guardian that the prompt passage of the bill by the National Assembly would curtail errors associated with words.
He explained that members of the National Assembly should see the bill as a "service attitude" aimed at lifting the economy and by extension, help investors take legal decisions.
Speaking further, Nwosu said the bill should not be allowed to suffer the faith of similar bill sent to the National Assembly during the regime of former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
According to Nwosu, despite the effort made by the former National Assembly, the bill was not signed into law hence the need to start the process all over again.
The Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Professor Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke said recently that a dematerialisation bill aimed at converting share certificates to electronic form has been sent to the National Assembly (NASS) for consideration.__
Okere-Onyiuke stated this while welcoming the Committee of House of Representatives on capital market, which was at the NSE to deliberate on how to curtail the crisis in the market.
But the Chairman, House Committee, Aliyu Wadada, denied knowledge of such bill in the House, adding that neither he nor any of his colleagues is aware of the bill.
Wadada also warned that a bill of that nature would likely not sail through if the committee was not notified by the House.
He told stockbrokers that the House would do everything within its power to stabilise the market, just as it would work in consonance with the NSE to ensure that the bill receives adequate attention since it is the responsibility of the committee to make sure that the market rebounds.
Dematerialisation is a process whereby a shareholder will no longer be issued a physical certificate as an evidence of share ownership in a company.
Its implementation is expected to forestall problems of stolen share certificate, delay in verification of certificate before investors would offload his/her holding in a company in instance of share price appreciation among other benefits.
She noted that the bill when passed would make the print out of CSCS on share statement a valid document of law, adding that it would also help in the dematerialisation drive.
The NSE boss further disclosed that CSCS, which was 100 per cent owned by the NSE is no longer a subsidiary of NSE.
She explained that that NSE's equity holding in the outfit has been reduced to 30 per cent following the private placement embarked upon earlier in the year.
"CSCS is now an affiliate company of NSE not a subsidiary. NSE used to own 51 per cent of CSCS shares, but now divested to 30 per cent, which made them become a core shareholder."
