Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has vowed the enforcement of electronically

transmitted annual reports to shareholders.

The idea is to ensure they receive such reports few weeks before the annual general meeting of listed companies, according to SEC

Mounir Gwarzo, SEC’s Director General said this at the agency’s second quarterly Capital Market Committee (CMC), meeting press briefing in Lagos, observed that 98 percent of shareholders don’t get their annual report on time except for institutional investors.

He said the annual report will not be completely done electronically but company Secretary will deposit some of the hard copies with the shareholders associations for those who are unable to access the electronic annual report.

Mr. Mounir noted that the pilot stage will takeoff this year and with time it will be reviewed, while adding that the aim is to ensure that all investors get the report on time and study it thoroughly and ask relevant questions and contribution to the meeting.

Speaking on e-dividend mandate, the Director General said as at the end of July 2017 only 432,000 unique individuals that has BVN out of the 2.1million that have mandated their accounts.The deadline for e dividend mandate have been extended to the 31st of December 2017.

To make the system easier for investors the capital market committee has merged the direct cash settlement and the e- dividend together in one single form which is now called Electronic Capital Registration System Form (ECRF).

Speaking on multiple account holders, he said “investors with multiple accounts have up till December 2017 to come with relevant KYC to harmonies their accounts with their registrars. Once an investor can justify that he is the same person that owns the various accounts they will be able to claims their investment before the end of 2017.