Politics

Maina letter to Senate leaked, reveals dirtiest deals NASS covered up

Published

9 years ago

November 4, 2017

Apparently making moves to tell his own story, ex-Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension Reforms Abdulrasheed Maina may have approved the leak of a indicting memo he sent to the 7th Senate under Sen. David Mark in June 2015.

He accused the Senate of aiding pension fraud in the letter leaked on Friday.

Maina alleged that over N3tn hidden had yet to be recouped from 97 pension offices before he fled the country.

The letter, referenced PRTT/PEN/NASS/SEN/16/ VOL1/05, was sent through Senator Nneji Achonu’s (Imo North Senatorial Zone) office to Mark.

The letter was titled: “Pension reform task team — Appeal for review of investigation by the Senate Joint Committee on Establishment and Public Service and States and Local Government Administration, 2011 – 2013.”

Highlight the task force achievement, Maina noted that the task team, which began work in January 2011, saved the country N1.6tn from pension thieves.

“We used financial intelligence to achieve ground-breaking achievements in our assignment,” he said.

According to him, their efforts led to the arrest of 46 persons involved in pension funds mismanagement, and the EFCC took over from there.

He claimed the Senate, through its Joint Committee, however, compounded the problem, began to haunt the task force while they spared the “pension thieves.

He said that before leaving Nigeria following threat to his life, the PRTT had worked so hard that pension payments stabilised.

According to him, the biometric system adopted by the team exposed 73,000 ghost pensioners in the office of the Head of Service alone. The HOS office was later caught in a N35bn fraud.

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“Some pensioners got a backlog of about 30 years paid into their accounts. All payments were ordered under the signature of the Head of Service monthly,” Maina said.

Maina, who said he was shot at in front of the HOS office, noted that his dismissal process was concluded under 36 hours without giving him the opportunity to be heard.

Below is an excerpt from the memo:

We, members of the Pensions Reform Task Team, wish to use this medium to apologise for our little late response to reaching back to you. We had to put the issues together and source for appurtenant materials. We appreciate your understanding, sir.

As a refresher, the PRTT was inaugurated on June 10, 2010, by the immediate past administration of Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, with a clear mandate to restructure the Head of Service Pension Office, Police Pension Office, among others. We did our utmost best with precision and national interests as our guiding principles.

The PRTT took off effectively by January 2011. We used financial intelligence skills to achieve groundbreaking achievements in our assignment.

N256bn is still stolen monthly. As it is, there is a leakage of N256bn monthly from the current IPPIS, which needs to be blocked urgently. We are also aware of some government hidden accounts which need to be mopped up. We can be used to engage any department of government in sanitising the financial workflow to avoid loose ends that remain susceptible to leakages.

Based on the revelations of massive/monumental fraud and outright stealing of pension funds, which was brought to public attention by the PRTT, the 7th National Assembly by resolution dated November 2, 2011, mandated its Committee on Establishment and Public Service, State and Local Government Administration, to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the management and administration of Pension funds in Nigeria.

There were general expectations that the various dimensions of irregularities associated with the management of pension funds in Nigeria would come to an end as a consequence of the investigations being conducted by the Senate Joint Committee.