$700 million missing from Sovereign wealth fund- Oshiomhole

Edo State Governor and Chairman of the National Economic Council (NEC) Ad-hoc Committee on the management of the Excess Crude Account (ECA) and related federation accounts issues, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, has said that the Managers of the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) cannot account for $700 million out of the $1billion contributed for the fund.


Oshiomhole who spoke to State House Correspondents at the Presidential Villa after a meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday night claimed that records made available to his committee showed that only $300 million was left in the fund.

This is contrary to the claims made by the Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Uche Orji, that the $1 billion seed fund had been invested and generated a profit of N15.7m into government coffers.


Oshiomhole however disclosed that the report submitted to his committee only reflected $300 million with the explanation that the money had been invested in the Second Niger Bridge and Abuja-Kaduna rail.



He however pointed out that the former Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had earlier told the world that the Abuja-Kaduna rail was financed by a Chinese loan.

He said "I reported to the media that the Sovereign Wealth people in their report to us, which I have in black and white, showed clearly that they have only $300 million left in the Sovereign Wealth Fund account.


"We have it in black and white and I can publish it if anybody wants to deny that because it was not submitted to me secretly. It was submitted at plenary of the committee.

"And then we asked, because I knew that the fund was $1 billion, what was done with $700 million. And they said they have made some investments.


"We asked them what they invested in and they said the Second Niger Bridge and partially in Kaduna-Abuja rail. That is what they said and I was not alone there.”