‘Unemployment, Job Losses Depleting Pension Funds’

The Federal Government is eyeing the N5.4 trillion pension funds to develop infrastructure. But the fund is dwindling because of unemployment and joblessness, according to Usman Suleiman, Future Unity Glanvills Pensions Limited (FUG Pensions) Managing Director. The number of Contributors to the Retirement Savings Account (RSA) has reduced because of retrenchment, he notes. He tells Omobola Tolu-Kusimo that there has to be a template to take care of long term investment, safety and returns on investment (RoI) if pension funds must be used for infrastructure development.

How would you assess the economy against the backdrop of the challenges?

A major issue still standing as an obstacle to the overall recommencement of economic activities is the issue of power generation consequent upon lack of gas. This is because a significant number of our power generation infrastructure is based on the thermal system, which is powered by gas. The existing hydro power station cannot generate enough power to significantly improve supply to the national grid. Unfortunately, we do not have other alternative sources of power generation such as coal, which we have in abundance in this country. There should have been power plants based on coal in Enugu, Kogi and Gombe States.

Of course, we know that Ashaka Cement is building a small power plant in Gombe based on coal, but there should have been a major plant based on coal. The construction of Mambilla power plant, which is planned to be a huge plant that will generate over 3000 megawatts should have taken off. The whole of the Sahelian region-Sokoto, Jigawa and Borno, should have had solar power plants located severally. If this had happened, we will not be so much tied to thermal plants. As it is presently, all the major plants including the biggest one, the Egbin thermal plant based in Ikorodu, Lagos, are based on gas. With what is happening now in the Niger Delta, where the gas is sourced from and along the routes where the pipes pass, it becomes a very challenging situation. The issue of vandalism of gas pipelines will have to be addressed and clearly, it is not just an issue of vandalism, it has so many sore factors both political and economic. This is a major obstacle to the forward movement of the economy. For us in FUG, we continue to maintain our optimism and sustain the expectation that we will be able to achieve our medium term goals, substantially, in the second quarter of this year.

So far, since we commenced business, particularly in the second quarter, we have been able to recover part of what we were not able to fully achieve last year. read more

Culled from The Nation