Drama as big names are caught napping in pension scam

At the opening of the Federal Capital Territory zonal hearing on Monday, Senate President David Mark said pension funds administrators were among the richest in Nigeria because they were stealing elder statesmen’s entitlements. He went further to curse them, saying “they can never live in peace for living on blood money”. The committee was taken […]

At the opening of the Federal Capital Territory zonal hearing on Monday, Senate President David Mark said pension funds administrators were among the richest in Nigeria because they were stealing elder statesmen’s entitlements. He went further to curse them, saying “they can never live in peace for living on blood money”.

The committee was taken aback when former Head of Civil Service of the Federation (HOCSF) Steven Orosanye said top government officials falsified documents to loot pension funds. “The real corruption was perfected in the Account Department in the HOCSF Office. The data was corrupted there.  We later discovered that 71, 000 pensioners, out of the 141,000 on the pay roll, were genuine”, he said.

The incumbent Head of Service, Isa Sali, equally corroborated Orosanye’s revelation by confirming that six civil servants had stolen N24 billion police pension fund.

In its bid to unearth the rot in the management of pension funds, the committee summoned the chairman of the Pension Reform Taskforce, inaugurated in 2012 by the HOCSF Office, Abdulrasheed Maina.

Appearing before the panel on Wednesday, Maina accused police pension officials in the HOCSF Office of using names of primary school teachers to siphon the funds, saying that 32 of them who stole N18 billion had since been reported to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and were facing trial. He also alleged that the officials withdrew N24 billion from the Budget Office of the Federation for a pension payment that required just N3.5 billion.

But the officials told the panel on Thursday that the office was faring well before Maina’s team came on stream.

Assistant Chief Accountant of the Police Pension Office Toyin Ishola said, “Maina spent N240 million on a biometric exercise for less than 20 retirees in the Diaspora and another N220 million on the local bio data. He also unilaterally opened three accounts in different banks without recourse to extant financial rules and approval from the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Minister of Finance. In this regard, cash transfer in the sum of N8billion was credited to Fidelity Bank with the account number 5030024748; N3 billion to UBA with the account number 1015556733; and N10 billion to First Bank Plc Maitama Branch with the account number 6062040000231.

“It was gathered that the account in Fidelity Bank, Central Business District Branch, Abuja was domiciled in the account of Maina’s younger brother, Danjuma Zubairu, and the said amount was fixed since then with a monthly interest of over N100 million into the coffers of the perpetrators of the act. N3 billion was deposited in UBA up till date without any proper documentation.

“During the period in question, Maina compelled the office to drop the previous signatories to the pension account and replace them with his team’s members including one Magaji A.A., Kaigama and himself as the endorser. Within three months, Maina’s team spent over N3.6 billion without any entry of such in account books”.

The committee had on Thursday directed Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Dikko Abubakar to issue a warrant for Maina’s arrest, but there was a mild drama at the hearing on Friday when Maina’s lawyer, Kassim Ibrahim, tendered an undated medical report signed by one Dr Mohammed Abbas of Supreme Court Clinic Abuja, claiming that Maina was “bedridden at the moment for elevated high blood pressure and other ailments”.

“It is a lie! I heard Maina grant a live interview on Radio Vision FM this morning. So, how can a bedridden person do that?” a member of the audience interjected.

When Maina suddenly appeared few minutes later, the chairman of the committee, Senator Aloysius Eto, quizzed, “Lawyer, is this not Maina? Didn’t you tell us he is on sick bed?” Apparently jittery, the lawyer apologized for lying to the panel after which the vice chairman of the committee, Senator Kabiru Gaya, admonished, “It is between you and God. You will account to God. Well, since you’ve apologized, just go and sin no more”.

The Permanent Secretary, Establishment, HOCSF Office, Charles Bonnard was equally grilled thus, “You told us that the six million pounds sterling (N1.5 bn) transferred abroad was meant for nine colonial retirees, and that each of them being paid 10 pounds monthly. The director, Budget Office, told us funds had always been released for pensions based on your request, but nothing has been released to the states since 2009. You also stopped paying this money in the first quarter of 2010, and you haven’t returned it to the government coffers? So, where is the money?”

Bonnard responded, “The money is with Maina’s taskforce team. The team has changed the account and the signatories. Maina created a parallel office in Block B in the HOCSF Office”. And on the whereabouts of the N4.2billion voted for local government pensions in 2010 and the N250 million earmarked for the reimbursement of states in 2011, he said, “We paid N500 million to the states’ local government pension funds in the first quarter of 2010 after which Maina’s team took over”.

Defending his team over the nonpayment of N4.2 billion pension fund, Maina said, “We don’t have accounts for the funds because we don’t control funds”. A member of the committee, Senator Babafemi Ojudu, yelled, “But you told us you are a signatory to some of these accounts. It means you cannot account for this N4.2bilion”.

Asked why he spent N260 million in two months to verify 20 pensioners when only N80 million was budgeted for the exercise the whole year, Maina said the money was spent on the foreign trip allowances of 85 officials engaged for the exercise. Top government officials whose names appeared severally on the list tendered by Maina include former HOCSF Prof. Oladapo Afolabi, former IGP Hafiz Ringim, EFCC Chairman Ibrahim Lamorde and his predecessor, Farida Waziri, all of whom were said to have benefitted from the said N260 million.

Lamorde, who was number 11 on the list, said though some EFCC officials were sent to Atlanta for the biometric verification, he, as the then EFCC Director of Operations, neither travelled abroad for the exercise nor collected any money, contending that he had no account with First Bank into which Maina claimed to have deposited his (Lamorde’s) share of the money.

Similarly, Professor Afolabi said he neither traveled for the biometric screening nor ever operated any account with the GTB, let alone sharing from the N260 million “loot”.

Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala described as false the information given to the committee that she approved N260 for the biometric screening, stressing that she was not aware of such an exercise “because it happened before my time as finance minister”.

She hinted that KPMG auditing firm uncovered N57billion police pension fund domiciled in Ecobank, GTB, Skye Bank, UBA, Unity and Fidelity Banks, adding that the accounts had been frozen since last September; and the chief executives of the banks, ordered not to allow the money go out without appropriate authorization.

She noted that through the biometric screening conducted between June 2010 and 2012, the government had been able to save N74 billion that would have been embezzled by pension fund administrators.