The Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) was given a mandate by President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday at State House in Abuja to increase its Assets Under Management from its current level of N18 trillion to at least N100 trillion over the course of the next ten years.
Prior to the start of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, President Buhari delivered the keynote address at the inauguration of the new MOFI’s Governing Council and Board of Directors.
The president also gave the new board the responsibility to “be the clearinghouse for the management of Federal Government investments and assets in line with global best practices with a view to ensuring that these investments are delivering superior risk-adjusted returns to the government,” according to a statement by presidential media aide Femi Adesina.
He also urged the new MOFI to “partner with the government with a view to using government-owned investments and assets to support the government in delivering on its social and economic obligations to the citizenry” and “work with other MDAs to create a consolidated national asset register with a view to converting these assets into cashflow-generating entities to support the government’s revenue drive.”
In order to further institutionalize this reform and ensure that MOFI is restructured and repositioned to become a dependable custodian and manager of the Federal Government’s investments and assets, he instructed the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, to begin the process of amending the MOFI Act and other legislations.
The reorganized MOFI would assist identify “what we possess” and how to get the most out of them, according to President Buhari, who called the ceremony crucial.
The MOFI Act of 1959, currently Cap. 229, Laws of the Federation, 2004, in his words, “explicitly enables MOFI to embark into commercial transactions of any sort on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria in its own name.” In order to engage in commercial companies during the past 64 years, MOFI has been employed as a Special Purpose Vehicle across many sectors. To put this in perspective, consider that MOFI existed before Nigeria gained its independence.
The President said, “MOFI was not resourced or formed to be governed to carry out the task that was required of it. On the other side, MOFI’s competitors who were purposefully given the institutional framework, governance structure, and execution capacity have gone on to make significant social and economic contributions in their respective countries.
“Many of which have become into worldwide brands for domestic and international investment.
The Governing Council will be led by me, the Board of Directors will be run by Dr. Shamsudeen Usman, a former Minister of Finance, and the Executive Management Team will be led by Dr. Armstrong Takang, the President announced.
Members of the Governing Council and Board of Directors were reminded by President Buhari that this Administration had high expectations for them. He gave members of the Cabinet the task of “creating an enabling environment that will facilitate the creation of a National Asset Register that will be harnessed to strengthen our fiscal and economic realities and the optimization of our investments and assets that will be under the purview of MOFI.”
In her remarks, the Minister of Finance, Budget, and National Planning thanked President Buhari for his assistance and support in making the restructuring and repositioning of MOFI possible and gave him the assurance that the Council and Board would work to ensure that the new MOFI met its objectives.
