Kolawole Daniel, in this report, highlights the drama at the ongoing House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market and other Institutions' public hearing, arising from the altercation between the chairman of the committee and the Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).TO be fair to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal, he has, since assumption of office, always tried to the best of his abilities to ensure that he coordinate the affairs of the House as transparent as he could. But happenings in the recent past from the House call for concern.Part of the sad events in the House was the aborted free-for-all fight that could have torn the peace of the House apart, staged by its Kano caucus members, who had threatened fire and brimstone following a motion to probe the Central Bank of Nigeria, Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, over some donations he made in the recent times. Another issue that also called for concern is a case of an hunter that is now being hunted, which aptly described what had characterised the ongoing public hearing organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Capital Market and other Institutions specifically to identify the manifest causes of the capital market's near collapse with a view to finding a lasting solution to it. Hardly had the public hearing started when allegations and counter allegations were being made by both the House committee and the embattled Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ms Arunmah Oteh.The committee chairman, Honourable Herman Hembe, had fired the first missile, accusing the SEC boss of incompetence and passing a vote of no confidence in Ms Oteh and her management team for their alleged failure to protect the interest of investors in the three nationalized banks, (Afribank, Bank PHB and Spring Bank) by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).The committee chairman also accused the SEC DG of spending the commission's money unjustly, saying 'We have also found out that you have been spending the money of SEC unjustly. You have stayed in Hilton for eight months. On a particular day, you ate N85,000 worth of food on a single day; you spent over N30 million within the period. We have proofs of all these.'Aside reckless spending allegations, the committee equally queried the SEC boss for allowing Access Bank Plc staffers, Mr Charles Ugheli, her Project Adviser and Titi Olubiyi, who also served as her communications adviser, to work for her, saying, 'How can you allow Access Bank which is one of the financial institutions that SEC regulates to second its staff to your office' This can compromise the operations of SEC and further kill the confidence the public have in capital market.' But the SEC boss claimed that they were working for her without collecting any salaries.With these allegations levelled against Ms Oteh, she wasted no time on Thursday at the continued public hearing before alleging that the chairman of the committee, Honourable Hembe, demanded about N44 million bribe from the commission before the commencement of the probe of the sector. According to her, the committee demanded the sum of N39 million from the commission to organise the public hearing, adding that the committee's clerk allegedly asked for N5 million from her last Tuesday. She also doubted the competence and impartiality of the chairman of the committee to head the probe, stressing that most of the questions being asked by the Hembe-led committee were frivolous.She also alleged that, last year, Hembe collected estacode and other travel allowances from the SEC to travel to the Dominican Republic on a capacity enhancement conference for capital market regulators and that did not go neither did he return the money collected.In her own words:'Yesterday (last Wednesday), you had implied that, as a regulator, that by having people on secondment from the private sector, it could undermine the capacity of the regulatory functions of the commission.'In asking the SEC to contribute N39 million for this public hearing, do you think that you are undermining your capacity to carry out your duties' You think that if Honourable Emeka Ihedioha, the deputy speaker of this House, being the nephew to Professor Ndi Okereke-Onyuike and having his wife work in the Abuja office of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, do you think it will be compromising his capacity to carry out his duties''And I do not think that it augurs well for the Nigerian capital market because one of the reasons people are investing in this economy is because they believe that there is a democracy and they can come to the National Assembly and have a fair hearing.'I do not think you have given me a fair hearing, I do not think, Honourable Chairman Hembe, that it is appropriate for you to have gathered information from the SEC and without even asking us to verify that information, to respond to that issue, you already made the judgment,'she alleged. But Hembe fired back, saying, "On my father's grave, I have never visited SEC even for oversight and I never demanded money from her.
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