NSSF intends to grow its assets to Shs 20 trillion from the current Shs 8 trillion in their five year strategic plans which should enable them invest outside traditional areas of Oil and Gas.
NSSF’s Managing Director, Richard Byarugaba, anticipates that besides ventures in the Oil Pipeline and Refinery Projects whose capital requirements run into trillions of shillings combined they hope to invest billions of shillings in some indigenous but competitive local firms.
Byarugaba said: “To achieve this, we need to grow our annual rate of growth in NSSF contributions and or assets from averagely Shs1.1 trillion annually to Shs1.5 trillion- a monumental challenge by all standards.”
Part of the plan will see the state-owned fund introduce a centre of excellence to support innovation and move focus from customer service to customer engagement during a time when the country will see legal reforms that will bring new benefits to the members.
“In next 5 years, we aim to complete our five key real estate projects which are the affordable housing project at Temangalo in Wakiso District, a high end housing development in Lubowa, along Entebbe Road, 423.6 acres of prime land at Nsimbe bought at Shs21.6b, commercial developments on Plot 15A/B Lumumba Avenue (Pension Towers) and another along Yusuf Lule,” he added.
Mr Byarugaba said there is a huge housing deficit in Kampala City and its surrounding towns and if the construction of the low cost houses is completed it will help in solving the problem.
The NSSF uses members fund to make investments on their behalf in government securities (treasury bonds and treasury bills), it also invests members funds in equities listed on the stock exchange and real estates.
“We want to transform the savings culture in Uganda and at least have five million Ugandans savings for a better retirement which will be driven by happy employees, product innovation, business process re-engineering and prudent investments,” Byarugaba implored.
Byarugaba also said the fund sees lots of prospects in energy and oil and gas infrastructure projects such as the refinery and pipeline from Hoima to Tanga in Tanzania.
By far, the NSSF is the largest institutional investor in government securities (meaning it is the largest domestic lender to government).
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