The Acting Director-General, National Pension Commission (PenCom), Mrs Aisha Dahir-Umar, has said that the commission cannot loan the Federal Government from the accrued Pension Fund Assets to fund investment, infrastructure or national projects.
The PenCom boss, who was speaking at the 2019 NLC National Leadership Retreat in Enugu hinted that the commission has no money to lend any state, even as she disclosed that the Pension Fund Assets had grown to N9.44 trillion.
There have been reports and speculations that the Federal Government wants to borrow from the Pension Fund Assets for investment, and fund some projects as well as put in place some notable infrastructures, while the commission was also said to have promised to loan Ebonyi State Government part of the fund.
Labour, especially the NLC has consistently kicked against the plan in the last two years, and when the opportunity was provided during the NLC leadership retreat in Enugu, the Labour leaders sought clarification from PenCom.
However, the acting director-general, who was represented by the Head, Internal Audit Department, PenCom, Mr Peter Ekwealor, stated that the commission has no such capacity, adding that the commission has no right to give the money to anybody as it was not even with them.
Responding to the question on both Federal Government and Ebonyi State borrowing from the Pension Fund Asset, she said: “I am not aware of that, that the Federal Government is trying to borrow money from PenCom. PenCom does not have that kind capacity, we don’t have the right to give money to anybody. If you understand how the whole thing works, you know that the money is not even with PenCom in the first place. Also, we didn’t promise Ebonyi State Government any loan.”
In her presentation, the acting director-general said the Pension Fund Assets had grown to N9.44 trillion, adding that the numbers of contributors have also grown to 8.79 million with high growth potentials for the scheme.
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