Nigeria Ranks World’s Second Worst In The Use Of Sovereign Wealth Funds

The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday ranked Nigeria as the second worst out of thirty-three oil-rich countries in the world in the use of sovereign wealth funds.

This was revealed in IMF’s fiscal monitor report which showed Qatar to be the only country worse than Nigeria on the index compiled by Bretton wood institution.

The index was compiled using the corporate governance and transparency scores of the sovereign wealth funds and the size of assets as a percentage of 2016 GDP of the countries considered.

The IMF said it used data compiled by the Natural Resource Governance Institute and Worldwide Governance Indicators.

“It is critical to develop a strong institutional framework to manage these resources including good management of the financial assets kept in sovereign wealth funds and to ensure that proceeds are appropriately spent,” the report read.

In the report IMF pointed corruption to be the main cause of Nigeria’s problem adding that the Nation lacks accountability and transparency.

“This remains a significant challenge in many resource-rich countries that, on average, have weaker institutions and higher corruption

“The governance challenges of commodity-rich countries that is, the management of public assets call for ensuring a high degree of transparency and accountability in the exploration of such resources.

“Countries should develop frameworks that limit discretion, given the high risk of abuse, and allow for heavy scrutiny.”

Meanwhile, Columbia, Ghana and Chile ranked top three best performers on the index.