An Examination of the Unit Trust Scheme/Mutual Fund as a Veritable Vehicle of Investment in the Nigerian Stock Market.

The Nigerian economy is characterized by low income, low savings, low investment and low productivity. The capital market which on its own is a veritable vehicle for mobilizing investible funds from surplus units to units suffering from scarcity came alive with the financial restructuring of the 1990s and especially the bank consolidation scheme of 2004. At a time it was adjudged one of the highest yielding stock markets in the world. However with the global financial meltdown, there was a near complete collapse of the market and many of the investors who were playing more or less solo got their fingers bunt. As marginal investors, majority of them lacked the skill, knowledge, competence and capital to effectively diversify their investment risks to have a soft landing during the meltdown. Neither were they much aware of the availability of the unit trust scheme/ mutual fund as a veritable investment vehicle especially for novitiates and fringe investors as most of them were. The result was a poorly patronized segment of the Nigerian stock market and a monumental loss of wealth and confidence in the market. This paper examines the unit trust scheme /mutual fund as an investment option very suitable in mobilizing investible funds from small savers and not too sophisticated investors. It finds out that there is lack of awareness and poor patronage of the scheme in the Nigerian stock market and sufficient wide spread education is necessary in this regard. It posits that the Nigerian economy stands to gain substantially from the strengthening of institutional and systemic factors including legal and accounting architecture to enhance transparency and accountability around fiduciary relationships as unit trust and mutual fund schemes connote

Mutual Real Estate Funds: A Veritable Window of Investment in the Nigerian Stock Market

Investors are hard hit by the crash in the capital market in Nigeria and a few who still have investible funds are constantly at cross roads in selecting profitable investment outlets. A good number of investors are rushing out of investment in shares and stocks into real estate investment. But here again, investment is haphazardly done.  Little coordination, cooperation or collaboration is adopted. Investors are not adequately patronizing the Real Estate Investment (REIT) Fund through which professional and expert advice in addition to benefits of large scale operation could be harnessed.  The fundamental question  here is can REIT funds offer any hope given that the global melt down has not effectively started to solidify? This paper critically examines the issues involved in investing in mutual funds in Nigeria and tries to determine the extent to which this investment window can effectively mobilize savings for investment in critical real sectors of the economy especially the real estate. Using secondary data collected from the CBN Statistics Bulletin and opinion survey of stock brokers, mortgage bankers and investors in Nigeria, the paper establishes that there is a strong positive correlation between the level of savings in the economy and investment in real estate and that in fact savings drive real estate investment in Nigeria. It further argues that most investors in Nigeria are not even aware of nor consider unit trusts as reliable and profitable real estate investment in spite of the huge potential of this financial intermediate’s role as a veritable vehicle for capital mobilization in this critical segment of the Nigerian economy. There should be an increase effort on individual and corporate saving in order to boost investment opportunities and there should be need to encourage Mutual Funds through the unit trust scheme to enhance real estate investment.

Inadequacies And Redundancies In The Principal Financial Authorities That Guide Public Sector Accounting And Financial Management In Nigeria

There exist several financial authorities that guide public sector accounting and financial management in Nigeria. Despite this, there is low level of accountability and transparency in financial reporting and management at the federal government level which engenders a high level of corruption. Curiously, two basic questions are: To what extent have these financial authorities been effective in enhancing accountability and transparency in public fund management? Secondly, are the financial authorities adequate? This paper therefore, determines the effectiveness and adequacy of the existing financial authorities. With a robust literature review providing the theoretical framework, it uses primary data collected from a sample of 200 federal public/civil servants and a student t-distribution statistic at 95% confidence level, to test two hypotheses: “That financial authorities guiding public sector accounting and financial management at the federal government level in Nigeria are ineffective in enhancing accountability and transparency in public fund management”, and, “That the financial authorities guiding public sector accounting and financial management at the federal government level are inadequate”. The result shows that the financial authorities are both ineffective and inadequate. It thus strongly recommends a substantial review of the existing laws, rules and regulations that guide public sector accounting and financial management at the federal government level in Nigeria, a strengthening of the legal process not only to include very punitive sanctions but also to enforce same timely and exhaustively upon any infringement. . Key words: Accounting, Accountability, Financial Authorities, Financial Management, Transparency

