Capital market fraud may be traceable to operators – Stakeholder

The capital market apex regulator has been urged to look towards capital market operators in search for roots of incessant fraud in the Nigerian capital market, as multiple roles of the operators breed corruption.

Revealing this to Daily Times recently, Ambassador Olufemi, national coordinator of Renaissance shareholders Association of Nigeria said that while corruption in the market fuels fraud which is likely traceable to capital market operators.

He explained that operators in the market entails those that have transact in the market , adding that operators, could at the same time be investors because some have vested interests in many companies and also benefits from insider information for personal gains.

Aside from exploiting insider information for personal gains, the operators, he said have progressed to becoming regulators as well as issuers and such a situation where a market operator plays multiple roles, breeds corruption.

Olufemi said “Corruption in the capital market is driven by people who are involved, when you talk of the capital market, you think of those who are involved, the operators, the registrars and then the regulators, between these three categories of stakeholders, are embedded in one, it breeds corruption”

He added, today “You find out who is actually in control and who is supposed to be in control of the market. Things have changed, normally for any business organisation, you have to consider your players,

The operators are now begetting the whole market and that is fraud. They have relegated their position of making sure that they are coordinating the market and acting for the players, but the reverse is the case today”

He said that the present state of the market reveals that operators are now the market players as well as the regulators.

“The operators are now taking over everything in the capital market and that is the bane of the capital market today. They are the players, and they are the regulators as well. Go to the regulators you see them there”