Mr Mounir Gwarzo, Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), said that the solution to ponzi schemes in the country was a change of attitude, reports Punch.
According to him, the Ponzi schemes will die slowly if Nigerians stop being greedy. Gwarzo said this in Abuja.
“ The fundamental solution to this Ponzi scheme has to do with our own attitude as people.
“We must be able to shun being greedy; we must try as much as possible to look at some of these schemes very critically.
“Are these schemes registered either by the Central Bank of Nigeria or by the Securities and Exchange Commission; if they are not then you know clearly that there are issues.
What sort of incentives are they offering; what sort of returns are they promising; most of them promise returns that are not reasonable, that are not realistic, that cannot stand the test of time.
“Those kind of things should send a very strong signal to say that there is more to it than the eyes can see,’’ he said.
Gwarzo explained that the regulators were doing their best to warn Nigerians against partaking in Ponzi schemes such as MMM and the recent digital scheme called the Bitcoin.
He urged Nigerians to avoid such schemes, adding that,“ we should discipline our mind from being very greedy, to being very realistic in whatever investment outlet we put our money in.
On the challenges of the capital market in 2016, the SEC boss said it was mainly due to the general crisis faced by the nation’s economy.
“Because like we all know the market also went down and the market is a reflection of the economy, we all know that the economy was going through difficult times.
“This current government is doing all it can to salvage the situation.
“One can clearly see the major challenge that the government had faced and for me, any other government, given the circumstances at that time, could have been in that situation.
“Because we experienced a situation whereby oil price was below 30 dollars per barrel, we experienced a situation whereby production of crude oil at one point was even as low as 950,000 barrels.”
