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SEC moves to reduce cost, assures of profitability in two years

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has unveiled plans to reduce its operating costs to boost profitability within the next two years.

 

According to a statement yesterday by the Head, Corporate Communications SEC, Efe Ebelo, the Director-General of the agency, Mr Lamido Yuguda, said the commission had been paying 25 per cent of gross revenues into the coffers of government.

 

The Senate, on Thursday last week,º berated the agency for its seeming overbearing operating cost, warning that the commission might liquidate by 2023 if nothing urgent and drastic was done to save it from its progressive budget deficits.

 

The apex legislative chamber gave the warning following revelations by Yuguda at a public hearing organized by the Joint Senate Committee on Finance, National Planning, Foreign and Local Debt; Banking, Insurance, and other Financial Institutions; Petroleum Resources (Upstream), Down Stream; Petroleum Sector & Gas. However, in the state statement,

 

Yuguda said the total revenue so far paid by commission into the treasury as of the end of June 2021 was about N1.5bn.

 

While admitting that the agency had been operating under very difficult circumstances since it is superintending a market that affected by the negative impact of COVID-19, he said steps were being taken to reverse the fortunes of the apex regulator of the capital market.

 

He said: “If we go through the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework which we started last year, if we look at 2022 and 2023, you will see that we have worked on our expenditure so that by 2023, the deficit will actually turn into a surplus of N1.235bn and by 2024 we should have N2.5bn surplus.

 

“We therefore need the support of all to engineer the kind of transition we are thinking of at the SEC and that 30 per cent which is taking most of the staff cost is part of the set we are targeting for the early retirement programme.

 

“There is a lot of interest within the commission to do it but we are really short of the funds to do it now. We have done a lot of revenue rising drives just to ensure that the commission stays on track.

 

This is something we are mindful of and we have the intent and capacity to deliver on this.” On the high overhead costs, the SEC DG explained that this is being reduced aggressively.

 

He said: “It has reduced because we have since we came, aggressively looked at the overhead and staff cost and reduced certain components of our staff pay that

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