FG Closes 36 Accounts Used to Siphon Pension Funds

The federal government has closed 36 bank accounts being used for the payment of pensions to its retirees following discoveries that they were being used to siphon funds meant for genuine pensioners.

Alhaji Goni Aji, head of Service, said his office was harmonising all pension fund accounts and putting in place structure for checks and balances to block any loophole through which funds meant for pensioners were being stolen.

He told Punch that the the accounts were harmonised and report of all the pension fund accounts being managed by the OHCSF came from the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission.

“In that report, what came out was that there were about 40 different accounts being used to manage pension funds. So, with the help of ICPC, these have been reduced to only four banks that are very credible. They are Access Bank, Union Bank, Zenith Bank and UBA, and they are cooperating well,” Aji said.

The banks, he added, were providing the OHCSF with monthly report, which it was using as well as information generated in the office to block other outlets that in the past created avenues for mismanagement of pension funds.

He said the process would continue until the Pension Transitional Arrangement Department began operation fully.

The PTAD, Aji added, would take over all the accounts, including the pension office of the Head of Service and the other pension offices under the old pension scheme.

Despite the release of huge funds to the banks by the government for the payment of pensioners, those in charge of the payment had for many years deprived genuine pensioners of their benefits and subjected them to undue hardship.

Before the dissolution of the Pension Reform Task Force last year, the team tendered a charge sheet document to the Senate Committee on Pensions in which it charged 32 persons and corporate organisations with over 140 counts.

These were subsequently arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for allegedly siphoning billions of naira from the Federal Government’s pension funds.

According to the PRT, over 13,874 cheque leaflets were allegedly used by pension thieves to siphon several billions of naira from pension accounts of the pension offices in different banks between 2008 and June 2011.

It said that in one of the accounts, 30 cheques were drawn in a day and over N250million was being withdrawn weekly by officials in charge of pension matters.

Last year, in a memorandum to the Senate by one of the National Union of Pensioners’ chapters, the ex-workers complained bitterly about how some banks had been mishandling their funds.

As part of the complaint, it was stated, “There was non-payment of May 2004 pension to pensioners in seven states of the federation. The May 2004 pension was paid to the defunct City Express Bank when it was apparent that it would go under.”