Yemisi Izuora
Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu Director General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) has said that the Pension Reform Act PRA 2014 has helped to correct the anomaly and persistent challenge of long term financing in Nigeria.
She said that current success recorded by the pension industry further requires both local and international collaboration to generate world class products that will aid investments especially for infrastructural development.
The Director General who made presentation at the 2015 Milken Institute Global Conference in the United States explained that since the first reform in 2004, pension fund assets have increased by 60 percent due to the implementation of investment regulation that ensures the fund’s safety while the second reform guarantees exponential growth in the sector.
This reform she noted has made access to long term financing possible to address the dearth of infrastructure in Nigeria and to deepen available funds.
“It is critical that Nigeria is able to activate long term funds to enable infrastructure developments to meet our needs, therefore we are here so we can work with the sector and the financial services industry locally and globally to develop products that will meet the urgent needs of our citizens.
“The World Pension Summit Africa Special 2015 later this year will be also focusing on this key issue which has held back development across our continent” Anohu-Amazu explained.
The D-G who also served as a panellist on the “Infrastructure as an Asset” panel at the US conference said the panel’s discussion focussed on project finance particularly in the areas of roads construction, power grids, and water systems.
The discussion further centered on reliable, long-term investments financing alternatives, such as publicly traded funds and public-private partnerships, which can attract a wider variety of investors; challenges to creating bankable infrastructure projects around the world and best practices for accelerating growth of infrastructure investments as an asset class and reducing uncertainty regarding projects.
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