President, Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp) Eguarekhide Longe and Executive Secretary, Susan Oranye at an event.
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Chuks Udo Okonta
The President, Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), Longe Eguarekhide, has said Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) main objective is not development financing but meeting the fiduciary responsibilities to subscribers by securing their future.
He told Inspenonline that the operators are willing to invest in projects, stressing that the project must be backed with guarantee to safeguard the funds invested.
“Infrastructure would always take time. If there is anything to take away, it is that fact that the objective of pension investment is not development financing. The infrastructure professionals acknowledged that and the challenges we need to consider as pension administrators, is the fiduciary responsibilities to our subscribers. That is the first thing before the return perspective,” he said.
Echoing him, 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.
“There is the call for impact investment. Some people are calling on us to focus on improving the lots of the people than return. That is really not our job. A lot of infrastructural bonds, that pension funds are to be invested in have socially responsible effects on Nigerians. We need the government to put all these things together, let the ball rolling, so that we would not have this conversation again and again.” She posited.
