By Adedapo Adesanya
Treasury bills worth N1.94 trillion were purchased by pension administrators in Nigeria in the first six months of this year, data from the National Pension Commission (PenCom) has revealed.
Business Post gathered from the Pension Fund Assets Summary that this contributed 20.8 percent to the total assets of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CBS), which stood at N9.32 trillion as of the end of June 2019.
The report also showed that the pension operators invested a substantial part of the pension funds in the federal government’s bonds and state governments’ securities, with the former accounting for N4.4 trillion or 47.60 percent, and the latter taking up 1.39 percent amounting to N129.60 billion of the scheme.
In addition, operators bought local shares worth N537 billion accounting for 5.76 percent, while foreign stocks valued at N64.87 billion were purchased in the period under review, contributing 0.70 percent to the total value of the scheme.
According to the acting Director-General of the Commission, Mrs Aisha Dahir-Umar, she said that the CBS had been impactful in Nigeria since the commencement of its implementation in 2004.
Dahir-Umar also noted that about 73 per cent of the total pension assets had been invested in the Federal Government securities issued to finance various activities of the government.
“We believe that the enlistment of the informal sector into the pension savings net would boost the quantum of available long-term investible funds that would galvanise national development efforts,” she said.
Other listed funds were invested in agency bonds, supra-national bonds, commercial papers, foreign money market securities and open/close-end funds.
Other investment portfolios, where the operators invested the funds include REITS, private equity funds, infrastructure funds, cash and other assets.
Modupe Gbadeyanka