Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State who is also the Chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC) Ad-hoc Committee on the management of the Excess Crude Account (ECA) and related federation accounts, has said that the Managers of the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) could not account for $700 million out of the $1billion contributed into the fund during the Goodluck Jonathan era.
Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Uche Orji had said that $1 billion seed fund had been invested into the SWF and this subsequently generated a profit of N15.7m into government coffers.
“I reported to the media that the Sovereign Wealth people in their report to us, which I have in black and white, showed clearly that they have only $300 million left in the Sovereign Wealth Fund account”, Oshiomhole told pressmen at the presidential Villa during the week.
He continued: “We have it in black and white and I can publish it if anybody wants to deny that because it was not submitted to me secretly. It was submitted at plenary of the committee.
“And then we asked, because I knew that the fund was $1 billion, what was done with $700 million. And they said they have made some investments.
“We asked them what they invested in and they said the Second Niger Bridge and partially in Kaduna-Abuja rail. That is what they said and I was not alone there. We were about five governors and it was a full plenary”.
Oshiomhole however wondered how the funds could have been invested into the Kaduna-Abuja rail when the former finance minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the Kaduna-Abuja rail was being bankrolled by Chinese investors.
“But we know that the Kaduna-Abuja rail was funded with Chinese loan, which even Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala spoke about, when they said the loan from China was not used for Lagos, she said it was for Kaduna-Abuja,” Oshiomhole said.
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