THE Senate Joint Committee on Establishment and Public Service and States and Local Governments, on Wednesday, was informed how some officials of the pension office falsified documents to withdraw N24 billion instead of N3.5bn required and approved from the Budget Office for the payment of pension.
Chairman of the Pension Review Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, told the committee that the task force recovered N21 billion out of the money lodged in a FirstBank account.
He disclosed that the team discovered two major accounts in Lagos where pension fund for the police was lodged, saying one account had N21 billion while the other had N24 billion.
Maina said when the team discovered that on a daily basis, various sums of money ranging from N200 million to N300 million were being withdrawn, he quickly applied to the Accountant General of the Federation for the transfer of the accounts.
In his application, he said he mentioned that since the headquarters of the police pension was in Abuja, the accounts should be moved to Abuja and to be opened in Fidelity Bank and United Bank for Africa (UBA).
The committee, after listening to the submission of Maina, directed that he should make available all relevant documents relating to the transactions, including bank statements; cheque books and others that would assist the committee in writing its report.
In a related development, it was also revealed, on Wednesday, that names of primary school teachers were used to siphon money from the pension fund.
Maina said his task force team found out that the 32 persons who were all staff of the pension department in the office of the Head of Service included names of primary school teachers on the pension payrolls.
The pension reform team was set up by former Head of Service (HOS) Mr Stephen Oronsanye, to address the challenges facing the payment of federal pensioners across the country.
He explained that the deal was being carried out by 32 staff members in the office of the Head of Service, with a director in the pension office as ring leader, who siphoned billions of naira meant for the payment of retired workers.
He narrated to the committee how they perfected the deal so much that at the end of every month when these teachers received the payments, 10 per cent was always deducted out of the total sum as their own shares and returned the rest to members whom he called the cartel.
According to him, “so many primary school teachers were used as conduit pipes to siphon pension fund. For instance, a primary school teacher in Kebbi was paid N3 million each month and he would take 10 per cent and refund the rest to the pension staff who were behind the deal.”
He added that through the dubious deal the number of pensioners were increased to 141,790, which was costing the Federal Government N1.3 billion monthly.
However, Maina informed that immediately the process of biometric verifications was concluded by his team, the number of genuine pensioners came down to 70,658 with a reduced monthly budget of N825 million.
He alleged that his team found out during its investigations that the cartel collaborated with officials of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP) to siphon part of the pension funds.
According to him, the team found out that the bank account of the NUP, which was initially at N15 million, rose to over N2 billion.
The extra amount, he informed, was later transferred to the 32 members of staff at the office of the Head of Service, who were currently facing prosecution.
He gave the amount recovered by the task force team from the 32 staffers of the pension department as N12 billion, which has increased currently to N18 billion.
Abdulrasheed added that out of the N5 billion spent monthly on pension by the office of the Head of Service, N500 million was for death benefits, an unspecified amount paid to states as reimbursement in cases of contentions, a certain percentage paid to the NUP, while the remaining was for actual pension payment.
Abdulrasheed said his team ascertained that a total of 42 pension offices were maintained by the pension department of the office of the HOS across the country, adding that between 2005 and 2011, the Federal Government spent between N250 million and N900 million annually to conduct verification exercise for pensioners.
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