The Nigeria Labour Congress NLC also kicked against a similar proposal by Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola to deploy workers’ retirement benefits being managed by Pension Fund Administrators in the development of infrastructure.
The NLC vowed to mobilize workers nationwide to protest any move to borrow from the money, saying it was the retirement benefit of workers.
NLC President Ayuba Wabba spoke on the rejection at the 47th National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Medical and Health Workers’ Union of Nigeria in Abuja.
The Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) had endorsed two proposals to borrow seventeen trillion naira from two sources for infrastructural development, a decision which was disclosed by the Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai, who is the Chairman of the National Economic Council Ad Hoc Committee on Leveraging Portion of Accumulated Pension Funds for Investment in the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority.
In his keynote remarks at the Nigerian pension industry retreat, Fashola said the growing nature of pension funds in Africa had not translated into a better quality of life for the contributors, according to him, the accumulated pension funds could be invested in the provision of infrastructure.
