JP Morgan picked to manage Sovereign Wealth Fund

By The Nation Newspaper

Towards making the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) to be fully operational from the end of March, 2013, the Federal Government on Thursday appointed a financial services firm, JP Morgan, as the custodian of the fund.

This was disclosed to State House correspondents by the Fund’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Unche Orji at the end of the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Wednesday.

He had earlier given a progress report of the Fund at the NEC meeting.

Orji, who briefed journalists alongside Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State; Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; and the Minister of National Planning, Shamsudeen Usman, maintained that the Fund is fully on track towards becoming operational by end of March.

He said that the Fund was in the process of recruiting members of staff and that it would have a full complement of staff in place by March, when limited security investment would begin.

“The strategies we are going to deploy is obviously hybrid; we will have some external managers managing some of the funds for us and some would be run in-house. JP Morgan has been selected as our custodian. We also have investment consultants.”

Stressing that a lot of developments has been recorded since the appointment of the Fund’s CEO, the Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said that investment strategies have already been prepared for the Fund’s three windows, comprising the stabilisation window, infrastructure investment window and the future generation window.

“The $1bn that has been put aside will be allocated into the three windows and investments can begin shortly according to the strategy,” she added

According to her, NEC’s position on corruption is in tandem with the position of President Goodluck Jonathan on the issue.

“On the issue of corruption, the NEC is saying what can we do to ensure that in every sector, there is transparency and accountability. From the finance point of view, this is something the President wants. The fact that it was debated and it would further be debated is a good omen,” she stated

Having achieved a level of success in stemming corruption in the administration of fuel subsidy, she said that the Federal Government has a lady cleaning up the pension sector.

She said: “We have to clean up the system. The problem lies in the old pension system. We are building, according to the PENCOM law, a new department that will take over the management of those pension funds and make sure that people no longer have access to mismanage the fund.”

“The contributory pension scheme under the PENCOM has nothing wrong with it. The old pension scheme is what we are tightening up,” she stated

Anambra Governor, Peter Obi said that the NEC expressed concern over the growing cases of corruption in the country.

The issue, he said, was extensively discussed and a resolution reached that a session should be organised that would afford stakeholders to speak up against the scourge.

According to him, the NEC at the meeting also mandated its committee probing the rot in the nation’s university to extend its assignment to primary and secondary schools.

He said: “The council discussed the issue of corruption and decided that there should be a special session to discuss corruption and issue of mismanagement of resources in Nigeria.”