We considered ECA data, says IMF on sovereign wealth fund ranking

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says data about the excess crude account was used in its ranking on sovereign wealth funds across the world.

Abebe Selassie, head of the African department made this known on Friday while speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group.

The Bretton Wood institution had ranked Nigeria second worst in the world on a ranking of sovereign wealth funds.

“There have been two sovereign wealth funds in Nigeria. There has been the excess crude account (ECA), and the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA),” he said.

“The NSIA has been run transparently and best on standard best practice and it has been doing a good job.

“The concern that we have is about the ECA, because if you recall that the ECA economically was set up to save resources when oil prices are high, and to be drawn on when oil prices are low. We do not think that the ECA has been doing effectively enough job that way.

“When oil prices fell, the economy was very hard in the last couple of years, we feel like a much better job could have been done, saving enough more in the ECA when oil prices were at $100 and $120 per barrel.”

Commenting on the ranking, Zainab Ahmed, the minister of finance, said the NSIA is in a much better place than the Buhari-led administration met it.

“I would say that the Sovereign Wealth Authority has been doing well if you look at where we are starting from, we have achieved quite a lot of progress by building more of the fund from where we met it and by utilising the savings at the Sovereign Wealth Authority for projects that are physically visible. We still have some movements to go but the movement is a positive one.”