Senate Canvasses IST’s Inclusion In Constitution

• Seeks robust funding options

BY COBHAM NSA – Buoyed by Supreme Court’s endorsement of the Investments and Securities Tribunal (IST) to solely handle cases of infractions in the Nigerian Capital Market, the Senate is canvassing an amendment of the law to capture the Tribunal in the Nigerian constitution.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Capital Market, Senator Osita Izunazor said with the apex Court affirming IST as a Court of record, fully enjoying such benefits is to have the Nigerian constitution give life to the Tribunal.

Senator Izunazor, who spoke during the Committee’s oversight visit to the Tribunal, said the Upper Legislative Chamber will push for amendment of relevant sections of the law to ensure proper listing of IST in the constitution.

According to him, among relevant sections of the Constitution to be amended are sections 6, 84, 243, 292, 294, 295 and 318, adding that there would be a master class before the end of the year with IST being at the centre of that arrangement .

The Committee Chairman explained that the idea is to effectively address the visibility challenge currently faced by the Tribunal, even as he assured that the Red Chamber would work to ensure IST is well positioned to deliver justice and uphold the integrity of the Capital Market eco system.

Also speaking during the visit, a Committee member, Senator Abba Moro representing Benue South senatorial district, decried the envelop budgetary system which the lawmakers acknowledged has hampered the IST’s growth and effectiveness in the nation’s capital market sector

In his intervention on ways the Tribunal can increase its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) and have more funds available for its operations, another Committee member, Senator Seriake Dickson, representing Bayelsa West, charged the IST Chairman and management team to generate a document highlighting money earning organisations within the Capital Market.

The former Bayelsa State governor said the Senate Committee on Capital Market would work with such document to come up with ways through which the proposed amendments can compel them to contribute certain percentage of their revenue to fund the Tribunal’s operations.

The IST Chairman, Amos Azi had earlier in his welcome remarks, highlighted their major challenges to include poor funding and the envelop budgetary system where all generated revenue is remitted to the government purse.

For him, it has become imperative for institutions, who generate money from the capital market and whose cases may likely end up at the Tribunal, to contribute towards funding its operations.

Highpoints of the Committee’s visit was presentation of the Tribunal’s law reports to the lawmakers as well as a facility tour of the Tribunal’s premises which they noted was in dire need of an urgent upgrade.