Internal wrangling tears House committee on Pension apart

BY CALEB AYANSINA

INTERNAL crisis rocking the House of Representatives Committee on Pension, has prevented the committee from performing its oversight function on the Custom, Immigration and Prison Pension Office, CIPPO.

At a visit to CIPPO office last week, the committee chairman and members departed differently after a sharp argument at the venue.

Pension and You could feel the sharp disagreement among the members during their close door meeting in CIPPO’s Office at the Old Federal Secretariat, Area 1, Abuja, when their voices filtered out.

After the meeting, the committee Chairman, Ibrahim Kmba, who came out first with strong face, told newsmen that the committee could not perform the oversight function, because CIPPO failed to oblige them with their budget performance report.

However, the Deputy Chairman of the committee, Sam Oku and other members countered the chairman, insisting that the report had been submitted to the committee, but agreed to come back the next day due to undisclosed reasons.

On his part, the Director of CIPPO, Abdulraman Maina, said they were well prepared to host the committee, stressing that they had nothing to hide.

He said they have given the committee, the document one month ago, but could not ascertain why the meeting could not go on as scheduled.

He said: “One month ago, they have received the document, maybe they don’t have time to go through it. When they came they said they needed more time to go and look at the document. The oversight function did not happen because we are not prepared. We are prepared but they are not. We have given them the document 30 days ago. We wanted to go to our main office in Gwagwalada but they cited security concern and we decided to hold it here in our zonal office. We will be here with them on Wednesday, God’s willing.”