Determination of the Level of Acceptance and Compliance to the New Pension Scheme in Nigeria

This paper reviews the new pension scheme in Nigeria viz a viz the basic philosophy and objectives of pension schemes generally. It chronicles the various efforts and challenges at administering an effective pension scheme in Nigeria over the years with particular focus on the level of acceptance and compliance by all the stake holders in the new scheme. It notes that much as the new scheme is far better than the old ones, much has to be done through education and enlightenment to get the cooperation, interest, acceptance and compliance by all the critical stake holders. This is critical in view of the rapidly increasing population of the aged in Nigeria and given the predominant level of corruption in the conduct of public affairs in Nigeria. It is hoped that through the strengthening of critical accountability and control institutions and speedy adoption and adaptation of the new International Financial Reporting Standard and most importantly the strengthening of both legal and accounting infrastructure in Nigeria, the new pension scheme will succeed

Content Analysis of the Effect of Audit Committee Characteristics on Earnings per Share of Quoted Companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange 2006-2012

The spate of corporate failures in recent times calls for serious examination of their causes and possible solution. Audit committees are statutorily compulsory component of the management of corporate organizations in Nigeria (CAMA 1990) and constitute a credible component of corporate government element. For quite some time now, audit committees have been instituted to add teeth to corporate governance in publicly quoted companies. In spite of this, corporate failures are still rampant. It becomes necessary to ask: how significant is the contribution of the audit committees to corporate performance of quoted companies in the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The earlier study had used opinion survey through a structured questionnaire administered on company administrators and managers to evaluate the relevance of the audit committee on corporate performance and   discovered that the quality of audit committee rather than its mere existence impacts on the performance of companies through a positive impact on corporate governance. This current  study  uses secondary data on corporate financial performance represented by earnings per share; as dependent variable and  Audit Committee sizes, Composition,  frequency of meetings ,and regularity of members’ attendance, as independent variables, all collected from annual financial reports of the companies quoted on the stock exchange within the study period to test the hypothesis that : Audit Committee size, composition and frequency of meetings have  significant positive effect on the financial performance of quoted non financial companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The Micro soft Special Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) is used to do the regression analysis which showed that there is a significant positive relationship between the Audit Committee Size , composition, frequency of meetings, regularity of members’ attendance   and performance of quoted non financial companies as in the earlier study on perception. Most of the companies had very low financial performance and had ineffective Audit Committees. This study could not simply corroborate the earlier one because while the perception of the managers reflected their expectations of the role and impact of the audit committees, the reality on ground as shown by the relationship between the quality of audit committee and financial performance show that Nigerian companies have not really benefited from the existence of these audit committees. Critically, these firms generally score very low in these indices hence their equally low earnings per share. Therefore, like in the previous study the recommendation is being made that  the entire legal and regulatory framework together with the necessary institutional and environmental architecture for proper constitution and operation of an efficient Audit Committee should be maintained at all times to enhance corporate governance and improve financial performance of listed companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. Keywords: Audit Committee, Corporate Governance, Control, Corporate Performanc

Audit Committees and Corporate Performance of Selected Companies Quoted in the Nigerian Stock Exchange: a Perception Analysis.

The spate of corporate failures in recent times calls for serious examination of their causes and possible solution. Audit committees are statutorily compulsory component of the management of corporate organizations in Nigeria (CAMA 1990) and constitute a credible component of corporate government element. For quite some time now, audit committees have been instituted to add teeth to corporate governance in publicly quoted companies. In spite of this, corporate failures are still rampant. It becomes necessary to ask: how significant is the contribution of the audit committees to corporate performance of quoted companies in the Nigerian Stock Exchange. This paper therefore evaluates the relevance of the audit committee on corporate performance. It focuses on Non-Financial companies quoted in the Exchange between 2006 and 2010. It regresses the average perceived quality of the audit committees against critical financial ratios of these companies over the years covered. A sample size of 287 was selected using the Taro Yameni formula and the Microsoft Special Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) statistical analysis was adopted to perform the regression analysis. It was discovered that the quality of audit committee rather than its mere existence impacts on the performance of companies through a positive impact on corporate governance of such companies. However, for majority of the companies (more than 80 percent), their audit committees are weakly constituted with majority of the members lacking the necessary qualities of integrity, dedication, a thorough understanding of the business of the company among others. These qualities according to Shamsudden (2003) are the bedrock of or sterling qualities of audit committee membership. Keywords: Audit Committee, Corporate Governance, Control, Corporate Performanc

