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The management of the Nigerian Stock
Exchange (NSE) has appealed to shareholders of quoted stocks to support
the market through regular report of unethical practices of companies.

Sola Oni,
spokesperson for the NSE, in a statement at the weekend, said Emmanuel
Ikazoboh, interim administrator of the NSE, gave the advice when some
members of the Ibadan Zone of the Shareholders’ Association paid him a
courtesy visit.

Mr. Ikazoboh said
investors should also support the market through positive comments.
“Investors are the nerve centre of the market otherwise there would be
no market,” he said.

Meanwhile, the
association’s six-man executive members, led by its chairman, Aderemi
Oyepeju, passed a vote of confidence on the Exchange’s management for
working to reinforce investors’ confidence in the stock market. They
said the on-going market reform will put every operator and quoted
company on their toes.

The group also
commended the Exchange’s recent sanction of all erring quoted companies
that have reneged in meeting their responsibilities, listing
obligations such as prompt release of financial statements and payments
of listing fees among others. “Such zero tolerance is much needed to
build the market” Mr. Oyepeju said.

They expressed
dismay at the way many investors have suffered untold hardship due to
lack of regular information from quoted companies and unethical
practices of some market operators.

They urged the
Exchange’s management not to relent in its efforts at ensuring
compliance with market rules and regulations by operators and quoted
companies.

Necessary machinery

The shareholders
also urged the NSE to put necessary machinery in motion to ensure that
private companies no longer use listing of shares on the Exchange as a
marketing gimmick for private placement. According to them, “Many
investors have got their fingers burnt through participation in private
placement as those companies hardly apply for listing after the offer.”
Commenting on the modalities for payment of dividend by quoted
companies, the shareholders suggested the need for banks to device a
means of informing shareholders whenever dividends are credited into
their accounts under the new regime of e-dividend.

On the on-going
discourse on the status of registrars, they endorsed independence of
registrars for enhanced professionalism and avoidance of avoid conflict
of interest. However, they admonished the registrars to always treat
verification of share certificates with dispatch.

On the need to
strengthen prompt communication between the market and investors, the
group urged the exchange to ensure that Central Securities Clearing
System (CSCS) alerts investors anytime transaction is about to be
effected on their stocks.

The group lauded the on-going market
reform by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) but cautioned
that it should be handled in a way that would not heat up the system.
They said, “The Exchange has a lot of potentials that would always make
it attractive to investors globally as long as investors’ confidence is
sustained.” In his response, Mr. Ikazoboh thanked the group for their
confidence in his administration and the Exchange’s management and
noted that virtually all the issues they raised are being addressed.
For instance, he explained that a new window created by the Exchange to
address the challenges of private placement has commenced operation. He
assured them that all forms of breach of market rules and regulations
shall continue to attract stiff sanctions. He informed them that
operation of trade alert is being reviewed to make it more effective
and efficient as a monitoring device.

For the first time in many years, government is taking the issue
of occupational classification and survey seriously as the National Bureau of
Statistics (NBS), in collaboration with the National Planning Commission and
the Nigerian Institute for Economic Research recently conducted a National
Manpower Stock and Employment Generation Survey.

The study is to determine the employment situation of Nigerians
at home and abroad. The bureau said the survey would measure the size of the
informal sector and its contribution to the GDP (gross domestic product).

Henry Eteama, head of the public affairs and international
relation unit of the NBS, said the purpose of the survey is to know the manpower
stock in the country.

“In line with the International Standard Classification of
Occupations, we need to know how many doctors, engineers, nurses and other
professionals are in the country,” he said.

He said the survey has been concluded and analysis is ongoing,
adding that response from Diaspora Nigerians has not been too encouraging.

Economically active

According to the NBS, the survey aims at determining the
economically active population by examining the employment, underemployment,
and unemployment characteristics distributed by demographic, socio-economic,
and geographic variables, as well as assess the stocks and requirements of
human resources in order to determine under-utilisation and over-supply of
these resources in the Nigerian labour market.

The bureau said from the survey, it would be able to capture the
manpower stock of Nigerians working abroad. It would also examine the impacts
of remuneration packages on labour productivity as well as labour turn-over,
supply to and withdrawal from the Nigerian labour market, and analyse the
manpower stock and occupational profile of the labour force in Nigeria and
Nigerians in the Diaspora.

