EVEN BANKS COLLUDE WITH PENSION SCAMMERS TO DEFRAUD OUR NATION - SENATOR K. GAYA

Senator Kabiru Gaya.

As Chairman of the Committee set up by the Senate to probe the monumental pension fraud perpetrated by Abdurasheed Maina-led Pension Task Force Team, (PTFT), Senator Kabiru Gaya, in this interview reveals how powerful government officials aided the team to commit the fraud. Despite the glaring attempts to intimidate and blackmail his committee, they refused to compromise.

Can you let us into some of your experience as the co-chairman senate committee probe of pension administration in Nigeria?

The senate in session under the leadership of Senator David Mark received several petitions from so many people that the pension fund has been badly looted, and that the pensioners are not getting their pay, both at the federal. State and even local government levels

As a responsive organ, the Senate president then set up a committee to investigate the allegations and seek a way out for the betterment of the pensioners.

Two committees were set up: the committee on establishment and states and local government. The committees were fused to do the job and I happened to have been the co- chairman of the committee.

To be able to do a thorough job, we had to undertake a tour of five geo-political zones where we had public hearings from a cross section of the society. The petitions were confirmed. We say a flood of pathetic and frightening cases of petitioners. We saw some that have gone insane as a result of frustration. So moved were we that we had to give money to some of them from of our pockets.

We discovered many discrepancies in pension administration. We found out that the federal government was remitting money every month to the pension administrators but it was being diverted by the managers to the detriments of the pensioners.

There was a classical case of particular money in the region of N150million which was being allocated for the payment of gratuities to the next of kin of deceased pensioners. Rather than this money being used for the purposed it was meant for, it was diverted for recurrent expenditure. You can see how people were eating blood money of pensioners. When we saw all these cruelty, we swore by the almighty God that we must make sure we do what is right not minding whose ox is gored. There were several attempts made by people who were not comfortable with our stand on the pension reform to intimidate and blackmail us, but they all failed. Because we refused to compromise and were honest to the core, they could not raise up any evidence to justify all the heaps of allegations they threw at us.

We were greatly disturbed to see how civil servants especially the Chairman of the so-called Pension Task Force, Abdulrasheed Maina were siphoning pensioners money with impunity, without a care in the world that they would be investigated or would one day become pensioners themselves.

Even the banks were discovered to have colluded with the pension scammers to defraud the nation. Some were found to have warehoused pension funds in excess of N20billion for many years without paying a single interest on such huge funds.

I believe what we did was for the greater interest of Nigeria and I'm sure our efforts are beginning to yield dividends.

We made recommendations that strengthened the structure and scope of the pension commission PENCOM and the pension transition administration department PTAD. I am sure that when we exit the old pension scheme in the next couple of years the endemic corruption in the pension sector would had been reduced to its most bearable minimum.

Are you insinuating that there are still loopholes for corruption in the pension administration in spite of all you did?

Unless we exit the old pension scheme, there will continue to be fraud in the sector which transcends the states and the local governments. Don't forget that even up till now the chairman of the pension task force is still an epitome of the corruption that is yet to be abated. We had cause to invite him for interrogation vide a warrant of arrest signed by the senate president when he was being fingered as the arrowhead of the scam, but the young man just refused to appear despite every concerted effort by the committee.

What do you think was responsible for this? Where did he draw his temerity from? 

I believe the whole thing still boils down to corruption because when we even asked the then Inspector General of Police, M.D. Abubakar to bring him, the IG gave an excuse that he was not in Abuja and nobody could act for him on the arrest. Can you imagine that? We learnt that the young man was very close to the government and that made him so powerful and untouchable as well. And that brought our probe to an end.  However in our recommendations we made it clear that whether in this administration or the one to come the man should be made to account for a missing N195billion in the pension sector. This is more than the loan we took to buy military equipment to counter the Boko Haram insurgents.

Would you say you are satisfied with the implementation of your report of the pension probe?

Not at all. We had 172 recommendations and not more than 10 of them have been implemented. The only one which we are satisfied with is the one in which we said the Chairman of the task force Abdulrasheed Maina, who was a civil servant should be sacked. He was actually sacked after due diligent investigation carried out by executive.

Would you be surprised to learn that he is about being reabsorbed into the civil service?

I would not because if somebody is supposed to come and account for N195billion and he has been shielded by the security agency, then anything is possible.

What about the banks that were discovered to have held on to several billions of Naira without paying interest on the money, have they been prosecuted by security agencies?

They have not and I believe that they ought to be charged and made to return the interest accruable on those monies to the government coffers. We have done our own bit; the rest is left to the government to do its own part. This is the kind of corruption the entire nation except those who benefitted from it have been crying about and which the government of Jonathan deliberately turned deaf ears to.

What is your advice to the Buhari administration on this inconclusive pension scam?

Buhari has told us that he intends to run a corruption free government. I would advise him to start it from the pension sector.