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First Bank Exec to Chair Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund

By on August 29, 2012

Alh. Mahey Rasheed

Alhaji Mahey Rasheed, a member of the board of First Bank, has been selected as Chairman of the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

The Fund which is slated to be inaugurated with $1 billion in October will have Uche Orji as the Managing Director.

Uche Orji is a senior executive with international investment bank, UBS. He is also a former Managing Director with JP Morgan.

According to a statement from the Finance Ministry, other members of the board include Mr. Arnold Ekpe, Mr. Jide Zeitlin, Mrs. Bili Awosika, Bisi Soyebo (SAN), Alhaji Hassan Usman and Mrs. Stella Ojekwe-Onyejeli.

The Minister of Finance, Okonjo-Iweala,  disclosed that the Excess Crude Account, another savings mechanism (albeit inefficient) employed by the government currently has a balance of $7.35 billion.

Okonjo Iweala said the account would over time be merged into the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

Her word: “We will not shut down the ECA immediately because it will run side-by-side with the SWF for now and we will continue to see the expectations of stakeholders, but in the longer term, the ECA will fold into the SWF.”

Nigeria was one of three countries in OPEC that did not have a sovereign wealth fund. Traditionally resource rich countries save a part of their earnings for future generations.