The House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market and Other Institutions, on Wednesday accused the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of irregularities in recruitment and regulatory processes.
Rep. Herman Hembe (PDP-Benue), the Chairman of the committee, said at a public hearing on the operations of the capital market that the commission recruited an Access Bank employee.
“The commission violated its regulatory role by recruiting a staff (member) of a commercial bank it should be regulating,” Hembe said.
He said that Ms Arunma Ote, Director-General of SEC, lacked the capacity to administer the commission and directed her to forward her credentials to the committee for scrutiny.
It would be recalled that the SEC recently recruited a technical adviser, adviser? on human resources and a project manager.
However, Ote told the committee that the project manager was seconded from the bank to help the commission set up its zonal and state offices.
She explained that the commission had no capacity to undertake the job given the manager.
“We do not have the right capacity and he brought it to us.”
Mr Husseini Dauda, the Director of Human Resources at the commission, explained that it never recruited staff from a bank.
He said that the three officers were not on the payroll of the commission but that they were only paid allowances equivalent to that of a director in the public service.
In the same vein, Mr Charles Oduara, Commissioner for Legal Enforcement at SEC, said he was not aware of the employment of 30 persons in the commission.
He said he was only aware of NYSC members, who served with the commission for one year.
Meanwhile, Mr Oscar Onyema, Director-General of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, apologised to the committee for his absence from the hearing on March 13.
The committee had threatened to arrest Onyema if he failed to appear before it on Wednesday. ??