‘Pension funds critical to Nigerian economy’
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| Nigeria economy today |
The nation’s pension funds play critical role in economic development, the Director General of the National PensionCommission (PenCom), Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu has said.
She spoke as a special guest of honour at the 17th annual lecture of the Catholic Brothers United (CBU) in Lagos.
The DG who spoke on the theme: ‘The Use of Pension Funds as Catalyst for Economic Diversification,’ noted that: “The Nigerian pension funds are playing two critical roles in the local economy.
The first and most important is ensuring that retirees receive their retirement benefits as and when due. The second role of the fund is the positive impact on the economic growth and development, which is directly related to their investment activities.”
Anohu-Amazu who hinted that the Commission is proposing N3trillion investment to boost infrastructure development in critical sectors of the economy, observed, that the pension funds “Have become very important source of financial intermediation. They play significant role as vehicles for pooling and mobilising savings for funding long-term investments.”
The PenCom boss also noted that the nation’s pension fund assets had seen a dramatic growth over the decade, from about N2trillion deficit in June 2004 to N5.74trillion as at the second quarter of 2016, informed that the pool of funds is being invested on behalf of the contributors based on the provision of the Pension Reform Act 2014 on stipulated allowable instruments for investment of pension funds and assets.