Nigeria to fast track sovereign wealth fund

By Felix Onuah

ABUJA, July 13 (Reuters) - Nigeria plans to fast track the creation of a sovereign wealth fund after powerful state governors, who initially opposed the idea, softened their stance, Central Bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said on Tuesday.

A committee of three ministers and six governors had been set up to work out the legal framework for a "quick take-off" of the fund, Sanusi told reporters after a meeting of the National Economic Council in Abuja.

"We are now moving to the implementation stage," Sanusi said, adding the committee would work out how much of the fund would be earmarked for savings, infrastructure finance and a stabilisation fund, as well as where the money would come from.

Finance Minister Olusegun Aganga, an ex-Goldman Sachs (GS.N: Quote) executive appointed in March, has said he wants the fund to replace the current system whereby Nigeria saves oil revenue above a benchmark price into an excess crude account (ECA).

The ECA was a pillar of reforms backed by the International Monetary Fund and launched in 2003. But there is no clear legal basis on which to determine how the funds should be shared between the three tiers of government -- state, federal and local -- leading to constant political wrangling.

Aganga has said the main aim of the sovereign wealth fund would be to establish a firm legal framework for the management of windfall oil savings, but state governors -- among the main beneficiaries of ECA disbursals -- initially opposed the plan.

They had said the ECA should not be used as capital for the fund. [ID:nLDE65E2GS]

"After some explanations by government officials in today's meeting, most of the governors shifted position on their earlier stance on the source of funding," Ogun State Governor Gbenga Daniel told reporters.