By Emmanuel Edukugho
Anthony Pius had worked in a federal  establishment for 25 years and was looking forward to his retirement. He was expecting  his pension benefits to  enable him  begin a new life as a retiree by investing in poultry farming .

But that turned out to be a tall order. He never received his pension as officials responsible for payment tossed him up and down saying that “funds are yet to be made available,” and therefore he should wait.  Disappointed and frustrated, he watched himself slip into penury.

*A cross section of pensioners at a recent verification exercise

Then one day, as he stood on the long queue waiting for his pittance, he slumped and died. He never collected his pension. The above scenario had been the lot of many pensioners.

Recently, there had been mind boggling revelations of the massive fraud in the federal and police pension schemes whereby pension funds amounting to several billions of naira were stolen using multiple cheques with fictitious names to withdraw cash from banks  where the funds were kept.

Some of these looted funds were found in the homes of serving and retired public officials.

Severally, the newspapers were agog with the news of a pensioner dropping dead while he queued for verification or to receive his pittance. This should have given an inkling that the pension scheme was perverted but nothing was done. Those who should know always looked the other way until the bubble finally burst.

An investigative public hearing on the management of pension funds was set in motion chaired by Senator Aloysius Etok.

According to him, the outcome of the probe in the pension scheme would enable the senate take an informed decision on how best to address the several problems inherent in the management of pension funds.

In declaring open the Senate Joint Committee on Establishment, States and Local Governments  which was constituted to investigate the management of the National Pension Fund, Senate President, David Mark, seemed to have cursed the various administrators of pension fund in the country. He said those officials converting the legitimate entitlements of retirees to personal use would never live in peace, accusing pension fund administrators of taking delight in living on blood money.

David Mark, speaking through the Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, put it succinctly: “These people, the administrators stealing pension funds, can never live in peace because the prayers of these old men and women who have diligently served the country will haunt them and their children’s children. I implore the committee to unravel all the issues pertaining to the management of pension funds in the country and bring the perpetrators to book.” He assured that the committee has the full backing of the Senate on this matter.

In his own presentation to the committee, Mr. Mohammed Ahmad, Director-General, National Pensions Commission (PENCOM), said the Federal Government has so far paid a total of N604.27 billion into the new Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). He went further to say the total value of the pensions industry assets under CPS is N2.4 trillion as at December 2011.

About 5.01 million employees in both public and private sectors have registered with the scheme. Of the N604.27 billion lodged with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in the contributory pension account, the amount of N449.35 billion had been remitted into the savings account of the Federal Government employees domiciled with the various pension fund administrators.

Ahmad said for 2012, the Federal government requires N94.17 billion to settle pension liabilities of workers expected to retire at the end of the year and that this amount is N22 billion less than the N72.36 billion proposed in the 2012 budget for the payment.

The scale of fraud in the federal pension scheme could be unprecedented in the annals of looted public funds by corrupt officials in Nigeria that made some other looting sprees look like child plays.

Allegations bordering on impropriety were first made at the Senate probe panel by the Assistant Chief Accountant, Police Pensions Office, Mr. Toyin Ishola, against the chairman, Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT), Abdulrasheed Maina that he opened unilaterally three accounts in different banks without recourse to extant financial rules and without the approval of the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Minister of Finance.

Ishola alleged that the PRTT boss distorted existing police pension account transferring a total of N21 billion  into three accounts in different banks. Also, it was discovered that N240 million was expended on fictitious data capturing operations of only 20 pensioners in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, while most people on the delegation were not members of the Police Pension Commission’s office or the Head of Civil Service and also for the local bio-data of which N220 million was expended. Within three months of its tenure in the police pension office, the task team had spent N3.6 billion without any entry of such in the account books.

Other startling revelations were that about N3.3 billion were lost monthly to fraudsters; N28 billion police pension was paid in an illegal account; a federal permanent secretary and two directors in some ministries allegedly stole about N14.3 billion police pension money.

Maina had told the panel in his defence that the PRTT has recovered N151.6 billion and six million pounds sterling in the past two years. The sum of N74 billion out of the recovered money has been channeled into the 2012 budget, another N24 billion was put aside as contingency for harmonisation of arrears in the police for officers.

The task team said it discovered there were illegal withdrawals by staff of the Police Pension office using multiple cheques with fictitious names in excess of 30 cheques per day to withdraw cash from the banks. Such illegal withdrawals amounted to N14 billion.

Maina reportedly said that the Police Pension Board used falsified documents to withdraw N24 billion from the Budget office for the payment of pension that required only N3.5 billion; that his team deleted about 71,133 ghost pensioners from the payroll.

It was alleged that the systemic rot had been going on for about 44 years with officials and their collaborators smiling to the banks and acquiring property at the expense of pensioners, some whom died in abject poverty after  many years of waiting to be paid their benefits.