Mr Eric Akinduro, Chairman of Ibadan Shareholders Association, has lamented that efforts to reduce the number of unclaimed dividends in the country have not yielded the desired results.
Akinduro told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Saturday – yesterday, February 1 – that the situation has persisted in spite of the introduction of the Dividend Mandate Management System (DMMS) portal.
“The system was meant to allow shareholders to update their records and their details into the portal and dividends would be paid.
“But, honestly, I say with confirmation that 80 per cent of shareholders who uploaded their records through that portal are not getting anything.
“They will generate a code and when they call the Registrar, they will continue to ask for the code and all other things.
“This should not be, when you are talking of online access to something.
“You have asked users to upload their Bank Verification Number (BVN), their picture, their signature, their means of identification and National Identification Number (NIN). So, they already have all the necessary information.
“So, I don’t know why there should be any problem if this was done properly. There should not be any problem for any shareholder looking for his dividends which have not been paid,” he said.
The system in operation is properly deployed, Akinduro assured, noting that the problem is with the regulators in the areas of implementation and monitoring.
“If they set up something, do they monitor this thing from both the Registrar’s end and the shareholders?
“If the monitoring is there, they will be able to know what is happening with this portal they created in 2023.
“They should be asking ‘how many investors have benefited from this particular portal?’, and ‘Does this portal really reduce the level of unclaimed dividends?’
“So, there should be proper monitoring of these things. It is then that we can achieve the desired results,” Akinduro said.
He added that a situation where the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) allows a company to trade with unclaimed dividends after some period is not the best thing for the market, pointing out that this would defeat the purpose of reducing the number of unclaimed dividends which the government set out to do in the first instance.
“We are trying to discourage them (companies) from holding their shareholders’ money to make sure they pay it out.
“Yet, you are telling them that, it is okay, after some period, that the company can invest such money into any good, pleasurable business outside the company. It’s not too good,” he said.
This means that the SEC has been telling companies something else, the shareholders association chairman agonized, saying: “It means SEC has been saying ‘Okay, if nobody claims this money for a certain period, you can trade with it on your own’.
“Then, after the investment, what is coming to the shareholders? The owner of that investment? Nothing.
“So, the best thing is to face this challenge, holistically, to ensure that we reduce this unclaimed dividend.”
Akinduro pointed out that the use of a BVN has made it impossible for a person to have multiple identifications.
“So, if any investor can provide and meet all the requirements, then his or her dividends should be paid.”
He further said with the recent delisting of Flour Mill Nigeria Plc a whole lot of their old members have not been able to get cash concentration for that liquidation/delisting.
“By the time they approach the Registrar, what they will say is that they don’t have a signature specimen. What do you need a signature specimen for if BVN is there and banks can always confirm the person.
“So, we are still working in an analogue way with digital techniques and this is very bad,” Akinduro said.
According to him, SEC needs to dialogue with shareholders to know their challenges in claiming their dividends so that they can proffer solutions to the challenges holistically.
“They need to monitor anything they roll out as improvements in the market. Are they really compliant and following their policies and doing it as it is expected to be done?
“We need to wake up on this issue of unclaimed dividends as people are really suffering. They have their money but they can’t claim it,” Akinduro surmised.
