Unclaimed dividends: shareholders allege N280m fraud

Some shareholders in the Nigerian capital market on Friday alleged fraudulent transactions in unclaimed dividends of former Afribank to the tune of N280 million.

The shareholders under the aegis of Progressive Shareholders Association of Nigeria (PSAN) made the allegation in a statement signed by its National Chairman, Mr Boniface Okezie.

The statement said that a company fruadently withdrew the alleged sum of money from unclaimed dividends belonging to the shareholders of Afribank on the pretext that they were paying to the original shareholders.

It said that the funds were diverted to various individual accounts who were purported to be shareholders, but this turned out to be fake shareholders.

“This is a fraud too many in the recent times rocking the capital market simultaneously. We therefore call on the authorities concerned to urgently arrest the trend before it consumes the entire market.

“We demand that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a matter of urgency to liaise with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to give directives to Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System to corporate with the police to investigate the matter to give them the details of the transactions,” it statement.

The statement called on the commission to ensure that those involved in the fund were sanctioned by banning them from participating in any capital market activities henceforth.

It added that all the affected monies must be recovered from the culprits.

The shareholders also called on SEC to reverse its earlier decision to allow unclaimed dividends to be returned to the companies that declared them.

It said that the earlier directive of SEC led led to the fraud, noting that unclaimed dividends should be kept in secured accounts pending when SEC could constitute a committee to oversee the funds, but not unclaimed dividend trust fund.

“We also demand that SEC should ask all company registrars to have a master data list which must be at SEC and the committee set will use it to determine how much was paid out and how much is left in the accounts,” the statement said

The statement said that SEC should put adequate measures in place before implementing its e-dividend policy which, it said, would drain shareholders money in the long run.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that all efforts to reach SEC to react to the allegation proved abortive as officials failed to respond to text messages and phone calls to them.