New Telegraph

NSIA boss: Recovered $311m Abacha’s loot used for infrastructure devt

The Managing Director/ CEO, of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Dr. Uche Orji, yesterday said the sum of $311 million of the recovered loot from late Gen. Sani Abacha (rtd), has been handed over to the NSIA for deployment into on-going infrastructure projects by the investment agency.

Orji, who confirmed receipt of the funds yesterday in Abuja at the presentation of the agency’s audited financial results for 2019 financial year conducted via virtual platform said the funds were transmitted to the NSIA account domiciled with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and would be deployed into on-going infrastructure. Some of the NSIA’s ongoing infrastructure projects include second Niger Bridge, Lagos- Ibadan Express Road and Abuja- Kano- Zaria road. He added that the three infrastructure projects – Second Niger Bridge, Lagos – Ibadan road and Abuja- Zaria and Kano Road gulped N182 billion last year. The NSIA boss while giving insights on progress made on some of the projects said the COVID-19 pandemic altered initial completion schedule of some of the projects. He said the Second Niger Bride and key road projects would be completed by the first quarter of 2022, describing year 2019 as a favourable one.

For 2019 financial year, Orji said NSIA recorded a total income of N36.15 billion as against the previous year’s N44.34 billion. The figure excludes foreign exchange gain of N18 billion in 2018 and N1.28 in 2019, the net income in 2019 was N34.87 billion (compared to N26.28 billion in 2018). It recorded a five per cent growth in total assets to N649.84billion as of year-end (previous year: N617.70 billion). According to him, asset allocation strategy remains stable across the various funds: “Future generations fund remains 25% public equities, 25% private equity, 25% Absolute Returns and 25% Other diversifiers. Areas of focus for the Nigeria Infrastructure Fund remain agriculture, healthcare, power, toll roads and gas industrialisation. “The Authority’s performance for 2019 reflected the strength of the Authority’s strategy across all the funds as the Authority, on the aggregate, outperformed its benchmarks on all three funds within the period.

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