The Nigerian capital market has been described as an important segment of the economy that is capable of providing the government with the much-needed revenue for infrastructural development.

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Capital Market, Senator Ibikunle Amosun stated this during the budget defence exercise by the Securities and Exchange Commission, SEC, in Abuja.

Senator Amosun said that the Committee is very interested in the activities of the capital market as it is capable of providing the country with the much-needed long-term funding to get out of the woods as well as fund the budget.

According to him, “The Capital market is very important to the development of any economy. When the economy is stressed, the capital market can help.

“We know that globally, nations have been suffering the effects of COVID-19 and Nigeria is no exception. We believe that with a vibrant capital market, our growth and development will be faster.

“We now know what the capital market can do to rescue the economy at a time like this. If we have to diversify our economy, the capital market has a role to play and that is why we are here to support you. We will support the capital market for our country to realise these economic goals.

“That is why the Senate is very interested in ensuring that our capital market does well. We are here to encourage you in the work that you do, to ensure that we achieve success. We will encourage companies to list so as to further deepen the capital market”.

He commended the SEC Management on their efforts so far in deepening the market and advised the Commission to explore other areas that could assist in revamping the economy and improving government revenue.

In a presentation earlier, the DG of the SEC, Lamido Yuguda told the Senators that despite the global economic climate the world over, the Commission has been able to improve its budget performance.

Yuguda said due to a series of interactions with the lawmakers in the past, the Commission has been able to explore various areas in a bid to shore up its finances.

He stated that “This improvement in our performance is a result of some of the fees that we introduced at the beginning of this year. When we came to you last year, the Commission was facing a very difficult financial situation.

“We had various interactions with this Committee and we were asked to think outside the box so that we can evolve ways of improving our performance.

“It is these measures that we started to introduce that have led to our improved performance. We looked inwards and introduced various measures that drastically cut down our expenditures.

“We had a staff strength that we said was top-heavy and we were able to implement a voluntary early retirement programme in 2021 and concluded in December 2021.

“We also turned our attention to the revenue side and we looked at certain areas like the fixed-income market. The fixed income market is highly regulated by the Commission but was not generating revenues for the SEC; so, from January 2022, we started accessing a small fee from the secondary fixed income market. It is the combined effect of these that you see in the revenue performance of the Commission."