‘Why Nigeria must emulate Norway’s Sovereign Fund’
The value of Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, grew to a record 10 trillion Norwegian crowns ($1.09 trillion) last week, boosted by rising global stocks and the strength of the euro and dollar.
But Nigeria’s Excess Crude Account has been depleted to $324m as at October 2019 while the Stabilization Fund stood at N28.5bn, according to Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) had in a recent Occasional Paper drew public attention to the fact that Nigeria failed to save enough oil revenues to sustain economic activities when oil prices were quite high.
The report by NEITI which focused on “the case for a robust oil savings fund for Nigeria” revealed that the total credit balance in the Excess Crude Account as at May, 2017 was a meagre $2.3 billion for a country with a huge population like Nigeria.
According to NEITI, comparison with other resource rich countries that have imbibed the robust culture of saving for the rainy day and for the future of the next generation shows that Nigeria is amongst the lowest in the World.
For instance, Russia has saved $89.9 billion since 2008, Kuwait with a population of about 4.1 million has so far saved $592 billion and Chile $24.1 billion. Even neighboring African countries have done better. For instance, Angola has saved $4.6 billion while Botswana with a population of 2.3 million people and endowed with solid minerals resources only has so far saved $5.7 billion since that country embraced compulsory savings culture in 1994.
The Norway’s fund reached the milestone as its government regulators grapple with strategy changes, including how to handle climate risk and a proposed large-scale shift of investments into the United States.
Built since 1996 to save petroleum revenues for future generations, the size of the fund has grown to almost three times that of Norway’s annual gross domestic product, far exceeding original projections.
“When the fund was set up, nobody thought it would pass 10,000 billion crowns. We were lucky to discover oil,” the fund’s chief executive, Yngve Slyngstad, said in a statement confirming the record.
“The return on the investments in global financial markets has been so high that it can be compared to having discovered oil again,” he said.
An update on the fund’s website showed the Government Pension Fund Global’s value reaching 10 trillion Norwegian crowns for the first time at 0857 GMT - more than $200,000 for every man, woman and child in Norway.
Commonly known as the oil fund and managed by a unit of the central bank, it invests close to 70% of funds in global equities and some 28% in a portfolio of fixed-income assets.
Unlisted real estate holdings make up the rest.