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Senate Orders Arrest of Pension Reform Task Team Officials

By on June 22, 2012

The Nigerian Senate has ordered the arrest of the Pension Reform Task Team officials for alleged fraud, embezzlement and misappropriation of funds.

The arrest warrant covers the Chairman of the Task Team, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina and two other members, Mr. John Yusuf and Mr. B.G. Kaigama.

Other charges levelled against the Pension Reform Task Team by the Nigerian Senate are illegal virement, contract splitting, award of contracts to non-existing companies, award of contracts without appropriation and outright stealing of pension funds.

The arrest order comes on the back of recommendations from the House of Assembly’s Joint Committee on Pension Administration.

Other recommendations include the recovery of N 15.38 billion  being differentials between the claims of payment of pensions by the task team and the actual expenditure it made.

Senate President, David Mark gave the order for arrest as the Joint Committee reported that Maina refused to appear before it to defend himself of charges of corruption and mismanagement of pension funds at the Customs, Immigration and Prisons pension office.

The Joint Committee in its report also brought attention to the entrenched culture of corruption and fraud at the pension department of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.

Vice Chairman of the commitee, Senator Kabiru Gaya said, “Within six years, the office of the Head of the Civil Service received a total of N216bn as pension. It only spent N154bn, leaving a balance of N58.7bn.

“We made efforts to get records of the balance of N58.7bn throughout the period of the investigation but we did not get any.”