N195bn unspent pension fund missing —Senate

THE Senate has revealed that the unspent pension funds for the last five years, amounting to N195 billion, could not be accounted for.
The revelation was made on Tuesday by Senator Aloysius Etok, chairman of the Senate Joint Committee on Establishment, Public Service, State and Local Government, during a public hearing on the pension fraud.
The committee also frowned on the failure of chairman of the Pension Tax Team, Alhaji Abdulrasheed Maina, to appear before it, warning that he would not be granted any other hearing on the fraud investigation if he fail to make an appearance today.
Senator Etok said after the submission of its report to the Senate for consideration, Maina had organised several media fora, claiming that he was not given fair hearing during the investigation of the management of the pension fund.
A member of the committee, Senator Kabiru Gaya, put the total of the unspent funds between 2007 and 2012 as N195 billion.
Based on the report of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Gaya said detailed the fund as: Police Pension Office, N131,483,873,694.63 released; N58,270,660,632.00 spent and N44,213,213,062 unaccounted for.
For the Military Pension Board, N317,609,082,566.05 was released; N294,076,743,532.87 spent and N23,532,339,034.00 unaccounted for.
For Customs, Immigration, Prisons Pension Office, Senator Gaya said N85,249,222,900.16 was released;  N27,452,200,993.72 was spent, while N27,797,822,127 was unaccounted.
The State Department Service Pension, he said, had N34,698,149,304.68 allocated, N9,413,090,416.00 spent and a balance of N26,121,394,662.63 unaccounted for.
For the office of the Head of Service, the sum of N139,056,523,955.20 was released, N100,641,106,957.33 was spent, while N39,783,682,993.00 was unaccounted for.
Senator Etok, speaking on the failure of Maina to turn up for the public hearing, said “we want to give Maina the last chance and this committee, which represents the Senate of the Federal Republic, is saying that whosoever is behind Maina’s arrogance should know that his time is up and the masses want him to account for his stewardship.
“He should appear before this committee tomorrow at 11.00 a.m without fail. If he doesn’t come tomorrow, the committee will proceed to hold the public hearing and we will take presentations from Prison Service, Police and other agencies.
“We will get all the presentations and make up our case and tell the public what we have discovered in the course of our investigations.”
Comptroller General of Customs, Controller General of Prisons, chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Head of Service, Director of Pension and the Director, Police Pension Office, Shaibu Tedi, were to also appear before the committee today.

Tribune