Look elsewhere for stolen N195bn pension funds ­- Pension Reform team tells Senate

THE Pension Reform Task Team (PPRT) at the weekend, urged the Senate to look elsewhere for those who allegedly stole the sum of N195 billion pension funds within the Military, Police and the Head of Service Pension Offices and initiate the process of their prosecution, rather than accusing it of mismanaging the funds.
The task team, headed by Abdulrasheed Maina, said it had nothing to do with the stealing of the funds as alleged by the Senate since members of the team had no access to the pension funds, contrary to general impression.
It said the team could not have been responsible for the misappropriation of the fund before it was set up two years ago by the Federal Government.
It further said that its setting up was necessitated by the need to reform the Pension Funds Management in Nigeria in order to halt the stealing of the funds by those appointed to manage them.
A statement by the team’s spokesman, Mallam Salisu Hassan, made available to the Nigerian Tribune said, “the Pension Task Team does not control or approve the utilisation of the finances of the aforementioned pension offices; and for this reason, it could not have been possible for anybody to hold the team accountable for an alleged missing funds to which the team has no control over.”
“If billions are missing in military, police pension offices or other such pension offices, we would advise that the Senate Probe Committee invite those responsible. If it is the Head of Service Office, same should be done to those who handled it then, and not the PRTT. The team hopes that the Senate committee would fish out these pension thieves, cause their arrest, seize and recover the stolen funds from them just as the Pension Task Team did in the recovery of N221 billion.
“The functions of the Pension Team are mainly to restructure and cleanse the system through biometrics capturing, processing of payments of genuine pensioners and blocking loopholes that are prone to corrupt practices.  It also recovers and saves missing and stolen funds.
The success story in the tracing of these alleged missing funds by the Senate Probe Committee is commendable, yet, we hope to partner with the Committee to trace the funds as we have done in the recovery of the over N221 Billion. The earlier position of the Senate Committee as contained in its probe report that says that the Team had not traced any stolen funds should be revisited.
The task team said since it came into being it has been able to recover a total sum of  N221, Conduct Biometrics capturing for over 170,000 pensioners, detect and delete 73,000 Ghost Pensioners from the Head of Service Pension Office, while also establishing e-pension Management System, among others.