The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), Aminu Umar-Sadiq has said 245,000 direct jobs have been created by the agency across sectors since its inception 12 years ago.

He disclosed this during an oversight function by the House of Representatives Committee on Finance led by James Faleke.

Umar-Sadiq said the Authority also supported over 236,000 farmers through its agriculture investments.

According to him, the NSIA had also served as project manager for the development of a 10MW solar project in Kano State, creating over 500 direct and indirect jobs on the project, as well as delivered three motorway projects with a total length of 515.4km.

He said they successfully completed three hospital projects with over 282,100 unique patients attended to and 150,000 chemotherapy sessions delivered.

He further added that NSIA has catalysed consequential projects with far-reaching implications across pivotal sectors including technology.

He also said the Authority has implemented the NSIA Prize for Innovation Programme (NPI) to enable the development of the technology eco-system and reposition Nigerian tech talents for global relevance.

“Following the successful operationalisation of its three demonstration projects: NSIA-LUTH Cancer Centre (NLCC), NSIA-Umuahia Diagnostic Centre (NUDC) and NSIA–Kano Diagnostic Centre (NKDC), NSIA has commenced the healthcare expansion programme which aims to establish 23 modern medical diagnostic centres, 3 additional oncology centres and 7 catheterisation laboratories across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria. The first phase of the programme is currently underway with the construction of ten centres,” he said.

He further added that NSIA, in collaboration with Guarantco, established the Infrastructure Credit Guarantee Company in 2016 to enhance the credit quality of debt instruments issued to finance credit-worthy infrastructure assets in Nigeria.

He said Infracredit has so far achieved financial closure of 21 infrastructure projects and guaranteed a total debt size of 218bn.

“Also, through its stake in Family Homes Fund, NSIA has significantly improved the quality of life of Nigerians from low-income families through the development of 500,000 affordable homes for low-income families in Nigeria.

“Additionally, NSIA continues to demonstrate its commitment to positive socio-economic outcomes through key platforms like the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), through which it improves the liquidity of the mortgage market to further promote affordable housing in Nigeria.

“To revalidate its commitment to climate adaptive solutions, NSIA set up an innovative USD500m Renewable Investment Platform for Limitless Energy (RIPLE) to expand energy access, enhance energy efficiency and ensure energy security in Nigeria. RIPLE’s pilot initiative involves setting up a generation and distribution system to meet 70MW of unsuppressed energy demands in an area covering 9,000 connections.

“Through these interventions across key sectors, NSIA continues to enhance prevailing socio-economic reality and create value for the current and future generations of Nigerians,” he said.

Responding, the Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Saidu Abdullahi said the visit was the first by his committee to the agency.

He said they were only interested in fiscal prudence “Year in, year out, we have always had huge deficits which made financing major projects in the country difficult.

“Nigeria has greater potential than what is going on in the country today and I hope we can close the gap. We have what it takes as a country and we cannot continue like this.”

He stressed the need for the agency to increase its investment in the agricultural sector and grow the sugar cane value chain which he said is currently generating over 40 billion dollars annually for Brazil.

He lamented that the sugar factories that were privatised have not yielded the dividend required.

Abdullahi said there was a need for the Nigerian government to take back the sugar factories that were privatised.

He said that the Niger state government was planning a 250-hectare of farmland for sugar which he said will generate about one billion dollars for the state.

He said the NSIA ranked among the best sovereign wealth funds globally, ranking joint first with New Zealand in 2023.