From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Government has disclosed it will tap into the nation’s huge pension fund to finance infrastructure in the country.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, disclosed this at the Word Economic Forum (WEF) holding in Davos, Switzerland.
According to him, the Muhammadu Buhari administration is “committed to investing more in infrastructure,” than in previous times, adding that the government was working on how to tap into Nigeria’s huge pension fund to finance infrastructure in the country. To do this, he stated that “we have to first derisk such financing models for infrastructure.”
Osinbajo also declared that investment in people, their skills and in the youths is the key to transforming the African continent.
He reiterated that empowerment of Nigerians was at the heart of the Social Investment Programmes of the Buhari administration, stressing that the programme also had a social welfare component to help the people survive as they are being empowered.
Laolu Akande, Osinbajo’s spokesman, said in a statement that his boss participated and spoke in several events yesterday including a packed international Business Interaction Group of investors focused exclusively on Nigeria. He also spoke at a panel of Building Africa, which also featured Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, and televised live by the CNBC Africa.
On the kind of radical ideas that could advance the African continent, Osinbajo gave the example of the Federal Government’s Social Investment Programme (SIP) where he said, for the first time half a trillion naira was being budgeted by the Federal Government for SIPs.
“It is about investment in people, in their skills, in youths, that we have a N500 billion allocation in our budget last year and proposed for this year also,” he explained.
Referring to N-Power scheme’s training component for young graduates, and non-graduates in artisanal and industrial middle-level skills, the vice president said it was an investment in education and educating large numbers of people in a short time.
“It is a radical thing to make that kind of serious investment in education,” he added.
He also referred to the planned N100,000 supporting grants to students of higher institutions in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM).
An active engagement with, and encouraging the private sector, he said, was also of a great deal, referring to the example of the 650,000bpd refinery project of the Dangote Group, which is going to be the largest single-line refinery in the world. He said the Buhari administration was very confident about the recovery of the Nigerian economy,
Osinbajo said, “it is not difficult to get out of where we are if we understand why we are where we are.”
The Vice President said that the Nigerian economy remained undisputably the biggest in terms of size and diversity.
Speaking at the Buisness Interaction Group attended by several international and local investors and business interests, and hosted by the Nigerian delegation, the vice president said that the newly developed Economic Recovery Growth Plan of the Buhari administration had been specifically designed to take the country out of recession and in the long term continue to grow the economy.
He said the planning of the 2017 budget was based on the ERGP, which he said would be formally launched next month.