A new set of documents (find them below) made available to Premium Times this morning suggest that it was the House Committee on Capital Market that first approached the Securities and Exchange Commission asking for sponsorship for its public hearing scheduled for March 13 – 30.

Going by the stamp of receipt on the document, the House first sent a N39, 844,490 budget estimate to the SEC on February 29. It is however not known what discussions took place between the Committee members and the SEC leadership before the budget was forwarded to the capital market reqgulator that February 29..

A breakdown of the budget shows that N5,605,240 would be spent on advertising the public hearing in five newspapers (Business News, Daily Trust, Punch, Vanguard and Tribune) while N2, 245, 450 would be needed to publicise the event on major electronic media – AIT, Channels and NTA.

For live coverages of the hearing on Channels, AIT and NTA, the budget claimed N26, 203, 800 was needed. N4, 215,000 and N1,575,000 were earmarked for secretariat need and refreshment respectively.

However, apparently after considering the budget, an official of SEC, Hassan Mamman, initiated a memo to Director General Arunmah Oteh, on March 1 suggesting that the agency “assist the Committee by co-sponsoring this three weeks long event.” 

In a second memo to Ms Oteh dated March 9, 2012, Mr. Mamman indicated contact had been made with members and that the committee “welcomed” the idea of sponsoring its public hearing. He went further to suggest that the management of SEC approve N30.4million to support live coverage and secretariat needs of the hearing.

Both Ms Oteh and the board of SEC approved the proposal.    

The committee kept in touch with SEC after money was approved for it. On March 14, it wrote to the agency introducing Messrs Note Worth Consulting as its consultant for the public hearing.

“Kindly avail him all the necessary assistance please,” Aba Thomas, Assistant Committee Clerk, wrote in the letter.

It is not clear what assistance SEC later offered to Note Worth as a representative of the committee. Officials of the firm could not be reached Wednesday morning.

Find the actual house public hearing document below