Tens of thousands of public sector workers across the north are “unknowingly bankrolling the Israeli war machine”, it has been claimed.
Belfast SDLP councillor Carl Whyte said he was “deeply disturbed” to learn that his contributions to the Nilgosc (Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee) pension scheme are being invested in Israeli government bonds.
The regional public sector workers’ pension scheme has some 176,000 members, including more than 450 councillors.
The revelation that one of the funds managed on Nilgosc’s behalf has what a spokesperson termed a “small legacy holding” of Israeli government bonds, worth around £700,000, has prompted calls for them to be immediately divested.
The pension scheme for council workers and employees of public sector bodies such as Libraries NI and the Education Authority also holds more than £15m worth of investments in Israeli-owned companies.
However, the bonds are regarded as particularly controversial because theoretically they could be funding the military onslaught in Gaza that has killed more than 40,000 people since the Hamas attacks on Israel almost a year ago.
Mr Whyte said he believed many Nilgosc members would share his concern that they had been “unknowingly bankrolling the Israeli war machine”.
But according to the managers of Nilgosc, it is unable to divest for political reasons due to its “fiduciary duty”.
The SDLP councillor said he would be contacting the pension scheme’s board members, who include a number of trades unionists, to highlight the issue.
“At a time when public sector workers and trades unions have spent months protesting at the Israeli government’s murderous actions during the war in Gaza, the idea that hard-earned employee pension contributions, as well as taxpayer and ratepayer money, have been used to fund the Israeli exchequer is alarming,” he told The Irish News.
“We cannot allow public sector funds here to be used in any way by a government currently waging a morally indefensible war against Palestinians.”
A spokesperson for Nilgosc said its fund managers “invest globally” and that one of the scheme’s fixed income portfolios included a “small legacy holding of Israeli government bonds which represents less than 0.007% of the total fund”.
“As Nilgosc has a fiduciary duty it does not divest (or invest) for political reasons,” the spokesperson said.
“The value of individual investments has no impact on the amount of pension paid to Nilgosc members - pensions are based on the member’s salary and length of service, not the investment fund returns.”
