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Experts Advocate Use Of Pension Funds As Alternative For Infrastructure Financing

An Associate Fellow at the Centre for Infrastructure, Policy, Regulation and Advancement (CIPRA), Dr Ese Owie, has advocated for a cloning of the global practice … Continue reading Experts Advocate Use Of Pension Funds As Alternative For Infrastructure Financing


Business_morningAn Associate Fellow at the Centre for Infrastructure, Policy, Regulation and Advancement (CIPRA), Dr Ese Owie, has advocated for a cloning of the global practice of partnerships between the private sector and the Government to fast track infrastructure financing looking at the limitations of Nigerian banks.

Dr Owie was speaking on Channels Television’s business programme, Business Morning.

With reference to a pension reserve of about 4 trillion naira, he called on pension regulators to find the best way to “engage with the Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) and set out a clear regulation of how to invest these funds to finance infrastructure”.

He, however, noted that the Nigerian Pension Commission, as a regulator, “is to drive responsible investment because you have to balance the desire of our country to utilise the fund for infrastructure, with the need to also protect the fund for the retirees to draw upon when the time comes.”

Also speaking on the Business Programme, the Country Representative, International Institute for Investment Promotion, Mr Ogbonna Ukuku, noted that there was need for alternative funding of infrastructure because people all over the world are seeking ways to come out of normal buying and government bonds to areas where they can get higher profit. He noted that “when retirees get to the level when they want to start getting back their funds, the money that would have accrued to them would be able to sustain them at their retirement.”

They both praised recommendations reached at the just concluded World Pension Summit, Africa Special.