ISLAMABAD – The newly constituted Securities and Exchange (SEC) Policy Board met in Islamabad on Thursday to review the overall functioning and effectiveness of the SECP. Chairman of the Board, Mr. Khalid Mirza, placed emphasis on the overhaul of the corporate governance regime and measures that need to be taken for the capital market development program.
The SECP’s Acting Chairman informed Mr. Mirza regarding various issues and challenges confronting the SECP. The Board unanimously agreed that there is a need to create a far less onerous regulatory and supervisory environment for the regulated entities and for ease of doing business.
The Board agreed that the regulatory regime requires an extensive review and for the purpose has formed oversight, regulation and governance committees to look into respective areas for improvement. Chairman Khalid Mirza stressed that regulation should be firm, helpful and fair with a focus on facilitating the regulated. These three committees will come up with cogent measures and suggestions.
The Policy Board also gave directions to the Commission to review the current KYC forms to simplify them, consider reducing exemption fee of Rs500,000 for independent directors and consider transferring the data bank of independent directors from the Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance (PICG) to the SECP. The Policy Board also proposed that input of the Board for selection of Chairman/Commissioners of the SECP should be considered during the selection process.
It may be added in pursuance of Section 12 of the SECP Act 1997, the SECP’s Policy Board has members from both public and private sectors.
