FUNDS DROP BY $6BN OVER NAIRA DEPRECIATION.

Value of the pension fund in dollar terms declined by 29 per cent to $14.39bn in January 2024 compared to $20.41billion dollars in December 2023.

On the January unaudited report on the pension funds industry portfolio and the naira has been struggling against the dollar since the country’s exchange rate was in June 2023 by the Central Bank of Nigeria, while, depreciation of the naira this year has reduced the value of the pension funds in dollar terms.

The data from the National Pension Commission said, the total assets under the Contributory Pension Scheme rose to N19.53tn  from N18.36tn at the end of 2023, while,  N12.14tn of the value of the assets was invested in Federal Government securities, higher than N11.92tn from the previous month.

Director General of the National Pension Commission, Aisha Dahir-Umar, denied allegations that the commission loaned N10 trillion naira to the Federal Government, stressing that, PenCom was not a bank and did not warehouse or manage pension funds.

Head of the Corporate Communications Department, PenCom, Abdulqadir Dahiru, said that the depreciation of local currency affected not only pension funds but had a wider effect on the economy and have an advantage in the investment of  many instruments.