Educational impediments

Mr. Eteama said the survey would help to identify labour
market-related problems militating against effective development and
utilisation of manpower in the country.

“That would inform policies in areas of deficiency and how
educational curriculum can be modified to meet the needs,” he said.

Doyin Salami, member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of
the Central Bank and lecturer at Pan African University, Lagos, said recently
that there was need for the Nigerian educational system to be overhauled.

“Issues of jobs and youth empowerment have to be planned 10 to
20 years. If the economy has to create jobs, key impediments have to be taken
away,” he advised.

Such impediments include restructuring the education sector so
that institutions can churn out employable graduates.

“Not only do we have unemployment, we also have the unemployable.
So even if jobs are created, where are the people to be employed?”

The International Standard Classification of Occupations is an
International Labour Organization (ILO) classification structure and is a tool
for organising jobs into a clearly defined set of groups according to the tasks
and duties undertaken in the job.

According to the ILO, the classification, among other things,
helps in the management of short or long term migration of workers between
countries, as well as in the development of vocational training programmes and
guidance.

Some operators at the Nigerian capital market have appealed to
the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to give a “full disclosure” of the
Nigerian Stock Exchange’s (NSE’s) audit.

Market operators are making this appeal following the
announcement by Arunma Oteh, SEC’s director general, last Friday, in London,
that she expects to publish a KPMG Stock Exchange audit in about six weeks.

Olugbenga Emmanuel, a finance analyst at WealthZone Company, a
portfolio management firm, said, “The Exchange community expects the SEC to do
a full disclosure of the NSE financial results. We don’t want a situation like
what happened to the banks then when they used to publish some parts of their
results while other parts will not be made public.

“Full disclosure will help the market generally in terms of
confidence because everybody will be able to analyse the result,” Mr. Emmanuel
said.

David Amaechi, an executive member of the Shareholders
Association of Nigeria, said the publication of the Exchange’s financial report
“will further help the Exchange Commission to achieve its aim of restoring
investors’ confidence in the market.”

Mrs. Oteh had said last Friday that the widespread anger over
the market collapse, together with press attention on former stock exchange
head, Ndi Okereke-Onyuike, meant there was little choice but to publish the
audited results.

“I’m hoping I will get the interim report on Monday (yesterday).
I hope we will complete the whole process in about six weeks. You have a high
profile former director-general who believes she should not have been removed.
You have a lot of people who have lost money. I haven’t made any public
statements about making the report public, but I almost think I have no
choice,” she said.

Market parameters

Meanwhile, at the close of proceedings on Monday, the two
parameters for measuring performance at the NSE, the market capitalisation and
the All-Share Index, depreciated by a 1.13 percent.

The market capitalisation, yesterday, recorded over N66 billion
losses on Wednesday’s figure of N5.832 trillion, to close at N5.766 trillion;
while the All-Share Index lost 271.24 points down from 23,802.79 basis points
to close at 23,531.55.

The number of gainers at the close of trading session closed
lower at 18, compared with the 24 gainers recorded last Wednesday, while losers
closed higher at 43, compared with the 39 losers recorded the previous trading
day.

Julius Berger and Wapco Cement topped the price gainers’ chart
yesterday, with an increase of N1.52 and N1.50 on their opening prices of
N55.98 and N35.00 per share respectively. On the flip side, Oando and Dangote
Flour Mill topped the losers’ chart with a decrease of N2.95 and 89 kobo, to
close at N56.20 and N17.01 per share respectively.

The banking sector led the market transaction volume on Monday
with 140.17 million units valued at N1.08 billion, exchanged in 2,718 deals, as
against 117.83 million units valued at N1.01 billion, exchanged in 3,458 deals
recorded last Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Exchange’s management yesterday marked down the
prices of six companies for dividends and bonuses.

Flourmill was marked down for a dividend of N2.00 and a bonus
one for 10 owned by its shareholders, while payment date is 3rd November 2010;
Nigerian Bags Manufacturing for a dividend of 13 kobo, payment date is 2nd
November 2010; Northern Nigeria Flour Mills for a dividend of 80 kobo bonus one
for five, payment date is 3rd November 2010.

