The federal government is currently designing a framework that would allow the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) to manage the N3.4 trillion pension fund assets for the purpose of bridging the infrastructure financing gap and ensuring that contributors get paid their entitlements as and at when due in the years ahead.

This is as the NSIA announced the appointment of Mr Hanspeter Ackermann, a Swiss national, as its Chief Investment Officer (CIO), with key responsibility to lead the investment assessment and evaluations of the Authority.

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who revealed this yesterday also allayed stakeholders' fears over the insecurity of the fund, saying that the involvement of the Authority in the prudent deployment of the fund to critical areas of national need would ensure that global best practices are adopted for efficient management of the investments.

Giving the hint yesterday when she visited with the Board and management of the NSIA in Abuja, Okonjo-Iweala said government was committed to seeing that the Sovereign Wealth Fund and other funds available for investments are prudently deployed to critical areas of national needs and efficiently managed in such a way that would impact positively on the economy and improve the well being of Nigerians.

To ensure this, she hinted that arrangements were in top gear to make the NSIA design appropriate mechanisms that would help in deploying the idle savings of over N3.4 trillion so far to core investment areas that would add value to ongoing national infrastructure capacity initiatives and at the same time contributors don't suffer before drawing from their pension savings.

She explained: "One of the benefits we have from having the SWF is not in the plethora of organisations that want to co-invest but that they will also help us work along with our pension funds. They are designing at the moment a mechanism that will enable us use the pension fund more actively. You know Mr President had asked that our pension funds be a bit more active in our investments. In other countries their pension funds invest in infrastructure and other things but how to do it to make sure that they are protected.

"One of the things that we want to thank the NSIA is that they have got the expertise to be able to work with the pension funds to design a mechanism whereby they can also invest in infrastructure whilst still being protected because this is money that people have worked for. So, it has to be done very carefully so that they earn returns and then be able to carry on with their pension activities.