Content Analysis of Effect of Board Size, Composition, Frequency of Meetings and Regulrity in Attendance at Meetings on Financial Performance of Quoted Companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange 2006-2012

The rampant corporate failures in recent times both within and outside Nigeria make safety of investors’ wealth an interesting and important area of research in Accounting.  The safety investment and its growth can be deciphered from the trend in the earnings per share of a company. Once the earnings per share falls below acceptable levels the company is bound to wound up. The cases of Enron, Xerox, Adelphia et cetera internationally and Cadbury, NITEL, NEPA, NRC and many banks in Nigeria are very well known. Interestingly the Board of Directors as the top management of these corporate entities is where the bulk stops. The quality of the board, its efficiency and by extension the corporate performance of the entity could be affected by the size and composition of the Board, and frequency of meetings and regularity in attendance at meetings, as critical elements of corporate governance. Therefore, the question normally asked is to what extent do Board size, Board composition/structure, frequency of board meetings and regularity of attendance at meetings by board members impact the corporate performance of companies? The earlier study had used opinion survey of company administrators and managers to assess their perception on the impact of Board size and composition and the related variables on the financial performance of Non-Financial Companies quoted on the Nigerian stock exchange through a structured questionnaire administered to three top ranking managers/accountants in each company and used the Micro soft Special Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to analyze the responses presented in a 5-point liker scale where the regression showed that there is a significant positive relationship between the Board size, composition, frequency of meetings, regularity of members’ attendance   and performance of quoted non financial companies. That study had been documented with a recommendation among others that the Board should not be unnecessarily weighty in size but more importantly, the Board should be composed more of outsiders with proven integrity, acumen, experience and skill in corporate management. The current  study uses secondary data on corporate financial performance, with a single index of Earnings Per Share (EPS) as dependent variable and  Board size, Board composition, Frequency of Meetings and Regularity of Members’ Attendance, as independent variables, all collected from Annual Financial Reports of the companies quoted on the stock exchange within the study period to test the hypothesis that : Board size, composition, frequency of meetings and regularity of members’ attendance have significant positive effect on corporate financial performance of quoted non – financial companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The Micro soft Special Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 is used to do the regression analysis. It was shown that that there is a significant positive relationship between the Board size, composition, frequency of meetings, regularity of members’ attendance and performance of quoted non financial companies as in the earlier study on perception. With R, the correlation coefficient which has a value of 0.535, though much lower than in the previous study, indicates that there is a significant positive relationship between the Board size, composition, frequency of meetings, regularity of members’ attendance   and performance of quoted companies..  R square, the coefficient of determination, shows that F= 9.645 far above 2, Significance = 0.000 and Durbin-Watson = 1.93 indicating that the variation in the performance of quoted companies is explained by the model. This study thus not only corroborates the earlier one but also shows more specifically that a higher percentage outside board membership leads to a higher earnings per share and the fewer the overall size of the Board, the higher the EPS. It is therefore recommended among others that the Board should not be unnecessarily weighty in size but more importantly, the Board should be composed more of outsiders with proven integrity, acumen, experience and skill in corporate management. Moreover members of the BOD should endeavourer to attend meetings more regularly. All these would help improve the EPS of quoted companies and reduce drastically the spate of corporate failures as good corporate governance stand to be engendered. Key words: Board of Directors, Corporate performance, corporate governance

