The Federal Government has appointed a leading financial services firm, JP Morgan, as the custodian of the Sovereign Wealth Fund that is expected to become fully operational by the end of March.

The Chief Executive Officer, SWF, Mr. Unche Orji, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the National Economic Council meeting presided over by Vice President Namadi Sambo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Thursday.

Orji, who had earlier given a progress report on the Fund at the meeting, briefed journalists alongside Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State; Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; and Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamsudeen Usman.

Orji said the SWF was fully on track in the government’s bid to ensure that it becomes  operational by March ending.

He said he was in the  process of recruiting members of staff and was hopeful that the Fund would have have a full complement of staff in place by March, by which time limited security investment would start.

“The strategies we are going to deploy is obviously hybrid; we will have some external managers managing some of the funds for us, and some would be run in-house.  JP Morgan has been selected as our custodian. We also have investment consultants,” he said.

Okonjo-Iweala said a lot of developments had happened since the appointment of the CEO for the fund.

She said  investment strategies had already been prepared for the Fund’s three windows – the stabilisation window, infrastructure investment window and future generation window.

“The $1bn that has been put aside will be allocated to the three windows and investments can begin shortly, according to the strategy,” she explained.

Obi said the NEC expressed concern over the growing cases of corruption in the country.

He said issue was extensively discussed and a resolution reached that a session should be organised for stakeholders to speak up against the scourge.

“The council discussed the issue of corruption  and decided that there  should be a special session to discuss corruption and issue of mismanagement of resources in Nigeria,” the governor said.

Source: Punch (By Olalekan Adetayo)