President, Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) Eguarekhide Longe and Executive Secretary, Susan Oranye at an event in Abuja.
Leave a comment and share
Chuks Udo Okonta
Government inability to draw clear strategy for infrastructural financing has been identified as a reason for its failure to attract much funds from the pension industry.
The President, Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), Longe Eguarekhide, who said this in an interview with Inspenonline, noted that there should be clear and articulated strategy on investment in infrastructure that would enable all stakeholders move in the same direction.
He maintained that pension operators are yet to fully understand what the government policy on infrastructure is, adding that the government is only calling for pension funds without stating how it would be properly invested to ensure safety of the fund.
“We need to focus on the debate for use of pension funds in clear details, because what really is the strategy for infrastructure investing that is being considered? There are so many different infrastructure thing that can be pursued, but what is the strategy to pursue these things? If you do not pursue it well, you can just be investing randomly and made no impact. A lot of thinking have to be done and you cannot think in a room without government presence. This is because, government is the ultimate owner of the assets,” he said.
Longe posited that the objective of pension investment is not development financing, stressing that pension administrators have a fiduciary responsibilities to their subscribers, which they consider first before return perspective.
The Executive Secretary PenOp, Ms Susan Oranye, said: “Our primary role is our fiduciary to our contributors. We can agree across the board that pension funds can play a role in economic growth. It is good to invest in infrastructural bond, the economy would grow and there is job creation and everybody is happy. But if you do not have those bonds and projects properly structured, we would not just jump into investing.”
She urged those calling on pension operators to focus on improving the lots of the people rather than return, to tread with caution, stressing that improving the lots of the general public is not the job of operators.
She maintained that there are a lot of infrastructural bonds, that pension funds could be invested in which would have socially responsible effects on Nigerians, and called on the government to harmonise the opportunities to enable pension operators come in with their funds.