Duality Role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in Corporate Governance and Performance of Quoted Companies in the Nigerian Stock Exchange: An Appraisal of the Perception of Managers and Accountants.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of a corporate entity is its Chief Accounting Officer. He is at the head of management which according to Miller (2005) is more of hands on activity; conducting and supervising actions with the judicious use of means to accomplish certain goal/s. The Chairman of the Board of Directors on the other hand is the chief policy or law maker of the enterprise. CEO Duality occurs when the CEO is equally the Chairman of the company or Board of Directors. Since the position of a CEO is a critical element of corporate governance of a company, a combination of the roles of CEO and chairman of the company could have far reaching implications on stewardship accounting and corporate governance and by extension corporate performance. Poor corporate governance has been implicated in most corporate failures in and outside Nigeria. Hence this paper appraises the practice of CEO Duality in Nigeria and examines its implications on effective corporate governance and performance of Non-Financial companies in the Nigerian Stock Market. It uses panel data on the performances (ROE) of companies with CEO-Duality and those without CEO-Duality to determine the effect of this duality on company performance. A sample size of 30 companies selected through the Taro Yameni formula was used while their performances (ROE) for the years 2006 to 2010 were equally used without further sampling. A test of significant difference was performed using the E-view statistics. It was discovered that there is a significant difference between the performances of companies with CEO duality and those without CEO duality. Again the average performance of the former was statistically and significantly lower than the average performance of the later. It was therefore recommended that as a veritable means of strengthening corporate governance and enhancing performance, CEO duality should be minimized/reduced as much as possible. Chairmen of companies should not double as Chief Executive Officers. Key words: Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board, Stewardship Accounting, Corporate performance.

Evaluación del impacto ambiental generado por la minería de cielo abierto en la cantera Cerro Colorado en el barrio Juan José ciudad Bolívar, Bogotá D.C.

De acuerdo con esto, el proyecto de investigación busca evaluar la contaminación generada por la Cantera Cerro Colorado, identificando los impactos que la actividad extractiva genera en barrios como Juan José Rondón ubicado en la localidad Ciudad Bolívar de la ciudad de Bogotá D.C., así mismo el objetivo de la investigación busca contribuir a la comprensión de la problemática ambiental y la relación de la población con el medio. La metodología implementada inicialmente fue la consulta del expediente SDA-07-2010-2292, para documentar los antecedentes y la problemática de la zona de estudio, posteriormente se recopilaron testimonios reportados por parte de los habitantes residentes en el área de influencia de la cantera, luego, se efectúo una interpretación y traslape de imágenes Google Earth de diferentes años utilizando un programa de software ArcGIS, delimitando el área de expansión de la cantera, adicionalmente se entrevistaron moradores del barrio Juan José Rondón ubicado en la localidad Ciudad Bolívar de la ciudad de Bogotá D.C., buscando conocer las percepciones sobre las actividades mineras e identificando las principales consecuencias que afectan a la comunidad. Finalmente, con los resultados obtenidos en cada fase de la investigación se identificaron 09 efectos sobre el medio físico y el medio socioeconómico que impactan en la calidad de vida de los habitantes del barrio en estudio. Como conclusión la extracción minera que se realiza en la Cantera Cerro Colorado bajo parámetros y procedimientos no tecnificados, es la principal causa de degradación ambiental, amenaza y riesgo para la salud y seguridad de los habitantes que se encuentran en el área de influencia, es de anotar la necesidad de una mayor presencia y veeduría por parte de la autoridad ambiental y las instituciones responsables del tema con el propósito de velar por los derechos ambientales y mitigar el aumento de problemas sociales.According to this, the research project seeks to evaluate the pollution generated by the Cerro Colorado Quarry, identifying the impacts that extractive activity generates in neighborhoods such as Juan José Rondón located in Ciudad Bolívar in the city of Bogotá DC, as well as The objective of the research seeks to contribute to the understanding of environmental problems and the relationship of the population with the environment. The methodology initially implemented was the consultation of the file SDA-07-2010-2292, to document the background and problems of the study area, subsequently collected testimonies from residents in the area of ​​influence of the quarry, then, an interpretation and overlapping of Google Earth images of different years was made using an ArcGIS software program, delimiting the area of ​​expansion of the quarry, in addition residents of the Juan José Rondón neighborhood located in the Ciudad Bolívar locality of the city of Bogotá DC, seeking to know the perceptions about the mining activities and identifying the main consequences that affect the community. Finally, with the results obtained in each phase of the research, 09 effects were identified on the physical environment and the socioeconomic environment that impact on the quality of life of the inhabitants of the neighborhood under study. As a conclusion, the mining extraction that takes place in the Cerro Colorado Quarry under non-technical parameters and procedures, is the main cause of environmental degradation, threat and risk to the health and safety of the inhabitants who are in the area of ​​influence. note the need for greater presence and oversight by the environmental authority and the institutions responsible for the issue with the purpose of ensuring environmental rights and mitigate the increase in social problems