Nigeria Content Online

The
National Economic Council rose from its meeting yesterday at the
presidential villa determined to replace the Excess Crude Account with
a National Sovereign Wealth Fund to manage the country’s excess funds.
All but five governors, who were stranded in various countries due to
weather problems, were in attendance. The inspector general of police
and the central bank governor were also at the event. The meeting,
which holds quarterly, was chaired by Acting President Goodluck
Jonathan. After the closed-door meeting, the Minister of Finance, Segun
Aganga; his National planning counterpart, Shamsudeen Usman and the
governors of Ogun and Abia states, explained that the fund is designed
to boost the institutional framework and improve the fiscal policy for
managing excess crude earnings. “This is a concept which is quite
familiar, particularly to oil-producing countries. It is a very robust
institutional framework for managing excess revenue which today we do
have in the excess crude account,” said Mr. Aganga.

Use of the fund

Mr. Aganga pointed
out that it would be irresponsible to spend all the nation’s crude oil
earnings now, explaining that the fund will be deployed to critical
infrastructure needs like power and mass transportation.

He noted that the
fund is similar to the excess crude account except that the new fund
will have legitimacy instead of being a product of political and
economic expediency that crude account became under former president
Olusegun Obasanjo.

“The acting
president today said he wanted us to get to a position where we should
be able to do something within the next three months. Already there was
a presidential committee set up by the president which has been looking
at this.”

Mr. Usman added
that Nigeria is the only country within the Organization of Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC) without a sovereign wealth fund, adding that
the idea was discussed two years ago but its implementation was delayed
because of inconsistent government polices.

Mr. Aganga said it was important to begin the fund as soon as possible, regardless of the initial cost.

“So even if it is
$1 billion we start with, the idea, the institutional framework, the
fiscal discipline is so important to the credibility of the country
itself and the credit rating of the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Jonathan yesterday sent two additional ministerial nominees to the Senate for confirmation.

The nominees are
Obadiah Ando (Taraba) and Christian Chukwu (Ebonyi). Senate President
David Mark informed the senate of the appointments during the plenary
session of the upper chamber on Tuesday. The Senate had earlier
confirmed the appointments of 38 ministerial nominees who had since
been sworn-in by the Acting President.

Meanwhile, Jonathan in a separate letter condoled with the Senate
over the death of Tawar Wada and Kawo Dukku both senators from Gombe
who died on March 31 and April 2 respectively.