Imported User:
The proceedings of the House of Representatives ad-hoc committee investigating the near collapse of Nigeria’s capital market has been stalled, following failure of the committee to receive funds to carry out the public hearing.
Yesterday’s resumed hearing after a week of suspended activities was again adjourned by the chairman of the ad-hoc committee, Ibrahim Tukur El-Sudi, who attributed the change in plans to a communication gap between the committee and the private channel covering the event live.
Making the announcement, the chairman of the eight-member panel explained, “We were supposed to air today’s public hearing live, but there was a communication chasm with Channels Television, hence our inability to carry the probe live.
“Nigerians are interested in knowing what is happening so that confidence can be restored.”
But LEADERSHIP checks revealed otherwise. It was gathered that the reason why the private station failed to cover the probe was due to the failure of the committee to pay for the live coverage.
“The committee approached Channels Television for live coverage of the public hearing,the station agreed and gave the committee its advert rates after which the committee promised to get back to the management on the payments, but till today (yesterday) no payment has been received from the committee, hence their decision to stay coverage”, an anonymous source told Leadership.
Already seated and ready for the day’s hearing were Nigeria’s Minister of State for Finance, Dr Yerima Lawan Ngama; deputy governor of Central Bank of Nigeria,(Financial System Stability), Dr Kingsley Moghalu; Director General of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Arunma Oteh, heads of banks and other top stakeholders in the country’s capital market.
Speaking with newsmen on the sidelines of the public hearing, Minister of State for Finance expressed support for the panel’s decision to adjourn the public hearing while the SEC DG refused to answer questions from newsmen on her position on the halted probe.
Ngama said, “Many people have invested and we are trying to restore confidence in the market. So whatever we say has to be covered. Information is the key thing in the capital market, investors take decision based on information available to them. Any attempt to tamper with flow of information will not actually help the market. So I support the move and accept that everything we do in this panel must be aired live for everybody to see. The investors will know that the problems in the Nigerian capital market are being looked into.”
The chairman announced that the hearing will resume on Wednesday and urged stakeholders to make their presentations ready. Bank representatives are expected to also appear on Thursday.
