Israeli government bonds held on behalf of one of Northern Ireland’s largest public sector pension schemes have been divested.
Confirmation of the bonds’ sale follows criticism from a Belfast councillor, who claimed tens of thousands of public sector workers were “unknowingly bankrolling the Israeli war machine”.
Nilgosc (Northern Ireland Local Government Officers’ Superannuation Committee) said the bonds held by a pension fund on its behalf had been sold in recent weeks.
A spokesperson for Nilgosc previously described the investment, worth around £700,000, as a “small legacy holding of Israeli government bonds which represents less than 0.007% of the total fund”.
The pension scheme, which has some 176,000 members across the north, including more than 450 councillors, has not revealed why the bonds were divested.
Nilgosc, which elsewhere says it has an investment policy designed to “mitigate the risks posed by climate change”, said its choice of investments cannot be influenced by political factors.
“As Nilgosc has a fiduciary duty it does not divest (or invest) for political reasons,” the spokesperson said.
Confirming the divestment, a spokesperson said: “As at the end of September Nilgosc had no holdings in Israeli government bonds.”
Israel has long been the target of an international BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) campaign over its treatment of the Palestinian population both within its borders and in the occupied territories.
The criticism has intensified in the past 12 months following large scale civilian casualties in Gaza and Lebanon as a result of the military response to the Hamas attacks in southern Israel which claimed the lives of 1200 people a year ago.
SDLP councillor Carl Whyte, whose questioning of Nilgosc revealed the fund held Israeli government bonds, welcomed the divestment.
However, he said the episode “raised wider questions regarding transparency of pension funds here in Northern Ireland and how they make investment decisions which involve tens of millions of pounds of public money”.
“The chain of events which led to the purchase of Israeli government bonds must be examined, as must the very low level of investment by the fund in Northern Ireland,” he said.
“It was totally wrong that pension contributions from public sector workers in the North were being used to buy Israeli government bonds and potentially facilitating the war machine that has caused untold devastation in Gaza and now in Lebanon.”
