It has been indicated that investors in the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway have joined the league of organisations putting pressure on the pension regulator and operators to give them a share of the rising pension funds to finance capital intensive projects.
Also, negotiations between the investors and the pension operators have been put on hold due to a recent court injunction against the project, which led to the contractors handling the reconstruction of the road, Messrs Julius Berger Plc and Reynolds Construction Company Plc, to pull out of the site.
The total assets under the Contributory Pension Scheme currently stand at N5.3tn, according to the National Pension Commission.
According to Longe, he said,“The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway project was brought to the industry and we had discussion on what our intentions were and all of a sudden, there was a court judgment. If we had invested in the project with the investors that we thought were the owners of the concession, we would have been in trouble”.
Longe also reported that the pension operators had a meeting with the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, and investment experts, where they defined what could be done with the funds in their custody.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, had earlier approached the Pension Funds Administrators to convince them to invest part of the growing funds in infrastructure.
He had stated that Nigerians who contributed to the CPS must live in good houses, have good roads and health care, among others.
The PFAs told the minister that the government must meet the criteria listed in the investment guidelines for it to have access to the funds because the money was not for the public.
The Director-General, PenCom, Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, said all investment of pension funds must follow laid down guidelines.
She said, “The pension funds are not idle but we don’t just give out money arbitrarily. The PFAs are the investors of the funds and PenCom regulates the investment”.
She also reported that, operators told the minster that the government must meet the requirements before they could allow it to invest part of the funds in infrastructure.
