The Senate has questioned the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over a N6 billion expenditure on salaries and other emoluments out of its N9 billion revenue .
The Chairman, Senate Committee on Capital Market, Sen. Ibikunle Amosun (APC-Ogun) raised the query during the hearing of the commission’s 2022 budget defence on Wednesday by its Director-General Yuguda Lamido in Abuja.
Amosun noted that it was unusual for the SEC to have spent nearly 90 per cent of its revenue on salaries and emoluments.
“Your emolument was almost N6 billion out of the N9 billion and other expenses. So clearly, you are spending almost all of the revenue that comes to you on staff emolument and other related things.
You should give us the number of staff that you have in the commission such that we need to look at what is happening.
“You are having a huge deficit of almost N4 billion. When you continuously make this deficit year in, year out, then something is wrong,” he said.
Sen. Kashim Shettima (APC- Borno) a member of the committee asked about the measures taken by the commission to boost its revenue and cut down spending.
“You are already bleeding and this bleeding will continue and if care is not taken, you will reach a point where you cannot even service your obligation,” he said.
Another member of the committee, Sen. Ayo Akinyelure (PDP-Ondo) raised concerns over the huge spending on SEC’s staff emolument, noting that the revenue of the commission might be insufficient to service the staff.
“We will be interested in having details on this, because you just came on board but civil servants are there until 35 years or 60 years before they will retire.
“Your organisation is not a charitable organisation. You are suppose to trade in the market, regulate the market, make enough income, make sure all your workers are fine,” he said.
Responding, Lamido acknowledged that the staff emolument was high but said the commission under his leadership had put in place measures to reduce the expenditure and jerk up revenue.
“When we came in last year into the management of the commission, we actually inherited this situation. We knew it was not sustainable and we tried to immediately start things that will reduce the expenditure,” he said.
