N57bn pension fund traced to banks – Okonjo-Iweala

Okonjo-Iweala said her ministry had, with the permission of President Goodluck Jonathan, frozen the accounts, adding that she had since last September directed the chief executives of the banks not to allow the money go out without appropriate authorization. According to her, KPMG has recommended the elimination of a system where the police pension office […]

Okonjo-Iweala said her ministry had, with the permission of President Goodluck Jonathan, frozen the accounts, adding that she had since last September directed the chief executives of the banks not to allow the money go out without appropriate authorization. According to her, KPMG has recommended the elimination of a system where the police pension office opens numerous accounts and transfers same.

 

The minister, who denied that she had taken over the funds from the Pension Reform Taskforce, said, “There are many anomalies with the management of pension funds and the transfer of accounts. We need to sanitize the system”. The committee flayed the chairman of the pension reform taskforce team, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina for not returning the unpaid N4.2 billion received as federal pension of share between 2010 and 2011.

The vice chairman of the committee, Senator Kabiru Gaya, quizzed why the various states are yet to receive these funds. Maina responded, “We don’t have accounts for the funds because we don’t control funds”.

The committee was shocked to learn that the taskforce used the names of the EFCC boss, Ibrahim Lamorde; former Inspector-General of Police, Hafis Ringim; former Head of Civil Service of the Federation, Professor Oladapo Afolabi and 81 other names to misappropriate N460 million it claimed to have spent to conduct a biometric screening of only 20 pensioners abroad in two months.

The submission received by the committee showed that the taskforce had paid huge sums of money to Lamorde, Ringim and Afolabi’s bank accounts for sponsored trips to Atlanta Georgia and New York for the screening exercise, but the trio told the committee that they neither traveled for such a purpose nor have such accounts the taskforce claimed to have deposited money for their travel allowances. “I spent 260 million verifying 20 pensioners in two months,” Maina confessed.