Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to use his office to stop the 36 governors from borrowing money from the Pension Funds.
A communiqué issued by the governors at end of their 22nd teleconference meeting said the governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, who is the Chairman of the National Economic Council Ad Hoc Committee on Leveraging Portion of Accumulated Pension Funds for Investment in the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) told his colleagues that a total sum of N2tn at nine per cent interest could be accessed through the NSIA for infrastructural development.
In a letter dated December 5, 2020, signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation noted that allowing the governors borrow from the fund would be detrimental to the interest of the beneficiaries of the funds.
It therefore called on Buhari to instruct the Director-General and Board of the National Pension Commission to use their statutory powers to stop the governors from borrowing or withdrawing N17 trillion from the pension funds and another source purportedly for ‘infrastructural development.”
SERAP expressed concerns that the proposed borrowing by the 36 state governors from the pension funds would lead to serious losses of retirement savings of millions of Nigerians.
The letter read in part: “Allowing the governors to borrow from pension funds would be detrimental to the interest of the beneficiaries of the funds, especially given the vulnerability of pension funds to corruption in Nigeria, and the transparency and accountability deficits in several states.
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“It is patently unjust and contrary to the letter and spirit of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 [as amended], the Pension Reform Act, and the country’s international anti-corruption and human rights obligations for the Federal Government and state governors to repeatedly target pension funds as an escape route from years of corruption and mismanagement in ministries, departments and agencies.
“This proposed borrowing faces the risks of corruption and mismanagement, and would ultimately deny pensioners the right to an adequate standard of living and trap more pensioners in poverty. Rather than devising ways to address pensioner poverty, governments at all levels would seem to be pushing to exacerbate it.
“Allowing the governors to borrow money from the pension funds would amount to a fundamental breach of constitutional provisions, the Pension Reform Act, and Nigeria’s international obligations, as well as fiduciary duties imposed by these legal instruments on all public officers to prevent pension funds from unduly risky investments, and to ensure transparency and accountability in the management of pension funds.
“We would be grateful if your government would indicate the measures being taken to instruct the NPC to stop the 36 state governors from borrowing and withdrawing any money from the pension funds within 14 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter.
“If we have not heard from you by then as to the steps being taken in this direction, the Registered Trustees of SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel your government to implement these recommendations in the interest of millions of Nigerian pensioners.”
