Guardian

PFAs fail PenCom minimum capital requirement

THE Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, has insisted that the execution of the 2012 Federal capital budget has increased from 39 per cent to 56 per cent as at June 20 this year.

Okonjo-Iweala was reacting to the position by the House of Representatives at the weekend that only 39 per cent of the capital budget had been executed and not 56 per cent as claimed by the Minister last Wednesday.

She explained that improvement in execution of the Budget was achieved following Mr. President's personal intervention in the implementation of the fiscal plan.

The minister's position was contained in a statement signed by her Senior Special Assistant on Media, Paul Nwabiukwu, in Abuja yesterday.

The development came on a day the National Pension Commission (PenCom) released the list of successful Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs) that scaled the N1 billion minimum capitalization-base set for them last year.

At the expiration of the deadline on June 30 and following verification of their capital base claims, PenCom yesterday said two PFAs: Citi Trust Pension Managers Limited and IGI Pension Fund Managers Limited were neither able to raise the minimum capital neither could they secure merger and hence would have their licenses revoked in the 28 days and their operations wound down, while their contributions are to be transferred to viable PFAs, according to a statement by the Head of Media of PenCom, Emeka Onuorah.

The Finance Ministry's statement yesterday read in parts: “Responding to concerns raised in some quarters recently, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala stated that transparency and prudence remain the key priorities of the federal government in the management of the 2012 budget.

“Our objective is to achieve both higher budget implementation and better management of the country’s resources”, declared Dr Okonjo-Iweala. “We will not toy with public resources because they belong to all Nigerians”.

She went further to give details of the 2012 Capital Budget implementation so far: “Regarding the implementation of the capital budget, some of the key milestones of the 2012 budget so far include total capital budget for 2012: N1.3 trillion; releases so far: N404 billion; cash backed portion of the capital budget: N324 billion; percentage of cash backed portion that has been utilised: 56 per cent.”

She explained that the improvement in implementation ratio from 39.2 per cent by the end of May to 56 per cent utilisation of cash backed resources by June 20 was made possible by the direct leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan who is personally leading the drive for better budget performance.

She expressed confidence that the there will be further improvement in the level of implementation before the end of the year.

The minister emphasised that to maximise results, the ministry is careful and methodical in releasing funds to MDAs.