Also, Academy Press was marked down for a dividend of 7 kobo and
a bonus one for three, payment date is 19th October 2010; Seven-Up for a
dividend of N1.75 bonus one for four, payment date is 19th October 2010; Law
Union & Rock for a dividend of 3 kobo, payment date is 4th October 2010.

Industry
professionals in Nigeria’s aviation sector hold divergent views on the
‘pay as you go’ mode of payment recently introduced by the Nigerian
Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) for collecting terminal navigational
charges from domestic airlines.

Some
experts favour the initiative, but other stakeholders in the sector see
the development as cumbersome and an additional tax on the highly
levied air tickets.

The
‘pay as you go’ fuss, which for two weeks resulted in series of
complaints and counter reactions from some airlines, saw to the
grounding of Arik Air’s 120 domestic flights in one day, and led to the
introduction of N100 additional ticket charge by Aero Contractors,
which the carrier described as “NAMA Tax.” Explaining that the
objections of domestic carriers to the new charges are “unnecessary,”
Lateef Lawal, an analyst who has spent over two decades in the
country’s aviation industry and the editor of Nigerian Aviation News in
Lagos, said that the airlines are looking for ways to evade the payment
for services rendered to them by service providers in the sector.

Mr.
Lawal argued that all domestic carriers in Nigeria jointly owe the
Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigerian Airspace
Management Agency (NAMA) a “whooping N10 billion if not more,” out of
which over N4 billion is owed NAMA.

“Prior
to 1st September 2010 when the management of NAMA took the bull by the
horns after the directive of the Minister of Aviation for aggressive
revenue and debt recovery drives, there had been several meetings
between NAMA officials and those of the debtor airlines on debt
reconciliations.

Some attended others blatantly refused to attend,” he said.

According
to Mr. Lawal, a Ministerial Committee was set up to look at all the
issues at stake and come up with recommendations on the ways out and
members of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) were part of the
committee along with ministry officials and others from parastatals in
the industry.

“After
the committee’s two-week sitting they came up with far reaching
recommendations which included the spreading of the old debt owed by
the airlines since 2005 to June 2010 to be spread across 36months while
they should henceforth make it a point of duty to always pay for
services rendered to them,” he said, adding “this recommendation among
others was endorsed by the Minister for implementation, which was what
NAMA started on 1st September this year.” He said that it is surprising
to see an about turn by the airlines that were part and parcel of the
report to which their representatives at the Ministerial Committee
Meeting appended their signatures.

Different views

However,
Gabriel Olowo, another expert in the sector and chief executive of
Sabre Travel Network, said that the answer to the ongoing palaver is to
“abolish ticket sales charge.” Mr. Olowo posited that the Airline
Operators of Nigeria had in the 90’s agreed to give five per cent of
what they get from the sales of air tickets to the government to
enhance the aviation sector, adding that the contract should replace
whatever levy is placed by any government organization on airlines.

“We
ordinarily should not speak on the matter waiting before the Supreme
Court of Nigeria; but throwing light into the history of Ticket Sales
Tax, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) during early 90’s had a
gentleman agreement with government to contribute five per cent of all
ticket sales for aviation development having appreciated the financial
needs of our airports and airspace,” he said.

“While
this subsists, it is expected to replace and substitute whatever charge
these institutions may have legitimacy to charge. There exists a
sharing formula for the fund by the agencies.” Mr. Olowo said that it
was after the agreement that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority
(NCAA) got its independence and the Federal Airports Authority of
Nigeria (FAAN) commenced taxation on airlines, stressing that the
levies on domestic airline tickets are exorbitant.

“NCAA
thereafter became autonomous and FAAN was collecting passenger service
charge (PSC) known as airport tax, in addition to its Landing and
Parking fees. NAMA saw the sense also in collecting Terminal
Navigational fees which tantamount to eating your cake and wanting to
have it as this amounts to double taxation,” he said.

“As you are already aware, Airline ticket contains too many taxes
(TST,PSC,VAT) and if we are serious about having strong and thriving
Nigerian carriers, additional tax burden on ticket in whatever
nomenclature will simply turn the airlines to revenue collecting agents
in the face of their already difficult environment of business.”