The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has rejected the proposal of Babatunde Fashola, the minister of Housing, Works and Power, to access the N5.14 trillion pension fund to finance critical infrastructure.
Part of their statement reads, “It should thus be avoided immediately before it gains ground within the corridors of power. It is a kite the congress and the generality of workers will not want to see fly in this circumstance.
“The thought of using our pension fund for investment in public sector infrastructure development is highly frightening given the well-known penchant for mismanagement inherent in public sector institutions in Nigeria.
The NLC chief described Fashola’s proposal as another stone being prepared to be cast at the workers by politicians in their effort at furthering their emasculation.
He said: “The imperativeness of reminding our political leaders that Nigerian workers were not responsible for mismanaging the nation’s economy but the politicians becomes real given their present intentions.
“We cannot therefore be made sacrificial lambs when anything goes wrong with the economy which our politicians have so hopelessly wrecked and continued to rape without any regard.
“It is therefore immoral and careless to subject such fund which is the life-blood of workers to the itchy-fingers of politicians no matter how well intentioned.”
Advising the minister to leave the pension fund alone, the NLC said: “If our politicians could mismanage the huge accruals to our treasuries from the oil and gas sector over the years, is it the pension fund that will be left unscathed?
“In any case, since we are the owners of the fund, we insist that whatsoever benefits that purportedly will accrue to us as a result, we do not want to be part of it.
“We also insist that before anything could be done regarding our pension contributions, we should be the first to know as the custodians of the interests and desires of the workers.
“If Fashola intentionally wants to light the fire of debate on this, let him know that this is where we stand and should immediately bury the idea. We suggest that the MDAs and the government use their well known dexterity and creativity to look for funds elsewhere and take their lustful gaze away from workers’ pension funds.”
“NLC will resist any action or policy designed to turn the nation’s pension funds into one of the sources of fund available for the use of the Federal Government. We will not tolerate this seeming ‘lusting after’ the purse of the pension fund. We will not take kindly to attempts by any politician to expose our life-savings to the vicissitudes of the politics we play in Nigeria today.
“We have always remembered the greed with which successive governments have announced the degree of expansion in the size of the pension fund. When it was N2 trillion, they were watching, when they announced it was N3 trillion, the look on their faces changed; when they said it was over N4 trillion, they began to salivate and now that it has grown to about N6 trillion; it has become a frenzied and delirious attempt to annex it.
“Unfortunately, we recognise all of these in the look on the faces and body language of those in government which has also become heavily expressed and resonated in the sound-bite of Fashola’s proposal. We say a resounding no to the use of pension fund for infrastructural development.”
She said: “The major thrusts of the 2014 Act are the enhancement of the powers of the commission in its regulatory and enforcement activities, enhancement of the protection of pension fund assets, provision of greater opportunity for investment of pension funds in infrastructure and housing development, review of the sanctions regime to reflect current realities, provisions that would facilitate the participation of the informal sector and provide the framework for the adoption of the CPS by states and local government areas.
“In exercise of the commission’s regulatory responsibility, it had issued regulation on investment of pension fund assets to further guide how the pension contributions should be invested.
“The pension assets have been largely invested in Federal Government securities, equities, money market instruments and corporate debt. The Commission has been making efforts to stimulate growth in the economy by introducing new assets classes into the portfolio of the pension funds provided they are allowed by the Pension Reform Act 2014.
In this regard, Infrastructure Funds and Bonds were introduced to bridge the gap in the financing of infrastructure and housing. However, despite the availability of over N3.95 trillion for infrastructure financing, over N156 billion has been taken leaving over three trillion untapped.
Meanwhile, the chairman, Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), Mr. Lounge Egherioude, believes the funds can be released to finance infrastructure, once the due process is followed.
