Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed has lauded the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) for its efficiency in executing and successfully delivering major infrastructure projects and transformational initiatives with national impact.
Ahmed stated this while speaking at a plenary session on Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) at Africa Investment Forum (AIF – 2022), held recently in Abidjan.
Highlighting some success stories of the NSIA, the minister said through the NSIA, key roads and bridges under the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund are being built, adding that a state-of-the-art animal feed facility linked to hundreds of hectares of maize farms was recently commissioned.
She said fertiliser blending facilities have also been revived through the supply of high-quality NPK under the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative, adding that there is a partnership agreement with Morocco to build an Ammonia plant.
“We are supporting artisanal and small-scale miners while building up our reserves through the presidential artisanal gold mining initiative, We have also commenced our journey towards the adoption of clean energy starting off with the development of a 10MW Grid Solar Plant and we have constructed cancer and medical diagnostic centres across the country,” she said.
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The minister added, adding that a certain proportion of NSIA’s funds was allocated for investments in innovative pioneer sectors within and outside Nigeria, in addition to a sizeable percentage invested in equities and bonds in Europe, America and Asia.
“Overall, successful African SWFs are those that strike a balance between meeting the local immediate needs such as infrastructure versus Nigeria’s long-term outlook for stability in periods of distress, Our hope is that the next five years will be less dramatic and more predictable so we can plan properly for that rainy day, whatever it maybe,” she said.
Ahmed recalled that right after the oil price crash of the late 2000s, Nigeria focused more on stabilization and a buffer to serve as an hedge against the cyclical volatility of being an oil economy.
“We wanted and needed to save for a rainy day and many of you will agree that the last five years has been constantly wet and this is a challenge African SWFs have experienced,” she said.
She said with issues around a growing population, climate change in the form of floods, droughts and desertification and their adverse impact on food security, rising insecurity and the pandemic, it takes a very strong and focused leadership to think about saving and Nigeria has performed well in this regard.
The minister noted that when Nigeria’s SWF commenced operations in 2012, its capital was $1billion but since its inception, the fund did not receive any additional capital till 2016/2017 when the Buhari administration came in.
She said this administration has been gradually injecting money into the NSIA as it was very quick to identify its importance the country’s development.
“At the end of 2021, NSIA’s core assets under management has now grown to $2.2billion since the commencement of its operations and we have about $4 billion in total assets regardless of the many rainy days we went through recently and the fund has been profitable consistently,” she said.
According to her, this funding came not only from oil surpluses but other sources such as recovered funds and assets.
