The Federal Government is working on how to tap into the huge pension fund to finance infrastructure in the country, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said yesterday.

He said at the World Economic Forum holding in Davos, Switzerland that "To do this, we have to first de-risk such financing models for infrastructure.”

His Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande, in a statement, quoted him as saying beyond welfare of Nigerians, their empowerment was at the heart of the N500 billion Social Investment Programme.

He told the panel that “It is about investment in people, in their skills, in youths, that we have a N500bn allocation in our budget last year and proposed for this year also. It is an investment in education and educating large numbers of people in a short time. It’s a radical thing to make that kind of serious investment in education.”

He cited the N-Power scheme’s training component for young graduates and non-graduates in artisan and industrial middle-level skills as well as the planned N100,000 grants to students of higher institutions in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.

The vice president also stated that the planning of the 2017 budget was based on the Economic Recovery Growth Plan which, according to him, will be formally launched next month.

Daily Trust